My behavior is nonetheless, deplorable. Unfortunately, I’m quite prone to such bouts of deplorability–take for instance, my fondness for reading books at the dinner table. – Brandon Sanderson, The Final Empire

For some time, I’ve been heading out just about once a week after I close the store to enjoy a nice dinner with a book – Dinner and a Book. It serves as some quiet time to enjoy the meal and whatever book I am currently reading. From a sit-down dinner to a picnic, or eating in my car, to take-out.

It all started as a form of self-care. My life has turned upside down and I needed to find a space in it for me. It gives me something to look forward to. I choose the restaurant based on my mood. Or sometimes on the book I’m reading at the time. England-based I go for either a good curry or fish & chip, right?

I love reading. I love good food. I love going out to dinner. And I don’t mind going by myself. It’s not a lonely venture. Can one actually be alone while reading a book?

Some have asked to join me to which I answer with of course but you will have to bring a book.

I must say, interesting the reactions I receive from a host or hostess. There was one local restaurant as soon as she saw I was carrying a book she exclaimed that she knew just where to seat me where I wouldn’t be distracted and have great lighting. Wow! She got it. One establishment when I asked for a bottled condiment, he slid it across the table where it hit my book. I gave him the ‘mother stare’. All in all, Middlebury offers great spaces to read and I’m figuring out the best tables with adequate lighting.

Life as a used bookstore owner is going fine. OCUB has been busy. Boxes of books are constantly coming in. Arranging and rearranging is ongoing to fit the books on the shelves. Shuffling shelves is continuous. Stacks of books are patiently waiting to have their jackets covered is ever-growing. I get the stack down only to add to it.

Beckett has gone off to his summer job but has promised to return in the fall. Gavin will be here for the summer. Also a Midd College student. Henry will be here again in a few weeks to pitch in as well as a pair of high school students. Yes, I’m looking forward to all the much needed help. It’ll be nice not having to do everything.

Reading at meals is considered rude in polite society, but if you expect to succeed as a writer, rudeness should be the second-to-least of your concerns. The least of all should be polite society and what it expects. – Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.

My father was often impatient during March, waiting for winter to end, the cold to ease, the sun to reappear. March was an unpredictable month, when it was never clear what might happen. Warm days raised hopes until ice and grey skies shut over the town again. – Tracy Chevalier, GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING

Another February is behind us and that’s fine with me. March brings more sun, less snow (finger’s crossed), warmer temps, and thoughts of spring right around the corner. All good things.

The I Hate February Sale was a lot of fun this year. Many customers came in inquiring if I still hated February. Of course, I do! Many a bag or box went out of the store and now I find myself filling holes on many shelves. Which is a bookseller’s dream, of course. You know, emptying out boxes and getting those books up on the shelves.

A number of U.S. history, including bios of U.S. presidents, have come into the store and are slowly making their way onto the shelves. Music, art, children’s books and well, everything in between. No rest for the wicked. Or for a used bookstore lady.

Earthquakes mean March.
The dragon will move,
and the earth will open like a wound.
There will be great rain or snow
so save some coal for your uncle.
The sun of this month cures all.
Therefore, old women say:
Let the sun of March shine on my daughter,
but let the sun of February shine on my daughter-in-law.
However, if you go to a party
dressed as the anti-Christ
you will be frozen to death by morning.
– Anne Sexton THE SERMON OF THE TWELVE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The bookstore was a parking lot for used graveyards. Thousands of graveyards were parked in rows like cars. Most of the books were out of print, and no one wanted to read them anymore and the people who had read the books had died or forgotten about them, but through the organic process of music the books had become virgins again. – Richard Brautigan, Trout Fishing in America

…a well-worn book also has its pleasures, the soft caress and give of the paper’s edges, the comfort, like an old shawl, of an oft-read story. – Lewis Buzbee, The Haunting of Charles Dicken

Here I am. Sitting in my overloaded bookstore. Loaded down with books. Boxes to empty, sort, clean, and price. Then shelve. Dust jackets to cover. But I need to take a break and contemplate the years. This experience. The experience of being a used bookstore owner.

