Parentheses, Harrisonburg, VA

Parentheses Books is - in a way - where #40BookshopsUnder40 was born. 
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It was at Parentheses that I found out about The Bookshop. The history of the American bookstore by Evan Friss, husband to Parentheses’ owner Amanda Friss. Last July, I came across a poster with a note advertising pre-orders. And it was at Parentheses where Evan launched his book in August of 2024. The rest is history (that you can read about here). 

Parentheses are little containers for words. They're neat and orderly. (Can we call them cozy?) They're the literary equivalent of a hug. 
Often it's the best stuff that's in parentheses. The honest stuff. The funny stuff. The bits and bobs that make the text more interesting, more engaging. And while certainly we care about all the words, there's something special about the ones in Parentheses.
Amanda Friss, owner

Parentheses itself, however, had been on my radar since before their opening. In 2022, I started hearing a rumor about an independent bookshop in Harrisonburg that was raising its seed capital through a Kickstarter campaign. Lo and behold, Amanda’s is one the rare crowdfunding campaigns that got overfunded and she was able to open her brick and mortar store inside the then-brand new (and still kind of new) Liberty Street Mercantile - a retail space featuring several independent small businesses new to Harrisonburg. 

“Parentheses is open and airy with lots of light streaming in through its big corner windows. It's also warm and cozy with wooden shelves and rugs and lots of plants. We have a little bit of everything and lots of covers faced out. A joy for browsing!” Amanda Friss, owner

With several years under her bookselling belt, Amanda opened Parentheses in October 2023. She had previously worked at Three Lives and Company in New York City (readers of The Bookshop will recognize the name) where she fell in love with bookselling, “Working at Three Lives taught me that bookstores are more than just stores that sell books. They are vital to our communities because they help foster relationships. They serve as safe spaces in which people can connect. In a world that's becoming dominated more and more by digital communication, I like to think of bookstores as little beacons of humanity.”

After ten years of living in Harrisonburg and raising her family there, she came to a point of not only wanting, but needing, an indie bookshop in this small city (barely 50,000 people) in the heart of the Shenandoah Valley, “I opened my bookshop in late October of 2023. I opened it for two reasons. One, my boys were getting older and I was looking for a job and two, I felt very strongly that Harrisonburg needed an indie bookshop like the one I wanted to open.”

Kickstarting a bookshop

When I visited Amanda in March 2025, I wanted to learn more about her experience with crowdfunding. “The Kickstarter campaign was a litmus test to see whether Harrisonburg did indeed want the kind of independent bookshop that I envisioned.”, Amanda explained. “For an entire month, I showed up on Instagram every day telling my community why they needed an independent bookshop, and what they were missing out on without one. It was exhausting. But I had just come across Simon Sinek’s “Start with Why” and so I kept showing up talking about my Why.” 
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Amanda used the funds to buy her initial inventory and shelving. She is the first tenant in this space and was responsible for furnishing it. Her furniture is part thrifted, part custom-made and part IKEA (not that you could tell).

Curating beyond the mainstream

A typical college-town Harrisonburg has a second-hand bookshop tucked into a side street stuffed with towers of paperback novels and of course, students at James Madison University and Eastern Mennonite University can browse their university bookstores. But Parentheses offers something entirely different. One entire wall is taken up by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, many of them with their covers out (instead of spines) to showcase the latest fiction, cooking, non-fiction, romance, and the best books for kids. Scattered throughout the store are tables with neat piles of well curated titles that beg to find a new home. You can certainly find the most talked about books but you will also uncover similar titles that haven’t hit the mainstream yet.

Asked how she decides what ends up on her shelves, Amanda admitted, “I’m still figuring out what sells. We have a lot of regulars during the week and a totally different crowd on weekends - most notably families of college students. So I’m catering to at least two different audiences. With that in mind, I choose titles that I think look interesting and that I would want to read. I value a wide array of diverse authors - representation is important to me.” 

And it shows. While checking out, I spotted two children’s books that I haven’t seen anywhere else and that I wanted to take home right away:

• Genderswapped Fairytales by Karrie Fransman and Jonathan Plackett
  
• Surrounded: America's First School for Black Girls, 1832 by Wilfred Lupano​
  

Kayla Walters, Parentheses customer, shares my observation, “By the time I buy a book, I’ve typically already done my research on Reddit and Substack so I know what I want. Walking into other bookshops, I feel like all I see are the books I already know about. When I come to Parentheses, I find what I look for but also related and new titles that I have never heard of before. I like thrifting but every now and then, I treat myself to a new book and in that case, I love putting money back into my community and supporting indie bookshops like Parentheses.” Kayla is 23 and has lived in Harrisonburg since 2021. When she and I chatted by the window, she had just bought a copy of Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe and ordered another book. 

“One of our customers, Louis, is from a small town in France. He was transferred to Harrisonburg for work. He was a supporter of the shop from early on, but didn't learn the shop's name until about a month later. When he learned, he got so excited because the name of his local bookshop in his little town in France is also called Parentheses Books! (Although, in French, of course.) What are the odds that he moves all the way across the ocean to another small town that has a bookshop with THE SAME NAME!“
​Amanda Friss, owner

Story time

As a parent, I appreciate bookshops that cater to young readers. Every time my daughter accompanies me to Parentheses, she heads straight into the kids corner: A sizable section of the shop’s retail space is dedicated to children’s classics and new titles - complete with a rug and chairs that invite the youngest readers to browse. “We host a monthly kids story time with Leah Baker, a former classroom teacher who is currently studying to become a school librarian. We have a great turnout for story time.” But that’s not where the book events end. On the third Thursday of the quarter, Amanda hosts her own book club that alternates between fiction and non-fiction, and she is trying out other formats, “So far customers have really enjoyed mixed media events: We hosted one where a dancer performed a choreographed piece for a spoken poem while a local musician played the violin. My favorite events are ones that actively engage people. Like story time!” 

Next time you’re in Harrisonburg, make sure to visit Parentheses and if you ever pick up a copy of The Bookshop, you will find many elements of what makes a great bookshop - live and in color - inside Parentheses Books. You heard it here first ;)

Parentheses on Bookshop.org

Amanda’s book recommendations

• Fiction: I loved Fiona Davis's new novel The Stolen Queen.
• Nonfiction: The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore by (my husband) Evan Friss.
• Under 200 pages (under 100, I think!): 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff.

What I bought at Parentheses

• Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder