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NEW YORK<\/strong> \u2013 When Ann Patchett opened Parnassus Books<\/a> in 2011, two major bookstores in Nashville had closed and physical bookstores in general seemed endangered as Amazon’s share of the market kept growing. Amazon remains the dominant force, but physical, brick-and-mortar stores have rebounded \u2014 and stores owned by authors such as Patchett are now a niche unto themselves, found everywhere from Brooklyn to New Mexico.<\/p>\n Here’s a virtual tour of author-owned bookstores<\/a> across the U.S.<\/p>\n Judy Blume: Books & Books, Florida<\/p>\n Judy Blume<\/a> and her husband, George Cooper, are longtime residents of Key West, Florida, and have become fixtures in the local culture. Cooper helped restore an old movie theater into a multiplex venue and Blume and Cooper helped found the nonprofit Books & Books \u2014 an outpost of the Miami-based sellers that opened in 2016 \u2014 located just off the town\u2019s main road. Blume may be known worldwide for such novels as \u201cAre You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,\u201d but on a given day you can find her ringing up a sale at the register, or helping a customer choose a book. Or you can see her greet the many fans who have traveled far to meet the author they say changed their lives.<\/p>\n Louise Erdrich: Birchbark Books & Native Arts, Minnesota<\/p>\n Founded by Louise Erdrich<\/a> in 2001, Birchbark is based in Minneapolis and has a mission tied closely to the author\u2019s Ojibwe background (she\u2019s an enrolled citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians). Her store specializes in Indigenous literature and bills itself as a meeting point for \u201cliterate Indigenous people who have survived over half a millennium on this continent.\u201d Birchbark even served as a muse for Erdrich\u2019s 2021 novel, \u201cThe Sentence,\u201d narrated by a bookstore employee whose boss just happens to be a woman named Louise. \u201cI guess I have some things in common with her,\u201d the author confided to GMToday.com.<\/p>\n Lauren Groff: The Lynx Books, Florida<\/p>\n Lauren Groff\u2019s<\/a> store in Gainesville, Florida, isn\u2019t just a member of the author-owned circle but part of a wave of stores opened in recent years that have a larger social mission. Based in a state that ranks among the country\u2019s leading book banners, The Lynx is a general-interest bookstore that Groff and husband\/co-owner Clay Kallman opened in 2024 and emphasizes books forbidden in schools and libraries. \u201cOne of the purposes is to create a lighthouse, sort of showing that the rest of the country and world that Florida is not an intolerant backwater,\u201d Groff, author of National Book Award finalist \u201cFates and Furies,\u201d told the Southern Literary Review in 2025. \u201cIt is full of good people who work very hard to allow for the freedom of expression, tolerance, and love of all people.\u201d<\/p>\n Jeff Kinney: An Unlikely Story, Ma<\/p>\n ssachusetts<\/p>\n Local stores are expected to be modest in scale, but the blockbuster sales for the \u201cDiary of a Wimpy Kid\u201d series expanded the ambitions of author-owner Jeff Kinney<\/a> to superstore heights. He didn\u2019t simply reconfigure an existing building, but had a new one built from scratch, with all the trimmings. An Unlikely Story is a bookstore housed in a colonial-influenced, 3-story building in downtown Plainville, Massachusetts that also includes a cafe, event space and writing-drawing quarters for the author. Kinney, who opened his store in 2015, recently said he is planning to add a restaurant, beer garden and park to the downtown area.<\/p>\n George R.R. Martin: Beastly Books, New Mexico<\/p>\n Like the stores run by Groff and Erdrich, the Santa Fe, New Mexico-based Beastly Books is very much an extension of the worldview of its owner, \u201cA Game of Thrones\u201d author George R.R. Martin<\/a>. It is a \u201ccozy den\u201d for speculative fiction, according to the store\u2019s homepage, and a haven for banned books, locally written works and rare first editions. Founded in 2019, Beastly Books is located close to another Martin outpost, the Jean Cocteau Cinema, and is named in part for Cocteau\u2019s classic film adaptation of \u201cBeauty and the Beast.\u201d<\/p>\n Ann Patchett: Parnassus Books, Tennessee<\/p>\n Not every bookstore opening leads to a guest appearance with Stephen Colbert, but a year after the launch of Parnassus<\/a>, Ann Patchett found herself on \u201cThe Colbert Report,\u201d whose host likened her venture to the Nora Ephron comedy \u201cYou’ve Got Mail,\u201d in which Meg Ryan plays an independent store owner driven out of business by a nearby chain. The Nashville-based Parnassus has since become one of the country’s signature independent sellers, visited by \u201cYou’ve Got Mail\u201d co-star Tom Hanks among others, and a platform for Patchett to champion fellow authors.<\/p>\n Emma Straub: Books Are Magic, New York <\/p>\n