reading

Merry Christmas to All! Here’s to 2026!

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There’s something kind of heroic about being a bookseller. – Gabriele Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

I had written a wonderful post several weeks ago that I dedicated to my customers. I was quite proud of it. All about working with them. Greeting them. Fulfilling orders. Our diverse conversations. It was a thank you and tribute to all throughout my years of owning the bookstore. But! somehow, I deleted it and couldn’t recover it. In my previous life at the ACCOC, I would have been able to. Or I’d like to believe I could. Anyways, I couldn’t. And it was so not like me to back-up my work. I always back-up! Paragraph by paragraph. But I didn’t. Darn. I found some amazing quotes and took great photos that fit my message, too. Trying to rewrite it wasn’t giving the same impact or meaning. So out of frustration I ignored it and here I am.

At this time of year, I always look toward the new year and come up with a few goals. Mostly personal. Not so much bookstore related. For instance, this upcoming summer I will spend a day at Shelburne Museum. It’s been many years since I’ve gone there. I like to get lost in the buildings and their exhibits. Especially among the quilts and textiles.

I’ve declared this upcoming year will be extra special because it is going to be centered around me. The last six years have been very hard and emotional for me in ways I don’t talk about. I am going to start 2026 with time off. I’m planning on reopening after Christmas, Dec 26 and 27 but will be closed Dec 28 until Tuesday Jan 6, 2026. Down time. To be good to me.

If peace had a smell, it would be the smell of a library full of old, leather-bound books. – Mark Pryor, The Bookseller


The bookstore is my haven. Safe place. Cozy. Warm. Full of friends – customers and books, alike. I consider myself one of the lucky ones to carry-on the legacy of Otter Books and the versions it has been. Honestly, when Reba Blair told me that “Dike would approve!” before she walked out the door one day, to me was the biggest compliment I have ever received. Growing up in Weybridge I’d sneak into town, and I went to either Ilsley Library or The Vermont Bookshop. As a little girl no one paid much attention to me so I could wander. The library was stricter until the librarian recognized I was a reader (after I passed her test) and the children’s books weren’t cutting it for me. Of course, I didn’t have money so I could only wander the bookstore’s aisle and note the books I wanted to read then head to the library to see if they it.

Owning a used bookstore is amazing. But know it is a lot of work. Especially when it’s pretty much me. That’s accepting books. Traveling to pick up books. Sorting. Cleaning. Pricing. Shelving. Reorganizing shelves to accommodate new arrivals. Or store the boxes and try to remember what’s in them. Sweeping. Dusting, though I know I’ve not consistent with that! I do have occasional help, but it comes down to me. And I’ve gotten slower. Oh, not cuz of my age, silly! It’s because I’m tired. Tired of dealing with healthcare, and then some over these six years plus. It really was a battle I had no idea I would be fighting, but persistence pays off. Just I’m finding it has been at my expense, and I need to close those chapters to continue moving ahead.

I’ve no idea what I’ll do while I’m closed. I know I’ll get the wood on the deck stacked higher. Make soup atop the wood stove. Get a pile of books together to read and get comfy under my special crocheted afghan. I’ve two new books on Grant to read. Hiking. Walking. Embroidering. Indoor painting? So many choices. Maybe even staying in bed all day. Ok, that really won’t happen. I really need this time. And yes, I’m counting down the days. So not me but…

Thank you all for helping me owning Otter Creek Used Books for nineteen years! 19! And all you naysayers – you know who you are! – ha! Don’t you know my motto? “Because I can!” 🙂 Of course, I can do this because of customers and the friendships I have developed. And being a part of an amazing and generous organization, The Vermont Antiquarian Booksellers Association, VABA.

Thank you!

“A bookseller,” said Grandfather, “is the link between mind and mind, the feeder of the hungry, very often the binder up of wounds. There he sits, your bookseller, surrounded by a thousand minds all done up neatly in cardboard cases; beautiful minds, courageous minds, strong minds, wise minds, all sorts and conditions. There come into him other minds, hungry for beauty, for knowledge, for truth, for love, and to the best of his ability he satisfies them all….Yes….It’s a great vocation….Moreover his life is one of wide horizons. He deals in the stuff of eternity and there’s no death in a bookseller’s shop. Plato and Jane Austen and Keats sit side by side behind his back, Shakespeare is on his right hand and Shelley on his left.” – Elizabeth Goudge, A City of Bells

One Used Book at a Time

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To my mind there is nothing so beautiful or so provocative as a secondhand book store…To me it is astonishing and miraculous to think that any one of us can poke among the stalls for something to read overnight–and that this something may be the sum of a lifetime of sweat, tears, and genius that some poor, struggling, blessed fellow expended trying to teach us the truth. – Lionel Barrymore

Used Books. Neverending used books. Boxes and boxes. Stacks and stacks. They never end, do they? Some days it seems that way. Sometimes I feel I have to fight off customers and their boxes of used books. Where am I going to put them? How many boxes can I safely stack? As a customer told me, “But isn’t that your business? Dealing with books?” Yes, but only what I can handle, thank you.

