Serial Readers United

Through an exploration of Kuwait’s independent bookstores, the article challenges the reputation of Gulf Arab monarchies as generally lacking a reading culture. It treats independent bookstores as urban spaces designed to enable participation in the practices and rituals of reading books and as indicators of reading microcultures in the country. Run by readers and writers, independent bookstores fill a gap in the cultural landscape in order to cultivate highbrow readership. They nurture emerging communities of readers, creating intimate spaces that blur the boundaries of public and private. They balance art and commerce to assume roles as arbiters of taste, community centers, and literary-cultural societies. Aided by social media, their activities spill over into the wider community and expand beyond the borders of Kuwait, attesting to the resilience of historical patterns of the Arab world of letters and the emergence of the Gulf as a new center in the circuit.