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MEMOIR OF A BOOKSELLER

By Nancy Tanner

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for a Degree in Writing

CREATIVE WRITING

MARCH 14, 2008

Instructor WRT 465/Thesis Advisor:

Prof. Patrick Ryan

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A B S T R A C T

This project represents an overview of my thirty years experience as a

bookseller and Founding Manager of The Book Cove in Pawling, New York.

Eventually, I plan to integrate the sections on authors, customers, etc. into a

memoir that flows without designated chapters. However, for the purpose of this

thesis project, all of Gaul is divided into its parts. The Prologue and chapter

”A Bookseller’s Beginnings,” have been strongly edited. The succeeding

chapters are partially written with cursory editing only.

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C O N T E N T S Chapter Prologue

I. A Bookseller’s Beginnings

II. Authors

III. Customers

IV. Out-Of-Print

V. Advertising

VI. Community

VII. The Future of Bookselling

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PROLOGUE

A logical beginning is what a prologue would appear to dictate. Logically,

that would present as the 1976 date I opened The Book Cove. However, I am

more illogical than logical. I find it lets me wander byways that would never

present otherwise. And so, illogically, I go back, way back to the fifties when I

was a soda jerk at a local Pawling, New York pharmacy. The importance of work

in our lives has always been a priority with me; it represents a significant amount

of the time our lives allot us, and hopefully, it tallies our creative contribution as

well.

Take this mental journey with me back to that old-time drugstore with its

beautiful marble fountain. The huge mirror above the back counter area was the

perfect canvas to highlight local hunters’ prowess. With a pen made of white

soap I recorded the weight and number of deer antlers for everyone in town to see

and compare. I so enjoyed my family of customers who sat upon swiveling stools

often reading magazines before putting them back.

There were many regulars. We had a local theatre ensemble who ambled

in every day at one p.m. for their meal of the day called the Starlight Special,

creamed cheese and bacon on toast. These actors were lovable characters with

names like Cricket Skilling and Isabel Rose. I suppose it would be logical to

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mention at this point how important names are to a bookseller. Authors names,

titles of their works, friends names, dogs names…, well, you see what happens

when I try to be logical, I just take one winding path after another.

Now I will take us to one specific counter resident. Abe Skolnick was his

name, and we called him Nick. He had the kind of face one would think a classic

sculptor would be tempted to work into a product of distinction. White hair that

had come early to his fifties-something frame. A quiet professor who listened.

Do you know how rare it is for someone to actually listen to you? Whether it was

fifty years ago or today, listening is an art. Nick was a professor of listening. He

really received the heart and soul of this teenaged soda jerk. True, there are

hairdressers of yesterday and today who have often been given the medal of

distinction for such conversational confessions, but Nick was a mental comforter

of finest down. He brought logic to the illogical.

And so, if I were to tell you, that I opened The Book Cove because of my

Professor of Listening, would you accept that as truth? I hope so, because it was

that combination of listening, serving the general public and love of books (in

reverse order), that helped me decide not to return to work at the IBM Personnel

Department after marriage and the creation of six children in ten years.

“I want to open a bookstore”, I said to John Lappas who had the capital I

needed and an available 800 sq. ft. anchor store. His newly renovated building

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housing forty-six apartments upstairs and shops below, could be perfect. John

listened and enthusiastically endorsed the possibility.

The date of opening was set for the Friday immediately following

Thanksgiving, November 26, 1976. Just like the way we fill our carts with

groceries today, at that time books were available at a wholesaler by the name of

Dimondstein in New Rochelle, New York. The temptation to buy books became

an addiction with me. Everywhere one looked at Dimondstein there were treats to

tempt the eye. It was as if I were in Tiffany’s and every gem was a book

sparkling its genre of specialty.

I have never shopped anywhere since with that same sense of joyous

option.

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I. A BOOKSELLER’S BEGINNINGS

Three decades ago, the American Booksellers Association recommended

that new booksellers who attended their school, read Parnassus On Wheels by

Christopher Morley. Morley shared many words, some wise, some I question,

including, “ Talkers never write. They go on talking” (Morley, 56). I talked for

over thirty years, and I have officially hung up my voice, and I will leave it to you

to determine if this recently retired American bookseller is a talker or a writer!

Just remember another Morley aphorism, “You can never get to Brooklyn without

going through New York.” (Morley 57)

How much is really new in the world? When I recently reread Parnassus

On Wheels there was so much in this novel that was pertinent to bookselling as I

knew it, I want to once again wear my bookselling hat and encourage you to read

the book. If you were to read it today, however, and if you are under forty, you

would probably find this book dated and its story merely that of an unappreciated

woman taking off on a journey with a book salesman.

Recently, some writing students raised the question whether youth of

today are more apathetic than we of an earlier time. Essentially, the class agreed

that the technological age is keeping us all so busy on our blackberries, ipods and

cell phone texting that creativity cannot find time to be born. Not only do we lack

time to debate “whether Tennyson was a greater poet than Walt Whitman” as did

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Christopher Morley’s character, we often don’t have time to grieve for our losses.

Perhaps that is why true discussion, the kind we used to have around the dinner

table, no longer is the norm. According to Michael Pollan, author of The

Omnivore’s Dilemma, in today’s lifestyle nineteen per cent of Americans eat

dinner in their cars. What does that lack of cross-fertilization of ideas in family

discussion do to a nation?

Our friend Morley would say,

You remember Abe Lincoln’s joke about

the dog? If you call a tail a leg, how

many legs has a dog? Five you answer.

No says Abe; because calling a tail a

leg doesn’t make it a leg. Well, there

are lots of us in the same case as that

dog’s tail. Calling us men doesn’t

make us men. No creature on earth has

a right to think himself a human being

if he doesn’t know at least one good

book (Morley 61).

Is my strident voice that of a talker or a

writer? Is there a marriage? Do we care when “the little fire” burns “blue and

cozy?”

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November 25, 1976 was a significant day in the life of this writer – it was

the day I opened The Book Cove in Pawling, New York. I was later informed

that bets were taken in the local taproom that my new bookstore wouldn’t last a

year. About a decade ago, that taproom closed. Other memories bubble to the

surface from that time of grand opening of my bookstore. As a member of the

Pawling Concert Series, and with the kind of nerve that could only have come

from being a new book store owner, I approached accomplished pianist Leon

Bates about performing at my 800 sq. foot store the weekend following my grand

opening. I rented a piano from Danbury, Connecticut, and Leon sensitively

tickled the keys while outside snowflakes danced to his music, an expensive

venture, but a true cultural happening. Six months later a customer stopped in the

store, looked around and said, “Where is your pianist?”

On the day of Grand Opening, the store was packed with customers when,

in a strident voice, a customer asked for a book on a current Broadway play.

“Everyone has it.” She insisted, “It is here.” She scanned the shelves my husband

had so painstakingly mitered in wood from an old icehouse that had fallen down

on our property. I knew it didn’t matter how many cases she scanned because I

did the ordering and with the most eclectic selection possible I still had never

heard of that book.

My mother’s words flooded me. “You don’t really know enough to run a

bookstore, do you?” I opened the bookstore because of my love for books and

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people, but suddenly my confidence was shot. A taste of disappointment lingered

with me on that criticism until one day about a year later, that customer, the wife

of a New York lawyer, returned and said, “Oh, by the way, you probably don’t

remember, but on the day you opened the store, I asked you for a book on a

Broadway show, and I later found out there was no book published on that play.”

Rule #1 in the challenging life of a bookseller: never assume all customers have

intellectually climbed the literary mountain and know all. Some have waded in

water and are crying to be heard.

