The Lab Magazine interviews Sarah McNally, owner of McNally Jackson Books in New York:
From Winnipeg, Canada, McNally was born to a bookselling family, but made her way New York-wards after college, eventually working as an editor at Basic Books – “I loved editing because I had never done anything deeply collaborative before, and to be trusted inside a writer’s vision of his or her art is a profound and moving privilege.” She then branched out on her own, and whether by nature or nurture, she’s clearly found where she’s meant to be. “I love bookselling because I can run around thinking about a million things, from the mundane to the transcendent, and it all matters… The dirt in the corner is my problem. What Proust’s birthday means in downtown New York is my problem. I have to walk through the store allowing every book I see, even if I haven’t read it, to resonate deeply within me, and if it saddens or irritates even the most inconsequential part of my soul, I have to take it off display.”
I miss being a bookseller. I really do.
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