I do reach a breaking point sometimes. It doesn’t happen too often, but it does. And it happened this week. 🙂 But I soldiered on. I don’t think customers knew. But if they did, no one said anything to me. Maybe, they realized they better not, if they did. I don’t generally take things too seriously. Go with the flow. And I try. And the day ended, and I went home and laid on the couch.

People ask how to I manage? All these stacks? All these books? Well, I do have a way. And that way came to me a very long time ago when I was a freshman in college and my first work-study job. I was working in the Music Department at Castleton State College. (Yes, I know it was renamed). My supervisor was Professor Diehl. He was a bit hesitant to ask me to take on a project. He presented a big situation in the Records Room (LPs) and felt the need to explain the room before he opened the door for me. He apologized but kept repeating what a mess it was. How did I feel about organizing record albums? They had a lot. A lot. He kept repeating that. “I can do it,” I stated. “No problem at all. I like to organize.” You have to know, I needed a job to buy my textbooks and working in the Music Dept was a whole lot better than working in the Dining Hall, I don’t care what anyone says. I would say, “I love it!” and “No problem!” to anything Prof Diehl said to me. Then he opened the door. I was not prepared for what was in front of me. But I kept my cool and said, “This will be fun!” And he left me alone in the room. So, I actually wanted to sit in the corner and cry but that’s not who I am. I picked up an album and said, “Well, one album at a time!” Where that came from, I don’t know but I have used that expression throughout my life. Especially here in my shop. “One book at a time.”

You can never, never have too many books. – Drew Barrymore

Owning a Used Bookstore…What’s it Like?

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Let me tell you what it is like to own a used bookstore. It’s heaven. Heaven, I tell you.

Lord! When you sell a man a book you don’t sell just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue – you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night – there’s all heaven and earth n a book, a real book. – Christopher Morley, 1890-1957

A book collector has friends everywhere. The bookseller from whom you buy books is, more frequently than not, your friend. There is a bond between you that transcends the commercial transaction. For you’ve established ‘something’ (call it rapport) between you that is personal, almost spiritual if you will. He understands your interests and your needs and the compulsion which brings you to him. (And let it be freely admitted, his magnet is as compelling to the bibliophile as the bar is to the boozer.) The bookseller becomes inextricably identified with you, your library, your intellectually life. – William Targ, 1907-1999

This quote definitely reflects my attitude towards selling books: The bookseller who understands his business never shows any anxiety to sell his treasures; he acts as if it were a matter of perfect indifference to him whether he sells his books or not. His chief aim is to make his visitors feel at home in his shop, and having induced the customers to look at his wares, he leaves the books themselves to complete the transactions. – Robert M. Williamson, B. 1851.

I started using literary quotes on store signage because I was looking for a hook. For a way to set myself apart from other Main Street businesses in the area and more importantly, to show there was a new owner of the store. I used a child’s easel a neighbor was giving away and wrote short quotes on that and place it in front of the store on the patio. I didn’t want to say “Open”. I was looking for something catchy. I thought a quote would be unique. I used that easel until it rotted out. Moving the store to the MarbleWorks I was very excited to find the large blackboard outside next to the entrance. I now can write longer quotes!

I generally enjoy being in my shop. Amongst all the books, and knickknacks. Generally, because my ideal bookshop is organized to a fault. No clutter. No boxes in the way. Books standing tall on the shelves. Glass shelves. But! No matter how I try to get to what I feel is my expression of a used bookshop it doesn’t last. Not at all. What you see when you step in is how the shop wants to be. I’ve had to surrender to it, and I’ve finally have come to peace with it. Yes, I do get overwhelmed some days. Too many boxes. Not enough holes on the shelves to put books up. Stacks around my feet behind the desk. Those books are actually ready to be shelved. They are stacked in their genre, cleaned, priced, and alphabetized.