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II. AUTHORS

Authors come in all shapes, sizes and dimensions, as do the books they

create. When I was twelve years old, my aunt gave me a gift of twelve classics. I

define classics as those books which endure through generations, books such as

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables, The Autobiography of

Benjamin Franklin, Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses, Henry

W. Longfellow’s Poems, and of course, Shakespeare’s Masterpieces.

So, when a person of beaming face, shining with an inner glow of joyous

expectation, appeared at my front counter, it took only a few bookselling years

before I knew what was coming next. “I have written a book, and I would like to

autograph it here. I know you do that.” “That” referred to the ambience with

which they knew I attended my autographings: advertising, cookies (I have baked

more cookies than Good Housekeeping Magazine staff). Included in that

expectation were the hundreds of people just casually waiting to buy “the book”.

I was there to encourage the writer as well as the reader. How do I walk the

nurturing tightrope when I know they await a fate not worse than death, but pretty

darned disheartening? No one except their spouse will probably come to their

autographing. That is hyperbole because: “I personally would want a few copies

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of your book for the bookstore shelf for your friends who couldn’t make it and

will surely stop by next week.”

Then, there is my ‘personal’ copy. (There was a Millbrook, New York,

doctor whose diet book made a great deal of sense to me. It was not typical. Diet

books fly off the shelves, especially after New Years.) I bought copies for my

brother, my sister and a friend, only later realizing they would think I was calling

them at the very least ‘hefty’ if I gave them their autographed copy.

Basically, I am a nurturer. I never remember turning any author away.

But, I learned to request from any beginning author a list of addresses “of all the

friends and relatives who might be interested in being notified that you have

accomplished this special book.”

On the third anniversary of The Book Cove, affable, charming Dr. M.

Scott Peck who wrote The Road Less Traveled signed at my shop. The

inscription he wrote to me on November 24, 1979, is “With gratitude for helping

me with promotion of this less traveled road, Scotty.” Dr. Peck was a practicing

psychiatrist in New Milford, Connecticut, and his father lived in the Pawling area.

I considered it a personal coup that he accepted my invitation. Later, he wrote me

a note apologizing that we didn’t sell more copies and stated his hope that I

wouldn’t be left with unsold copies because the Christmas season would soon be

upon us. People clamored for his book after The Road Less Traveled went on the

New York Times bestseller list. A 25th Anniversary Edition was published in

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2002. Dr. Peck’s book was advertised to “show you how to push back the limits

that have hemmed you in.”

Confidence seems applicable here. Confidence is defined in the current

American Heritage College Dictionary as “Trust or faith in a person or a thing.”

As a bookseller, I moved forward with faith in the authors I shared with the public

and with trust that the words in their books would provide meaning to my

customers’ lives.

Joe Famularo’s cookbooks did just that. His words meant a great deal to

the pasta lovers who never wearied of his new recipes. Joe’s retirement as

McGraw-Hill Vice-President was the catalyst to produce many award-winning

cookbooks and included a prestigious James Beard nod. Shortly after his first

book was released, I asked him to be one of three judges of a Thanksgiving

weekend pumpkin pie contest. I remember he and a local bank Vice-President,

Marilyn White, agreeing that pumpkin pies have to be ‘molasses dark’ to be truly

pumpkin pie.

I also recall Joe’s revelatory comment regarding his first book.

Delightedly he shared with me that in the Acknowledgments, he had deliberately

positioned a maid next to a highly positioned New York City socialite because he

knew how much it would displease her.

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III. CUSTOMERS

Customers who become friends are the best. Over my thirty years

at The Book Cove about a dozen customers, some individuals, some families,

qualified as “the best.” The first of these, Doris Leslie Blau, continues to support

The Book Cove today. Doris claims that The Book Cove is the reason she chose

Pawling (over Garrison) as a second home. Years ago when she came into the

shop, she brought her mother with her.

I loved her Mother. She reminded me of my Mom. They both were the

people without filters; they tell it as it is. While Doris browsed, and she’s always

been one of the fastest shoppers I know, I seated her Mom on a stool which I

brought out from behind the counter. It was because I did that, that Doris credits

me with her decision to come to Pawling from New York City on her weekends.

I never had time to sit on that stool. But, it frequently helped older people who

needed that little extra bit of support.

