Too Small To Fail

By Stacey Vanek Smith,

Paddy Hirsch

Published March 22, 2018 at 4:12 PM EDT

Independent bookstores got crushed by big box stores in the 90s, and hammered by Amazon in the aughts.

But since then, they've reinvented themselves.

Now independent bookstores are back, often as the mainstays of new retail developments.

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Stacey Vanek Smith

Stacey Vanek Smith is the co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money. She's also a correspondent for Planet Money, where she covers business and economics. In this role, Smith has followed economic stories down the muddy back roads of Oklahoma to buy 100 barrels of oil; she's traveled to Pune, India, to track down the man who pitched the country's dramatic currency devaluation to the prime minister; and she's spoken with a North Korean woman who made a small fortune smuggling artificial sweetener in from China.

See stories by Stacey Vanek Smith

Paddy Hirsch