Candice Cohen has been running the Palm Beach Bookstore for 24 years, a remarkable accomplishment in and of itself, if only because booksellers have had to cope with more frenzied change in the last 20 years than in the previous 100 years. There are fewer bookstores than there used to be, but Cohen’s store remains, a bastion of calm and class.

How have you managed to succeed when so many independent bookstores have failed?

I can only tell you what my customers say. They rave about the selection I have, and the display. Everybody at the store reads. We know the books and we can make suggestions. I think that is really, really important, both in the days of the chain bookstores and now - we give excellent service to our customers.

If you go back 20 years, when the chains were putting a lot of independents out of business, that’s how I did well then, because of selection and the fact that I love to read. And today the pendulum has swung back and the chains are having more difficulty than the independents because ebooks are putting the chains out of business.

Have ebooks posed the same threat to you that the chains did?

Ebooks are affecting all of us. But there are still a lot of peoople who like to come into a bookstore and browse and pick out a book. There’s something very special about the ambience of a bookstore. Ereaders are commonplace, but there’s no special aura about the experience. It’s convenient, period. But a book is still something special. The weight, the feel of the paper. Last year I had a number of customers tell me that they had been using an ereader but gotten bored with it, and were coming back to books. Sometimes it’s about more than just the words.

How is being a bookseller in Palm Beach different than being a bookseller someplace else?

If you plunked my bookstore down in the middle of Wyoming, I don’t think I’d be a success. I’m very, very lucky in that the bookstore that I wanted to run works in Palm Beach. I think I have the same taste as the audience. I have wonderful biographies, histories, literary fiction. Lots of bookstores have those things, but I also have a very good selection of coffee table books because of the interior designers and architects who shop in the store. It’s a function of my own interests coinciding with the interests of my clientele.

How has your business changed?

Well, it’s tougher now than it was 15 or 20 years ago. I’m very lucky in that I have customers who support my store. And the reason they support it is that they want it to stay in business.

You don’t sound like you have any plans to retire?

I truly hope that I stay in business for a long time to come. I have no interest in retiring.

Palm Beach Bookstore, 215 Royal Poinciana Way, Palm Beach. (561) 659-6700.