Others who rested awhile were the Brady sisters. “Resting awhile”

allowed conversation. I received people at The Book Cove. They knew I valued

their stopping by. It was while the Brady sisters stopped by, in the 1980’s, that I

learned their father was a former Governor of Alaska. Those sisters, Mary and

Betty, were among the most informed and charming people to visit with. Later,

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after their passing, their niece, Leslie Roesch and her husband became good

customers, and we were often able to reminisce about the Brady sisters.

Eventually, the Roesch’s daughter-in-law became a customer, and so it goes. I

watched not only my family, but many other reading customer families evolve.

I had a phone customer whom I will value always. She was not my best

customer in terms of sales, but she certainly knew literature, and I knew she

needed conversation. Every so often Mrs. Montgomery would call and chat, and

chat, and chat. She was always gracious when she called and obviously lonely.

My son’s birthday is the day after Christmas and that was Mrs. Montgomery’s as

well. I made her a cake and called her about 5 p.m., thinking I would ask her if I

could stop by with the cake. She answered that her daughter Elizabeth had sent

her a Smithfield ham, caviar and other delightful goodies and she would be

having a celebration with her family soon. I never mentioned the cake. Many

years later, I learned from her niece Panda, that in all probability she was not

joined by family that birthday. Mrs. Montgomery’s husband was Robert

Montgomery, and her daughter was the Elizabeth Montgomery we all recall in

“Bewitched” T.V. episodes. Panda and Pete Coley continue to support The Book

Cove today, and I consider them true friends.

Every once in a while, Erin Moriarty, a CBS correspondent who

infrequently finds her way to her Pawling home, sets up a CBS-TV piece at The

Book Cove. A few years ago, a book by Rhonda Byrne called The Secret was

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released. Erin called me to coordinate interviews with Norman Vincent Peale’s

daughters, Liz and Margaret, as well as for me to contact six people to come to

The Book Cove for a taping, which did later appear on the Sunday Morning

Osgood show. All was arranged.

In all those bookstore years, that was the only day I ever had two distinct

headaches in one day.

In a nutshell, I had attempted to do a bit of community nurturing, and

asked the Mayor, and some other interested customers to attend. I knew I was in

trouble when Mary, the producer, called me to ask what decade each of my

participants was born in. I was told to eliminate one participant and select

another. No easy feat since I had previously assured the person they would be on

TV. It was obvious while CBS filmed that they would have appreciated my

turning off the local train going through town as well as the noise from one of the

forty-six apartments above. It was also obvious that my nurturing selection had

gone awry, for when the piece was aired, nothing the Mayor said was included.

Prior to The Book Cove portion of the film, The Power of Positive

Thinking representatives, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale’s daughters, Elizabeth and

Margaret, conducted amazing interviews, which was no surprise to me. Dr.

Peale’s daughter Liz Allen and her husband John (deceased) have always been

strong supporters of the community as well as The Book Cove, and their children

continue that tradition.

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There are many personal conversations in a small bookshop. I am

reminded of a bit of advice that Liz Peale Allen once gave me. When one of her

daughters was in college, she was overwhelmed as we all are at peak exam times.

As I recall it, Katie called her Mom exhibiting great distress. She was getting

little sleep, had many class assignments left to tackle and literally didn’t know

what to do next. Also, her dorm room was in terrible shape. “Did you tell her to

take a nap, Liz?” I queried. “No. I told her to clean her room and then go to

class,” Liz answered; because, if she did that, she would feel much less weary

when she returned to her room after class. That advice helped me personally

many times. Cleaning is one of the best physical exercises I know to defuse all

kinds of the traumatic scenarios life tosses us.

Dr. Peale’s other daughter, Margaret, and husband Paul Everett are

known for their hours of dedication to the Historical Society of Quaker Hill and

Pawling. Paul’s book The Prisoner is now being used to assist with the spiritual

rehabilitation of prisoners throughout our country.