When each book sells, I am happy for the book to go to another home. I hope it’ll be appreciated as maybe the previous owner had. There have been books brought to the counter that I regret not reading when I had a chance. But really! There are so many books available to me I can surely allow one, two, or more pass me by. And if I’m meant to read it then it’ll return for me to devour at a later time.

In books, you’ll find what you are looking for.
In books is that which makes existence more.
Our hopes in life are often in an old bookstore.
– Hymn to Fourth Avenue, Eli Siegel

Summer Reading

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What a blessing it is to love books. Everybody must love something, and I know of no objects of love that give such substantial and unfailing returns as books and a garden – Elizabeth von Arnim, The Solitary Summer

I am having such a time sticking with a book to read from start to finish. To pick up another book and start in. Or another. Or another. I have no idea of why I keep picking up books and not finishing them. It’s been going on for a long while now. Actually, I think I do but… I should welcome the distraction of a good read. To get lost in a good book.

So, what am I reading? In no particular order because it wouldn’t make sense since I’m in the middle of them all. Like in the almost in the middle of the book.

  • Pachinko, Min Jin Lee
  • Dangling Man, Saul Bellow
  • Look Homeward Angel, Thomas Wolf
  • The Return of the Native, Thomas Hardy
  • Summer, Edith Wharton
  • The Myth of the Lost Cause: Why the South Fought the Civil War and Why the North Won, Edward Bonekemper
  • In the Shadow of Kinzua: The Seneca Nation of Indians since World War II, by Laurence Marc Hauptman

There’s more but I think that’s enough. An eclectic list, don’t you think?

In the summer my favorite spot for reading is sitting in a rocking chair on my front porch.

I’m going to try to discipline myself. I think I’ll pick up Wharton’s Summer. A perfect read as it’s right in the middle of the season. Wish me luck.

“It was as if all the latent beauty of things had been unveiled to her. She could not imagine that the world held anything more wonderful.” -Edith Wharton, Summer

“Oh for heaven’s sake! Books aren’t bagels. They don’t go stale,” – Taylor Jenkins Reid, Forever, Interrupted. Ha! Love that quote!

Getting Ready! Upcoming VABA Book Fair.

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The 31st Vermont Book, Postcard & Ephemera Fair is right around the corner. Sunday, June 1, 2025. This spring event will once again be held in St. Albans, Vermont in the St. Albans City Hall, located on Main Street. This fun fair will be held 10am-4pm. And yes, FREE admission. Nothing to stop you from attending.

Most dealers save their best pieces for the fairs, and quite often you can obtain a long-sought item that has been kept in reserve for the occasion. – Robert A. Wilson, Modern Book Collecting.

Boxes filling up to bring to the upcoming VABA 2025 Spring Book Fair.

And that is exactly what I have done. So far, I have set aside four boxes. Three are seen here which I’ve stacked before the counter.
Look for books on the Revolutionary War, spirituality, Buddhism, James Joyce, and others, as well as related booklets and postcards.

VABA book fairs are always fun. Fun to meet and talk to other book sellers. Many are happy to share their expertise or even just talk books. The books brought to the shows are varied as our shops are. Generally, the stock represents what is offered on their shelves. You are allowed to pick up a book – gingerly, of course – open it and give it your inspection. The books should be marked as to their cost. Maybe I shouldn’t type this, but it really isn’t polite to try to haggle with the shopkeeper. Remember, they carted the books to St. Albans, set up the display, and will sit/stand throughout the fair. And of course, any not sold have to be reboxed and reshelved back into their store.
I go mainly for the comradery with the booksellers and meeting new people interested in books and reading. And seeing familiar faces from my store. Always a pleasant surprise. And seeing what was brought to the sale by my fellow booksellers.

There are no faster or firmer friendships than those formed between people who love the same books.
– Irving Stone, Clarence Darrow for the Defense

Hope to see you in St. Albans or at the least, in my shop in Middlebury.

Books are, let’s face it, better than everything else. – Nick Hornby, The Polysyllabic Spree


Recap of 2024 and Looking Towards 2025

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 If one is not careful, one allows diversions to take up one’s time—the stuff of life. – Carl Sandburg

Goodbye 2024. Hello 2025. What a year. 2024 is soon done and ready to be put away. I’m looking forward to 2025 and see what mischief it’ll cause.

I was caught. I couldn’t read. Couldn’t embroider. Couldn’t wrap my head around anything but doing nothing but cleaning, sorting, shelving. In the bookstore and at home, too. It’s winter and for me that means piles of books I want to read, and stacks of material and baskets of embroidery floss to work through.

