Sarah McNally on Bestsellers, Memoirs, and 22 Years of McNally Jackson

Sarah McNally, founder of New York's McNally Jackson bookstores, discusses the evolution of bestsellers, her reading habits, and the philosophy behind her indie empire. In an interview with CULTURED, she reflects on 22 years since opening the first store on Prince Street, now encompassing multiple bookstores, Goods for the Study, and McNally Editions. McNally, daughter of Canadian booksellers behind McNally Robinson, notes that bestselling novels have shifted from naturalistic to more varied forms, while raw memoirs remain consistently popular. She credits her mother's store in Winnipeg for exposing her to philosophy and political theory, inspiring McNally Jackson's focus on international literature. She recommends Tove Jansson's 'The Summer Book' as a top staff pick and trusts Michael Cunningham for recommendations, though she admits she trusts no one completely. McNally cites Georges Simenon's Inspector Maigret mysteries as comfort reads, having read about 60, and admits to twice abandoning Thomas Mann's 'The Magic Mountain'. Her required reading for solitary confinement includes Javier Marías's 'Your Face Tomorrow' trilogy, Vasily Grossman's 'Life and Fate', Roberto Bolaño's '2666', Virginia Woolf's 'To the Lighthouse', and David Foster Wallace's 'The Pale King'.