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Taking Action Together
With 50 of you!
From left to right: Sharmaine Lovegrove, Ben Schuman-Stoler, Peter Matthews
What’s a bookstore for in 2025?
Hey everyone, Ben here. And a special hello to the new subscribers who signed up at the event last week - welcome!
We’re almost a week past the live listening party. Thanks again to everyone who helped make it such a success. Some 50 people braved the horrible weather to listen to our documentary, take part in a discussion and Q&A, and stick around to chat afterward.
It wouldn’t have been possible without the space and vision of a place like Chapters. And it got me thinking, if a bookstore can be a space for an event like ours - what else can a bookstore do in 2025? So I called Sharmaine and asked her if she had any reflections from last week:
Last week’s event with Kollo Media brought sharply into focus why a space like Chapters matters in 2025. We need places where we can gather to talk openly about history, culture, politics and do so in a way that’s safe, welcoming, and inclusive. Not just in theory, but in practice.
Spaces where stories can be heard without fear, where dialogue is respected. There are many types of cultural institutions, but in times like these, bringing people together through storytelling feels not only vital - but urgent.
The bookshop lent itself beautifully to the format of the listening party. For most people, including myself, it was a first. What made it work was the intimacy of the setting, the shared experience of listening together, and the generosity of the audience. Their reflections on the documentary, and the smart, honest questions they asked, turned the evening into something truly special.
As for the story itself, what stayed with me was the collective reaction: the shock, the anger, the disbelief. Feeling that together made the experience even more powerful.
“The test of a media brand is whether it can get people to take action”
Talking to Sharmaine reminded me of something Brian Morrissey wrote a few years back in a post called The Pivot to Events: “Events are a test of whether a brand has an audience or a community.”
I think what Chapters and Kollo Media and the people who came last week all have in common is the desire to share and take action - to be curious, and be curious together. And at that point it’s far from a producer<>listener or retailer<>buyer relationship. it’s something collaborative, something alive and evolving.
“Eliminating distance does not bring closeness, for closeness does not consist in the smallness of the distance.”
What we do
We started this newsletter about a month ago. Here are some of the previous editions:
Introducing Kollo Media: “Let’s Really Look at the Thing”
Announcing our first audiobook and thoughts on the audiobook market
Considering Dan Hicks’s writing and drinking out of a skull
Thanks for following along so far. We appreciate your support.