So, I didn’t finish many books, but I started a lot. I read nine books. Three about Ulysses S. Grant, soldier and president. Two by local author, Steven Kiernan. Also, Dodie Smith, Amor Towles, and Fiona Davis. I’m once again participating in an online book club hosted by the Grant Cottage State Historic Site in New York. This year we will be reading two books on Grant.

Thanks to Goodreads I see I have started fourteen books this year. Almost finished Kevin Graffagnino’s , Ira Allen: A Biography. It is jammed packed with Vermont history. I already know I have to reread it so I can absorb it all. Highly recommend it. Plus, his newest, Vermontiana: An Annotated Checklist, 1764-1899. And I’ve started several on the Revolutionary War as well as the French & Indian War. Trying to familiarize myself particularly on our area of Vermont and New York. Also a historical book on Salamanca, NY where I once lived as a little girl. Novels? I have started a few: Seize the Day (Saul Bellow), The Brothers Karamazov (Dostoevsky), The Nightingale (Kristen Hannah), Barkskins (Anne Proulx), The Moon and Sixpence (W. Somerset Maugham), plus, plus, plus. Crazy. But I must get going on Grant at 200: Reconsidering the Life and Legacy of Ulysses S. Grant. Fortunately, it’s just 40 pages before our first meet-up so I must get cracking.

I’m not going to beat myself up for not completing books but marvel on how many I started and work on trying to finish them during 2025. There wasn’t a lot of porch rocking and reading this past summer as the gardens were always yelling at me. I’m going to be looking for my creativity spark to come alive again. Heaven knows I’ve got floss enough and vintage material and spools that I like to work with. And books. I’ve books galore!

Before I forget, I am going to take time at the start of the year to take care of me: reading, b&w movies, embroidering and start 2025 refreshed and renewed. I think I deserve it. So, see you Thursday, January 5, 2025.

What are you Reading?

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Fiction is like a spider’s web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners.
– Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

What are you reading? How many books do you have in your stack? Do you read one book at a time, or multiple books over the course of time juggling between them? Do you keep a book or two or more in the car? Another in your bag or backpack? How about next to your bed? Or one in the living room? One stashed in your desk at work? Or just carry that one book wherever you go and won’t start another book until you’ve finished it?

Fiction aisle in the Big Yellow Room at OCUB

How about a book club? Are you in one? Are you relieved that someone is telling you what to read and then all getting together to discuss the book? Takes away the decision of choosing. Or are you in a book club where you attend the gathering and talk about the current book you have read.

When you read do you read silently? Or do you read out loud, even to yourself. Novels? Poetry? I find reading Virginia Woolf out loud is helpful and have found out through conversations, I’m not alone.

I know, lots of questions. I get asked these questions all the time and always happy to answer. We all have our own reading style from what we read, how we read, to where. I enjoy the conversations I have with customers. Talking about what we are all reading. Fiction to biographies. Historical to the sciences.

Mainly I get into a groove of reading all the books an author wrote. Or the desire to immerse myself to learn about someone or place. Like when I went through my hip replacement, I decided I had to learn more about Hemingway. So, I read bios, and his earlier works. That lead to Martha Gellhorn. Currently I’m in an online reading group with the Grant Cottage State Historic Site learning more about President and General, Ulysses S. Grant.

Well, the boxes are calling out to me. Especially the boxes of Sci-fi that came in this morning. Got most of the literature up on shelves from last week’s boxes.

Oh, and what am I currently reading? RULES OF CIVILITY by Amor Towles. (Have you read A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW? Loved it.) Also reading THE LOWEST TREES HAVE TOPS, by Martha Gellhorn. Finishing Fergus M. Bordewich’s KLAN WAR: ULYSSES S. GRANT AND THE BATTLE TO SAVE RECONSTRUCTION. Also reading PACHINKO by Min Jin Lee. Towles’ and Gellhorn’s travel with me in my bag and Bordewich’s is at home as well as PACHINKO.