I feel so lucky. Lucky to decide to purchase the store and bring new life to it. Lucky to open the door each day, turn on lights, sweep floors, polish windows, dust off books. Decorating windows, tops of bookcases, shuffling shelves around. Selecting background music. Creating an atmosphere of coziness. Somewhat organized. Somewhat not. Cluttered. But hopefully not too much.

We are much more likely to be drawn to a messy bookstore than a neat one because the mess signifies vitality. Clutter — orderly clutter, if possible — is what we expect. – Lewis Buzbee, The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop

Owning a used bookstore is everything you think it would be. Should be. But it’s so much more. There is the realization that all the books actually belong to you. To you! You can claim each and every book if you want. But, of course, you don’t because how are you going to keep the store going? So, you have to be able to let go. And know that a sold book is going to a good home. To be reread. Or even sit prettily on a bookshelf.

It is clear that the books owned the shop rather than the other way about. Everywhere they had run wild and taken possession of their habitat, breeding and multiplying, and clearly lacking any strong hand to keep them down. – Agatha Christie, The Clocks

The first weekend owning the store, I cleaned the top floor: sweeping, tearing apart bookcases, freeing the sunbaked books. I wanted to make an impression on other Main Street businesses to let them know there was a new owner. This happened in the original location. The building was demolished a number of years ago for the work on the railroad tracks and tunnel. There is a small park and labyrinth in the location now.

I started using a child’s vintage paint easel boasting a literary quote to help draw people in. Placed on the large patio in front of the store. Over a span of time, I painted, rearranged, removed bookcases to create room and have a clean front and back entrance for air flow. I even went so far as to feng shui the store. Twice. The first experience called for ringing bells. I thought my bell was broken as not a sound was made. But the second time around, I started to hear it. The third time it was ringing quite clearly. Isn’t that interesting! And yea, there were ghosts there. Believe what you want.

One day pulling up to the Main Street building I noted people with clipboards in front of the store. Looked like a meeting of VTrans, and VT Railway representatives. I knew a few from various meetings I attended while working at the Addison County Chamber of Commerce. They gave me the word. The situation was dire, and maybe I should be looking at another location. I wanted to be established before the work began and I’m so glad I did. When I walked through my current location for the first time, I knew this was the perfect place to move the store to. It’s not Main Street but there is parking. No stairs. Huge windows. And a great MW community.

One must remember it is pretty much me in the store but throughout the years I have had short-term helpers: Wilder, Roy, Helen, Jennifer, Nellie, Carrie, Henry, Beckett, and, of course, Hannah. Their assistance has been enthusiastic and valued by me. I greatly appreciated their help and input. There’s a dedicated James Joyce section thanks to Helen. Remember when Jennifer organized cookbooks by their colored spines? Carrie, so instrumental in running the shop while I was having leg issues and then hip replacement. She held the store together.

The customers have been the best. So many have become friends. Stopping in to check on me. Bring me tokens, smiles, jokes, food to books. To just talk or to check on what’s new on shelves. Catching up on families. Books read. Books to read. Just being friends. Even buying books!

My style of running the used bookstore is based on what I would have liked to have found in NYC along Book Row. I read the book, Book Row: An Anecdotal and Pictorial History of the Antiquarian Book Trade by Marvin Mondlin and Roy Meador. Books were everything to the owners or managers of the spaces they held. Customers would walk into one of the shops and wonder what they’d find. That’s what I want here. I had a desire to stand out from other shops. Everyone’s online because they feel they have to. Would I be brave enough to go against the norm? Almost. I posted about three hundred or so books, but it was because I felt I had to. Not because I wanted to. Sure, I’ve had online sales but what’s the connection to the buyer? I could post a note to them. Include a Vermont postcard. Wrap the book in brown paper and tie it up with string or ribbon. Sometimes I added a small piece of embroidery and taped it to the wrapped book.

It was a very odd concept – that you could become friends with someone simply by examining their bookshelves – but nevertheless, Zoe believed it fervently. – Jenny Colgan, The Bookshop on the Shore.

