Much of the charm of independent bookstores comes from the fact they’re run by eccentrics for eccentrics. They’re often located in repurposed buildings with strange layouts. Strange shelving patterns, odd floor plans, bizarre color schemes, and strange decor are the norm for independent bookstores. And multiply the weird factor by 10 if its a used or antiquarian dealer. The older the books, the weirder the decor should be. We rather expect the antiqurian book dealer to use skulls for bookends and have a live raven sitting at the checkout. If the owner has an eyepatch, so much the better! Yes, an independent bookstore often looks like a Monty Python sketch will break out at any moment.
Month: July 2009
A Question on 1886 Longfellow's Hyperion
from one of our readers, Lisa Hutton: About 30 years ago I picked up a copy of Longfellow’s “Hyperion” at a library sale. Lately I’ve been trying to document some of my books for insurance purposes, and I’ve just found out that the edition I have was published in violation of copyright – there was … Read more
Best of June 2009
We like to spotlight some of our favorite posts of the past month. Here were some from June. A conversation with Linda Olsson by Kim Allen-Niesen Jo Canham is sharing the story of starting her bookshop up. Here’s Part 1 and Part 2 Shane Gottwals shares his views on franchising a Bookstore
How We Came to Be: Part 2 Blarney Books, Port Fairy
a guest post by Jo Canham of Blarney Books
For information on becoming a contributor click here..
How We Came to Be: Part 2
Part 1 can be found here…
So here I am, sitting next to the baptismal font in an unrenovated hall, looking at the metres and metres of industrial grey carpet in front of me, and I burst into tears. (Remember, please, I am 20 weeks pregnant at this point – that, and I hate grey carpet!) The job ahead of us looks impossible. It’s late October. I have a baby due in March. In between time, I have set myself the goal of setting up a whole new business in a town where we don’t know, for all intents and purposes, anyone. My partner has made some work-related contacts, and we have met the real estate people, but that’s all.
We sleep for our first night on a mattress on the floor, in absolute exhaustion. And we haven’t yet begun! The trucks are to arrive, after an overnight stop in Warrnambool (a town 20 minutes away), first thing in the morning.
So it all starts the following morning. They arrive a little after first light, and the unloading begins for the men, the unpacking for me. The hall has a tiny apartment attached to it, where we are lodging until we renovate. The entire apartment is roughly the size of the kitchen in our previous house. It has three ‘bedrooms’, though only one of these can contain a double bed (forget about a queen!), and even that would create problems with opening the doors of the built-in ‘wardrobe’. Naturally enough, we have a king bed. We decide to move into the hall proper. Out of the gradually emptying cardboard boxes, we construct a temporary bedroom, on the raised platform, across from the built-in baptismal font. The boxes are quite useful – positioned appropriately, these box walls double as storage, and from them we managed to fashion some pretty effective shelving for our clothes.
Summer Reading Lists 2009- It Could be Worse!
Summer, time to kick back, relax, read some total junk while lying around the pool… Or at least that’s what most adults get to enjoy. For high school students it often means a summer slogging through assigned reading and turning in a paper the week they return, or facing a quiz the first day of … Read more
Does Your Bookshop Have a Firm Pricing Policy?
A guest post by P. J. Grath, Dog Ears Books, Northport, Michigan For information on becoming a contributor click here.. “To Hold or Not to Hold? That Is the Question” Pamela Grath Dog Ears Books was Dog Ears Used Books when it opened in 1993, with rows of titles culled from our home library–all good … Read more