More Than Books

During the summer of 2022, Tushar Varma ’23 recorded hours of video and logged 15,000 miles in his red Prius, which he affectionately calls “Lola.” The UNC-Chapel Hill advertising major spent 78 days driving across the country and back again, all for the love of books and the stores they’re sold in.

The goal? To make a documentary unpacking what makes these spaces unique and special — and how they continue to thrive alongside monoliths like Amazon and other major booksellers.

Varma’s idea came to fruition thanks to a Burch Fellowship, a grant program for students who want to pursue an “intense interest well beyond the scope of an academic course or summer internship.”

“The Greatest Bookscapes” is about the irreplaceable value independent bookstores bring to their local communities — something that can’t be replicated by major booksellers.

“I wanted to do an ethnographic investigation into why these spaces are important,” Varma said. “That’s the first thing you learn in an anthropology class, right? You can’t learn culture. You have to understand culture by immersing yourself in that culture.”

All the bookstores that Varma visited shared a similar sense of community and openness. Varma experienced this firsthand as a stranger in most of these places. Every person he interviewed welcomed him with open arms and excitement for the project.

“I think that’s the magic of independent bookstores: Everyone is welcome.”

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