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IV. OUT OF PRINT

It was so much more fun having an 800 sq. ft. bookstore than the current

2200 sq. ft. into which it has evolved. My little store with its huge, tall but quite

narrow window provided the only visible advertising potential. For years, every

Thanksgiving, after dinner, my entire family with aunts and uncles would troop to

the store and decorate the window for the Christmas season. If it started to snow,

we still admired our handiwork from every angle before returning home for

pumpkin pie and other desserts.

I named The Book Cove after a little bookstore in Perkins Cove,

Ogunquit, Maine. That tiny store looked out on the ocean, carried new and out-

of-print books, and boasted a chess set and inviting chairs. There were a number

of coves in my original Cove, different rooms for a variety of genres.

I placed cookbooks near the front door visible upon entering. For this, I

was reprimanded by an enterprising young man who had opened a bookstore in

Danbury, Connecticut. “You should have your new hardcover fiction there.” I

remarked that I knew a number of people who didn’t read fiction, but I didn’t

know anyone who didn’t eat, and I simply wanted my clientele to feel

comfortable in my bookshop. My first clue that he would be out-of-business

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within five years was that he had time to stop in my little shop some thirty miles

distant from his, and the second, of course, was his ‘know-it-all’ attitude.

I loved the furthest back cove. It housed the out-of-print books not of fine

quality, just odds and ends of literature. My husband , Don (deceased), was an

electrical contractor. I helped with his billing, and one particularly non-

responsive customer never did pay his bill with us despite my husband’s excellent

business reputation. I was thrilled when someone said they were cleaning out that

man’s house following his death, and he had many books which I could have.

Those books were on philosophy, my favorite study, and some remained in the

store, but many are still my best friends at home today. Apparently, our non-

responsive electrical customer was a professor of philosophy somewhere in

Brooklyn, New York. My daughter and her husband are English literature

professors, and I am appalled at how little our educators are paid. So, a little

book bartering (albeit retroactively) was fine with me.

One attractive client, the second Mrs. Lowell Thomas (he a famous

broadcaster) would stop by my shop when she was having a dinner party. She

would spend a long-time browsing that out-of-print back room and then bring her

precious finds to me for tissue wrapping. If she was hosting the wife of Gen.

Douglas McArthur, she would perhaps find a book on entertaining military style

at the time of Abigail Adams. Or if one of the guests was a highly placed

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financier, she might select a basic arithmetic primer. Those personally selected

book favors have always resonated with me as the best of all possible gift-giving.

For me, the out-of-print book area has always been the most personally

rewarding bookselling. When someone mines a book they have been looking for

since their childhood or discovers a source never seen before to further a research

direction, their joy radiates from the depths of the soul. And, whenever joy

shines, we mirror it.

That out-of-print area offered paperbacks for twenty-five cents and

hardcovers for a $1.00. They weren’t organized; I simply didn’t have time. Some

were in boxes, the better to unearth, some were in bags as people brought them in

and exchanged them for others. It was an even-steven kind of exchange; I always

felt that people’s generosity should be trusted and never undermined. Perhaps

that’s why I have such a hard time today with the bottom-line business

bookselling has become. And it’s certainly not just bookselling that has lost the

art of personal respect: other businesses such as pharmacies are closing when the

big box store shadows finally engulf them. Is bigger better? I have a friend

working for a recognizable book chain, and she bemoans the same lack of time

for personal service I have noticed.

A February, 2008 Wall Street Journal article emphasizes Macy’s decision

to return to local emphasis as opposed to national. That strikes me as a return in

the right direction.

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Approximately twenty years after opening The Book Cove, I was

approached by a bookstore owner some fifteen miles away. He claimed to have

all the answers as a result of operating his book store for a number of years. His

intuition was that if he could order for one store, he could maximize his profits if

he owned my store and duplicated his ordering. The lesson he learned, because I

did sell to him, was that my local clientele’s needs were totally different from his,

despite the location proximity. Hank Jones was a fine business man who

eventually sold his business and mine, and I continued to manage the store even

after the second sale. I learned a great deal from Hank, and I’m sure he learned

that multiplication does not necessarily create capital and actually, shifts to

boondoggle.

