Lanora Jennings is a Princeton University Press and Yale University Press sales rep, overseeing the midwestern United States, and a veteran bookseller who got her start unpacking boxes in her grandmother’s bookstore. She later worked at Borders, Politics & Prose, and Harry W. Schwartz Bookstores in Milwaukee. Jennings is currently writing a history of independent bookstores in America and contributed to the November 29th edition of Shelf Awareness to celebrate how values passed down through generations of booksellers can help inform a better world:
“Our bookseller ancestors have passed down through the generations a set of values, customs, and practices that define bookselling today. Social scientists define this as a culture. This is a culture that challenges authority, questions, and expands its political and cultural viewpoints, is open to change, and explores new ways to create community. I don’t know precisely what our future looks like, but if our past informs our future, bookselling will continue to be an institution that cultivates a community of values that can act as an underpinning for a better world.”
Read Jennings’ full piece in Shelf Awareness and follow her on Instagram & Threads @bookstore_chronicles