Bookseller Robert Gray, buyer for the major Northeastern independent the Northshire Bookstore in Mancehster, Vermont, was struck by the recent Zogby poll that said “Online bookseller Amazon.com is more popular with Americans than local independent bookstores.” In a moving commentary on his Fresh Eyes blog, he asks, “Should we just shutter the windows and bar the doors and surrender to the chain store blitzkreig? If Americans really want to buy all of their books this way, shouldn’t they get the bookstores they deserve?” Gray also speculates that similarly dispiriting statistics might have been the result if Zogby had asked respondents “how many of the books they purchased were published by small and independent publishers?”, which could lead to another depressing question: “Should small and independent publishers cease and desist?” But moving beyond questions of market share, he presents an alternative path of investigation that might reinvigorate independent bookselling: “Or do we look more closely at such numbers and ask another, quieter question, a question less likely to generate headlines: What good are independent bookstores and why should anybody care?”