The current owner, Charles Werner, is a book store angel. He recognizes

the benefit of a local bookstore in a rapidly growing community and leaves the

operation of the store to the Manager which was a great blessing to me until my

retirement.

I built the book store business on special orders. Even though the Barnes

& Nobles of the world offer a smorgasbord of stock, I have been told by their

employees that they must order titles in quantity rather than depth and breadth of

stock. People mentioned again and again the variety of The Book Cove stock.

That was due to two things: my eclectic personality and my ordering from any

publisher no matter how small if I thought their offerings were inviting.

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Publishers’ discounts varied from zero to an average of forty per cent. The bigger

stores ordering huge quantities naturally got an even better discount. In any

event, ordering in the first two decades was assisted by a practice called STOP,

the single title ordering plan.

That meant I could order any book in print and be assured of a fairly good

discount. It was a cumbersome system that meant with each written order I had to

include a blank check because one never knew what discount one would receive

for a single book shipment. Imagine the bookkeeping involved. Always in the

back of my mind was the Bookseller School admonition, never, ever, be

overdrawn in the book business for no publisher would serve you in the future. I

remember other Bookseller School advice as well, “Never sell out of an empty

wagon.” So, I ordered and ordered and my special ordering fulfillment became

known. Today, the STOP plan has gone to bookselling heaven and more and

more booksellers go to the internet to fill those unique book store requests. This

presents another financial dilemma. Ordering approximately three titles from

Amazon results in free shipping, otherwise, the discount is often not even as good

as the old STOP plan. It will be interesting to see how the American Booksellers

Association addresses that in the future.

I never got over opening boxes of new stock each day. People always

asked, “When do you get your shipments?” I chalked that up with “I’ve always

wanted to own a bookstore. I’ll bet you get to read a lot here.” I did get to ‘taste’

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a lot during the workday because each of those special orders were on subjects as

varied as the freckles on my face! I ordered any and all requests. In later years,

however, the only book I refused to order was The Anarchist’s Cookbook. We

have enough bomb building in today’s global scene. Besides, as Christopher

Morley reports in his book The Haunted Bookshop, “Living in a bookshop is like

living in a warehouse of explosives. Those shelves are ranked with the most

furious combustibles in the world – the brains of men.”

One of the most important book store contacts is the UPS delivery person.

For nearly all the years I was in business, I could count on Vern Dwy. In addition

to hundreds of publisher contacts, I also dealt with two or three distributors,

primarily Ingram and Baker & Taylor. Vern was accurate beyond measure. Any

boxes he delivered were never lost. On the rare days he was not at work, delivery

times were often reversed and this bookseller would have to explain, “Sorry,

Vern’s off today. Your order will surely be here later.” Hundreds of businesses

deal with delivery people, and overall UPS is outstanding.

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V. ADVERTISING

Christopher Morley’s sequel to Parnassus on Wheels, The Haunted

Bookshop, devotes a number of words to ‘advertising’. There are those in

bookselling and other trades who see advertising as an unnecessary expense. I

learned from the best. A few years after I opened The Book Cove, a gift shop

opened down the street. That New York City couple, Allyn and Richard French,

had lived in Manhattan and moved to the country where they rode the train to

their jobs for a while, but then moved to the Pawling locale. Allyn had been a

Faberge marketing director, and as I watched and actually waited for her ‘ads’ in

the local paper, I knew why. Each week in as small a space as possible, Allyn’s

‘ads’ enticed us all. They were usually one-liners, often written in script font,

such as “For Mother…With Love on May 13th”.

When Morley’s Haunted Bookshop character Mifflin is visited by Mr.

Gilbert who wants to sell him advertising, Mifflin responds, “My dear chap, I

understand the value of advertising. But in my own case it would be futile. I am

not a dealer in merchandise but a specialist in adjusting the book to the human

need.” And, “In these days when everyone keeps his trademark before the public,

as you call it, not to advertise is the most original and startling thing one can do to

attract attention… There is no one so grateful as the man to whom you have

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given just the book his soul needed and he never knew it. No advertisement on

earth is as potent as a grateful customer.”

