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.

通过对科威特独立书店的探索，这篇文章挑战了海湾阿拉伯君主国普遍缺乏阅读文化的声誉。它将独立书店视为城市空间，旨在使人们能够参与阅读书籍的实践和仪式，并作为阅读该国微观文化的指标。由读者和作家共同经营的独立书店填补了文化景观的空白，以培养高尚的读者群。他们培育了新兴的读者社区，创造了模糊公共和私人界限的私密空间。他们平衡艺术和商业，扮演品味、社区中心和文学文化社会的仲裁者的角色。在社交媒体的帮助下，他们的活动蔓延到更广泛的社区并扩展到科威特境外，