What I wonder is why everybody doesn’t carry a book around for those inevitable dead spots in life. – Stephen King

February – Just A Month to Get Through

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Poetry Section

Stranger, pause and look;
From the dust of ages
Lift this little book,
Turn the tattered pages,
Read me, do not let me die!
Search the fading letters finding
Steadfast in the broken binding
All that once was I!
-Edna St. Vincent Millay, Collected Poems

Here we are….February. Closer to spring. But the first order must be to get through the month. How are you doing it? Me? I’m in an online book club, part of the 2024 Literary Landmark Virtual Book Club hosted by the U.S. Grant Cottage State Historic Site located in Mt. McGregor, NY. Our first book has been John Reeves’, SOLDIER OF DESTINY: SLAVERY, SECESSION, AND THE REDEMPTION OF ULYSSES S. GRANT. Then onto KLAN WAR: ULYSSES S. GRANT AND THE BATTLE TO SAVE RECONSTRUCTION by Fergus Bordewich. Plus, my side reading which currently is Steve Martin’s SHOPGIRL because when shelving it jumped out at me.

Tea & A Book @ MNFC

Since I’ve been having bookcases built for the store I’ve cut down on my Dinner & a Book outings. Instead, I’ve been enjoying Tea & a Book working it in whenever I can. Stone Leaf Teahouse and the Middlebury Natural Food Co-op are two places I frequent. Both cozy and familiar.

Check out the newer bookcase found in the Children’s Room. Note: no more baskets or apple boxes on the floor. Books all up on shelves. Still working on reorganizing. One more bookcase and some wall shelves to still be made. Then OCUB will be amazing. Oh, paint, or no? So far, no but always welcoming suggestions.

New Bookcase in the Children’s Room

A children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest.
-C.S. Lewis

Books That Excite Little Otter Me!

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Oh! I admit there are certain types of books that come into the store that truly excite me. And I openly admit they are hard for me to put on the shelf but I do. I know! How mature.  Here is one that just came in. Isn’t it awesome? It fits perfectly in the hand. Has enough wear that puts it over the edge of greatness. The title is “Field Book of Wild Birds and Their Music: A Description of the Character and Music of Birds, Intended to Assist in the Identification of Species Common in the United States East of the Rocky Mountains,” written by F. Schuyler Mathews. It is a revised edition (1921) printed by G. P. Putnam’s Sons. Why aren’t more books like this published now?

Awesome Book!

Songs of the Meadowlark

Meadowlark

For the Love of Used Books

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Last month I hosted a small group of VABA members who also have a storefront with regular hours. As opposed to just selling inventory online from home. We all have books we sell online but we are dedicated to maintaining our stores.

Interesting sharing our stories: how we got into the business, what brought us to our current store location,  pitfalls of having a storefront as well as the joys and of course, dealing with customers. The good, the bad and the funny. I didn’t take many notes like I wanted to because I was so caught up listening. I did take down a title of a book one used bookstore owner wants to write:  “How to Make a Small Fortune in the Book Business.” We laughed out loud. Yea…um…it’s a joke. We are only wealthy in and through our inventory. We only make money when the books sell. So…making a small fortune…it can be done but the books that could make us a fortune don’t sell very often. All around our biggest expense is our rent. And rent is what can break owners to close their storefront. We are pretty dedicated to hold out.

The really good thing for me was that I discovered I am running my store on par with those who have had a storefront for many, many years. I was able to walk away from the meeting with the confirmation that I’m doing okay with pricing and quality of books. I’m feeling the quality is increasing.

It was a great meeting and I was honored to host the first of what I hope to be many more. I should have taken a photo  of the group but like I mentioned earlier I really got caught up in our conversations, wanting to be a great hostess, and also was a tad nervous because I look up to them all and I want to be accepted as a used bookstore lady.

Here are some additonal bulleted notes that I did manage to jot down:

  • Occasionally run a zip code survey. If anything, great to see where customers come from – visitors to the area. (shades of my old profession)
  • Get off my Amazon boycott and start listing my online inventory through the website. Unfortunately that’s where most people go when looking for a book. Most online sales are generated there. (rats!)
  • Radio! A great story was told by one bookstore owner of running an ad for some time and then removing it because  no one ever mentioned it. Then several years after it had been dropped, people started coming into the store singing the ad jingle. Needless to say, he started the radio ad up again. So now I’ve got to come up with a cool jingle.
  • Store owners can have a passion for collecting books but keep it out of the store. In other words, don’t bring anything into the store you won’t sell. Once it comes into the store it has to be for sale. I have a good story on that: I wanted to buy a book in a used bookstore but the owner really didn’t want to sell it. He started quizzing me to see if I was worthy to purchase it. Yea, I walked out and went online to make the purchase. It was before I bought this store. Customers don’t like to be tested.
  • Other misc notes: jacket protectors, free box near the door, better signage, develop a VT brick & mortar used bookstore (car) trail.