'The Booksellers' A Review

The Booksellers is a documentary about Antiquarian booksellers as well as the book business in general. The movie follows various booksellers in NYC to their offices, book fairs, and auctions. They are also interviewed about the history of the business, it's various niches, and their personal journeys within it.

Some interesting broad strokes on the world of books and booksellers but too much time is spent on affluent collectors and the high priced portion of the business to have anything like broad appeal. When primarily dealing with and talking about books that cost a couple thousand dollars or more we are by definition talking about an exceptionally slim market and group of people simply in the terms of economics and as such the interest level of the average viewer would be pretty narrow. The history of book shops and used book stores is discussed at various points briefly but this is not a broad look at books, their history, and their evolution in the digital age it is focused relatively exclusively on the  wealthy subset who collect these objects not for their function but for their prestige. The potentially fascinating and appealing subject matter narrows to another odd look at high end collecting, more akin to art or baseball card collecting than books as important cultural objects/tools or literacy in general.

But to quote Roger Ebert- it's not what it's about it's how it's about it. The Booksellers is a quirky and effective look at an intriguing subset which doesn't effectively acknowledge the economic privilege therein.

Currently available to rent on most VOD platforms.

Stream It.