In this age of two-days-or-less shipping and instant ebooks, it can sometimes feel as though bookstore browsing is a thing of the past, but the best independent booksellers provide a sense of community that virtually no other retailer can offer.  For over 30 years, Davis-Kidd Booksellers was a haven to Nashvillians who loved not only books, but learning and sharing ideas. Everywhere one looked in Davis-Kidd, there were people drawn by the common love of stories, ideas, words — the ties that bind a city’s intellectual life.

The independent book haven was founded in October 1980 by Nashvillians Karen Davis and Thelma Kidd — first at the lower end of a much smaller Green Hills Mall, then relocated to an airy space in Grace’s Plaza — and embodied a time before e-commerce giants. Davis-Kidd’s central staircase was wide and grand, and — as you ascended — you rose into the natural light filling it.

“The physical space,” Thelma Kidd recalled to the Nashville Scene in a November 2010 article, “was wonderful — those two floors above ground. True, it wasn’t as easy to merchandise. We paid for all that air and light, but it was worth it, because we created an environment where people wanted to spend time.” At the beloved institution’s closing in December of the same year, its founders went on to pursue other ventures; for Thelma, this took the shape of a life-coaching career; for Karen, this meant moving into the travel business.

Today, the purveyors at Novelette Booksellers, Parnassus Books and The Bookshop Nashville carry on the torch lit by Davis-Kidd Booksellers, and these independent bookstores are bolstered by Humanities Tennessee and their programs: Student Reader Day, Chapter 16, and the annual Southern Festival of Books each autumn.