Former President Values His Indies

It was little more than two weeks ago that President Barack Obama brought his daughters to shop at Kramerbooks and Afterwords because he wanted to support a small business on Small Business Saturday. And just last week former President Bill Clinton talked about the value of indie bookstores during two book signings in the Northeast.

At a signing last Friday for Back to Work: Why We Need Smart Government for a Strong Economy (Knopf), Clinton drew a crowd of more than 500 people to Barrett Bookstore in Darien, Connecticut. It was there that he told the gathered press: "One of the things I’m trying to do with this book tour is to visit independent bookstores, because bookstores like this one really add a lot to the community," as reported by the New Canaan News.

Clinton’s book outlines his plan for putting America back to work, and he told the Darien Times that people came because “they want some hope.” The Darien Times site also features a video of Clinton, who, among other things, talks about what the closing of his local bookstore, Second Story Books in Chappaqua, New York, meant to him and what competition from online sales is doing to bricks-and-mortar stores.

Earlier in the week, the former president and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton shopped and chatted with customers at The Village Bookshop in Pleasantville, New York, where co-owner Yvonne VanCort suggested the store could help arrange a local signing since his hometown bookstore, Second Story Book Shop, had closed.

Clinton, who took a break from the quickly arranged signing at the Chappaqua Library, told the press he wanted to do a signing in Chappaqua and also wanted to support the local library and the closest independent bookstore. The Gannett Newspaper’s LoHud.com noted that the former president lamented the closing of Second Story and the Borders in Mount Kisco, and said, “It’s changed my life when I don’t have a bookstore I can walk to easily.”