I don’t know what the future will hold for me or the bookstore, but I anticipate many more years gracing the MarbleWorks community. And when the time is right another soul will venture to keep the store alive because books are here to stay. And will always be in style.

Thank you all for indulging me to live the life of a used bookstore lady. A life I had no idea I needed to be but here I am sixteen years later.

I took my time, running my fingers along the spines of books, stopping to pull a title from the shelf and inspect it. A sense of well-being flowed through me as I circled the ground floor. It was better than meditation or a new pair of shoes- or even chocolate. My life was a disaster, but there were still books. Lots and lots of books. A refuge. A solace. Each one offering the possibility of a new beginning. – Beth Pattillo, Jane Austen Ruined My Life

“I suddenly discovered that cooking was a rich and layered and endlessly fascinating subject.” – Julia Child, My Life in France.

Recent arrivals!

I hate this feeling. Like I’m here, but I’m not. Like someone cares. But they don’t. Like I belong somewhere else, anywhere but here, and escape lies just past that snowy window, cool and crisp as the February air. – Ellen Hopkins, Crank

I am not a graceful person. I am not a Sunday morning or a Friday sunset. I am a Tuesday 2 a.m., gunshots muffled by a few city blocks, I am a broken window during February.  – Anna Peters

Seriously, February is the worse month of the year for me. Years ago, one day sitting in the store and just tired of grumbling, I decided I had to turn my mood around. One of my used bookstore heroes had told me that having a sale was a fun thing to do. For him and his customers. And when he has a sale he goes big. All books are half off. 50% off every book. So I thought, hey, if it works for Ben (The Country Bookshop in Plainfield, VT) then try it. And that’s how the I Hate February Sale began. 

I’m armed with chocolate and flowers. And a sale. February just got better.

February is pitiless, and it is boring. That parade of red numerals on its page adds up to zero: birthdays of politicians, a holiday reserved for rodents, what kind of celebrations are those? The only bubble in the flat champagne of February is Valentine’s Day. It was no accident that our ancestors pinned Valentine’s Day on February’s shirt: he or she lucky enough to have a lover in frigid, antsy February has cause for celebration, indeed. – Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume

 

 

 

 

“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.”
– T.S. Eliot,  Four Quartets

I’m getting ready to close out the year, 2019 and I have to catch my breath. December is closing out strong. One of the strongest Decembers since I’ve moved the store into the Historic MarbleWorks. My heart is singing from the support that has come from all the customers who have found their way ‘down here’ off of Main Street. Thank you one and all!

“I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a school-boy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to every-body! A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!” – Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Can you believe it? I’ve owned OCUB for thirteen years! 13! Wow!

Books have always played a part of my life: reading the Book of the Month delivered to our house. I learned of John Steinbeck and a host of other authors. After I read the BOM book I would go to the library and find other titles by the featured authors.  Also Reader’s Digest.  When I went to college and took the class, Children’s Literature, I was stunned by the books I hadn’t read: Wind in the Willows, A Secret Garden were two that really struck me as not knowing how they could have slipped by me. But I had read Caddie Woodlawn, Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates, and Little Men, so I wasn’t totally deprived. I read Little Women but Little Men was by far my favorite between the two. In Junior High I was introduced to, Anne of Green Gables, and my world stopped. Here was someone just like me! And all the horse books I could lay my hand on. Misty of Chincoteague, was my favorite.

Reading was escape. Learning of new places. Meeting new people. Libraries were my favorite places. I loved checking out a pile of books and walking them home or balancing them on the handlebars of my bike.

Owing a used bookstore is an amazing experience. I am never alone. I’m surrounded by color, titles, words, smells. It is everything you think it would be and then some. Actually so much more but words fail me. And the customers, how can they not be my friends? Most are.

So! Friday and Saturday I will celebrate this great occasion with a 50% sale! As my hero, Ben from Country Bookshop in Plainfield, VT (check the store out!) says, when you have a sale, go big! Make everyone happy! So I take his advice every time with a 50% storewide sale.  Stop in!

“I love the way that each book—any book—is its own journey. You open it, and off you go….” – Sharon Creech