The Closest Bookstore is Your Parent

Chapter 3: What It Means to Be a Bookstore (5)

That said, "collecting and selling books" requires purchasing stock, and if you lack confidence in your own knowledge to the point where you can call yourself a "specialist," you might feel the hurdle is high, even if you start on a small scale.

However, I believe you don't necessarily have to "collect and sell" from the start, nor do you need to be a "specialist." As long as a relationship is established between the person selecting and handing over a book and the person receiving it, I view the person handing it over as a "bookstore" in a broad sense, and I want to increase the number of such people.

When you think about it that way, the most familiar form of a "bookstore" is a parent. In many cases, the first books a child encounters are those chosen and bought for them by their parents, or read aloud to them. If you were a book lover from the time you were a small child, before you had your own money, your parent must have been a "bookstore" to you. And if you have children and choose and buy books for them, you can already be considered a "bookstore" to that child.

Many parents surely want to make their children love books. To that end, it is said that it is important not only to take them to bookstores and libraries, but also to have a large bookshelf at home and to show them that you, as a parent, are enjoying reading books. Books for children are lined up, too. But the parent is reading a book that looks more difficult, meant for adults. When the child shows a little interest, the parent might say, "This is for adults, so you can't read it yet," which makes the child even more curious. They want to be able to read it someday. Creating an environment for a child that makes them interested in books in this way is, in other words, becoming a good "bookstore" for that child.

Of course, this is not limited to the relationship between parent and child. There are "bookstores" that hand over books within various relationships, such as teachers and students, or friends. Many people have likely had a book casually recommended by a teacher or friend become an important volume in their own life, which then sparked their interest in reading. It is no exaggeration to say that it is impossible for someone to become a book lover without encountering a good "bookstore."

In that sense, I suspect that many people who pick up this book have already had the experience of being a "bookstore" for someone else.

*Reprinted from "A Reader for Future Bookstores" (NHK Publishing), pp. 100-101