Four Questions with Parnassus Books’ Sarah Arnold

We talk about Independent Bookstore Day, coming this Saturday

Sarah Arnold is the marketing and communications manager at Parnassus Books, a Nashville bookshop co-owned by writer Ann Patchett. She’s worked at the store for eight years now, since she was 16 years old.

I reached out to Sarah to talk about Independent Bookstore Day, a celebration held annually at bookshops across the country on the last Saturday of April (just a few days from now!). Stores nationwide are hosting special events, author talks and sales. You can find a participating shop near you here.

Sarah and I chatted about the festivities, how bookstores are navigating the Covid era and, of course, books. (She also assured me that Ann Patchett is as cool as she seems.)

What was it like working at Parnassus in the spring and summer of 2020?

We had to completely reinvent ourselves. We were closed to the public from mid-March 2020 to mid-October. During that time, we were doing online only. We had never done that sort of online traffic before. We were doing more curbside pickup and shipping than we ever have before.

The pandemic did make more folks outside of Nashville aware of who we are. We got a bunch of customers who found us on Instagram and then started ordering from us. Some lived on the other side of the country — some lived in different countries. We were shipping so much that we have rented a space down the road from the store, where we store all of our boxes and packaging material.

That’s definitely one of the silver linings — having more folks know about us and interact with us. We started our Lay Down Diaries during the pandemic, which is our weekly Instagram video series, where Ann Patchett, our co-owner, our book buyers and our events manager talk about new releases and new events coming up.

So, the pandemic was rough and continues to be rough with shipping delays and supply chain issues but getting to meet new people and interact with new customers has been great. 

What is Parnassus doing for Independent Bookstore Day?

It’s going to be our tenth Independent Bookstore Day, which is awesome. We are so excited to have a more normal Independent Bookstore Day this time around. The past few have been more toned down because of the pandemic.

We love participating because it’s fun to know that all across the country, hundreds of indies are celebrating, and our communities are rallying around us. We’re hosting games, giveaways and author signings.  

Why are independent bookstores important?

There are so many reasons. We’re part of our community. We are real people, and we pick a selection for our community of the books that they want. So, at our store, it's curated for Nashville. We are big supporters of our local authors. We really love uplifting our up-and-coming local authors and giving them a platform to have their books available to the community. And when you shop at an indie bookstore, that money stays in the community.

I could go on and on about why indies are important, but Amazon’s never going to provide custom recommendations, author events, or Saturday story hours. We’re a community center — a space for people to gather and appreciate literacy, literature, authors, books and the written word.

One last question: Any books you want to recommend?

One of my more recent staff picks is The Verifiers by Jane Pek. [Editor’s note: I loved this book.]

It was so good. I picked it up on a whim. The publisher sent us an advance copy and, honestly, I liked the cover. I know you're not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but it's the first thing that kind of drew me in. It’s a locked room mystery, but it also has so much social commentary on data; how it drives our world and what it means for privacy. I just found it so interesting.

There’s also a young adult book that I recently recommended: We Were Kings by Court Stevens. She’s a former Parnassus bookseller and is so fantastic. We Were Kings is set in a small Kentucky town. There’s a woman who’s been in prison for 20 years for a murder she may or may not have committed, and she is set to be executed by the state. Our protagonist realizes that she’s closer to the whole mystery than she ever thought she could be and she decides to find out for herself. Court is so good at twists and turns. I didn’t know what was going to happen until the last few pages. It’s a must-read for fans of We Were Liars.

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Thanks to Sarah for chatting. You can follow Parnassus Books on Facebook Instagram, TikTok (!) and Twitter.

If you want to support an indie this weekend but aren’t sure what to buy (a problem I never have), leave a comment and I’ll offer you a book recommendation.

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