This week is a good one for booklovers everywhere. Thursday, April 23, is World Book Day, followed by Independent Bookstore Day on Saturday, April 25. Yesterday’s Guardian story about the “quiet comeback of independent bookstores” in the United States suggests a cause for celebration, a bright ray of light across the bleak landscape of online “reading,” AI authorship, and monopolized distribution. But there’s cause for concern about what’s actually selling, and who’s reading.
If you’ve even been in Catalonia at this time of year, you know how important Diada de Sant Jordi (April 23) is, when everyone – everyone -- exchanges roses and books: it’s estimated that nearly ten percent of annual book sales happen in one week (Ara). The tradition began in 1922, and UNESCO made it official in 1995. More than a century after a Barcelona bookseller dreamed up a marketing ploy, choosing the anniversary of Shakespeare’s and Cervantes’ deaths to sell books, the practice has scaled globally, especially in Latin American countries. On April 23, the world now celebrates the book, bookstores, and the act of reading.
The Guardian’s report about the return of independent bookstores adds to the optimism this year. Four hundred twenty-two new independents opened in 2025, a 31% rise from the previous year, as reported by Gene Marks, citing data from the American Bookseller’s Association. Somewhat surprisingly, he framed his story for the left-leaning newspaper of record as the triumph of independent small businesses, a David and Goliath tale about the entrepreneurial spirit of small capitalists facing down monolithic corporate giants.
A deeper dive into the numbers – which Claude helped to research – suggests a more nuanced takeaway. On the one hand, the statistics are encouraging. Only 37 bookstores closed last year, as reported by Publishers Weekly, a rate down 60% from previous years. Since 2020, the number of US independent bookstores has grown by 70% to over 3,200 stores, with new openings running at roughly four for every one closure, according to a report last September by Straight Arrow News. These are real gains, and they reflect how readers have reconnected with physical book spaces, especially since the end of the pandemic. They also point to the declining interest of Big-box retailers like Target in selling books, which seems to have helped the independents.
More people, it would seem, are reading -- and it’s not just an older audience. The enthusiasm driving BookTok’s popularity suggests a younger readership. “Gen Z is bringing back reading,” crowed The Week. The World Economic Forum, citing survey data, claimed that "Gen Z reads more than any other generation," with 83% of US adults aged 18-29 saying they regularly read, compared with three-quarters of people aged 30-49.
But don’t believe everything you read. Much of this hype about Gen Z reading comes from self-reported data of self-identified readers, and more often the “research” comes from not disinterested companies like Wattpad, whose business model depends on young people reading on its platform.
Stories about high-profile Gen-Z readers suggest a darker underside to the story. Kai Cenat — the world's most-subscribed Twitch streamer, with around 20 million followers — started a daily reading habit in early 2026, documenting it on a separate "personal development" YouTube channel. There he struggles, looking up unfamiliar words and mispronouncing them: for all the BookTok triumphalism, he’s also highlighting the literacy gaps of his generation. Thirty-five percent of K-12 students report not enjoying reading at all, according to The Teen Magazine. Fortune ran a story in January about the severely limited reading skills of Gen Z at college, while an Atlantic story from October 2024 about “The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books” continues to circulate on line.
It’s also worth highlighting what’s getting read. Supporting the revival of independent bookstores, overwhelmingly, is genre fiction – romance, fantasy (or romantasy), and thriller. What's not selling in the independent bookstore boom: nonfiction. According to Publishers Weekly, adult nonfiction sales fell 2% through the first nine months of 2025, with “general nonfiction” experiencing double-digit declines. At the London Book Fair this year, NielsenIQ and Gfk released a joint report showing nonfiction declines across most major markets, with growth recorded in only six of eighteen territories. For publishers whose lists skew toward serious argument, cultural criticism, and public affairs — like ours at Prickly Paradigm Press – these numbers don’t sit well.
Which brings us to our own stake in this story. In 2024, we launched Ode Books, a joint imprint established in collaboration with one of the great independent bookstores anywhere: the Seminary Co-op Bookstores in Chicago. Ode Books is devoted to the book industry, booksellers, and the intellectual and emotional life that books sustain. Our three titles so far — selling surprisingly well, by our standards — each approach that subject from a different angle. The legendary bookseller of City Lights Books, Paul Yamazaki's Reading the Room: A Bookseller's Tale, is a love letter to bookselling as a vocation. Donna Seaman's River of Books: A Life of Reading is the Booklist editor's memoir of what a life organized around books actually looks – and feels — like. And Katarzyna Bartoszyńska's Reading Together is an exploration of book clubs — also enjoying an apparent resurgence — and what reading collectively does to us.
This Saturday, according to Publishers Weekly, some 2,000 ABA bookstores across America will participate in Independent Bookstore Day, the largest celebration yet. On Thursday, across the world, millions of books will be gifted to lovers, family members, friends, and colleagues. At Prickly Paradigm Press, we urge you to participate, or to go to a bookstore and find something for yourself — maybe even a PPP pamphlet — that you didn't even know you wanted.