I believe in word of mouth advertising and also consider it the best

advertising, for few people ignore a personal recommendation. They know when

they next bump into that person they will be asked how their recommendation

appealed. I understand the expense when advertising is included as part of a

small business budget. But whether one devotes ten or even fifteen per cent of a

business budget to advertising, it results in communicating the idea of a book to

fulfill a personal need.

There are other ways to advertise and just as Morley’s character Mifflin

concludes his discussion with advertising representative Mr. Gilbert by inviting

him to “stay and have supper with me,” the bookstore owner can initiate publicity

that subtly offers books emphasis. Author signings, poetry readings and the such

are typically thought of as ways to capture the reading public’s interest.

Another way occurred to me when I heard my realtor son having a

discussion with Ed Grippe at a Fourth of July summer party I always hold. Dr.

Grippe teaches philosophy and religion at a local Connecticut college. As I

served them appetizers and tasted a bit of their business ethics discussion, I

thought, “Why not have an ethics discussion group meet at The Book Cove?”

That was the forerunner of years of ethics discussions on topics that ranged from

“The Wisdom of Doubt in the Age of Certainty” to “What Is Holiness?” There

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were usually more than a dozen people at these discussions of approximately an

hour and a half on Friday nights around a large table. When discussion turned

tense, I served cookies.

People attended such as Max, over ninety, but sharp as the proverbial tack

and with well-honed ethics. Max was short, balding, and shared an expansive,

embracing smile which camouflaged the most amazing intellect and insight.

When the discussion started to fall over a cliff into the abyss of the ridiculous,

Max could always be counted on to pull us all back onto the ship of righteousness.

When Max was sixteen, there was no room for him at his father’s

Brooklyn abode. Thrust out into the night, he walked from Brooklyn into the

center of Manhattan, eventually developing a love for music and qualifications

that stayed with him all his life. My respect for Max Weaner as one of the

personalities most influential in my life continues always. If only I could mirror

his ethics!

Mrs. Scerebini was another ethics discussion participant who never

missed a Friday night discussion. Whatever the topic, she came prepared with her

yellow pad full of research notes. She was previously a health care professional.

We often played musical chairs with her because her hearing could never quite

adjust itself to whoever was speaking. Always, her slow, deliberate analysis of

the moment, her notes and personal analysis, caused us to reflect and digest the

subject matter. She never failed to remind me of a much earlier ‘soda jerk’ time

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when she and her husband came to that old-time pharmacy marble fountain at

closing time, and I was obviously anxious to leave. That lesson stayed with me as

I operated The Book Cove, and I prayerfully hope I was never guilty of such a

hasty retreat again.

Dr. Grippe always came prepared to lead us astray and back again to

consensus on whatever topic we chose for the evening. Frequently, people

waiting for dinner reservations at our locally esteemed restaurant McKinney &

Doyle would browse in proximity of our discussion table. Many times as I closed

the door behind them, they confided they couldn’t help ‘eavesdropping’, and

asked if they could join us at a future date. Although always encouraged to do so,

to my knowledge none actually returned to the discussion group but did return to

browse. I like to feel that they left associating The Book Cove with the kind of

philosophic discussions that we perhaps assume were held many years ago at The

Olde Bookshop in Boston with authors and interested folk.

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IV. COMMUNITY

The first definition of community as given by The American Heritage

Dictionary is: A group of people living in the same locality and under the same

government. In Pawling, the most diverse interests are represented by our

people. I rarely saw in my bookstore any of the people I attended the local

schools with. I saw as eclectic a selection of personalities as my books. On a

Friday night, Silvana Mangano (actress and first wife of Dino De Laurentiis)

entered my Arch Street shop in her luxurious floor length sable coat.

That very same day, I probably saw Juno. An 8” piece of naively painted

wood floods me with memories. It was painted by a Dresden doll type child by

the name of Angel. Surreal is probably the best way to describe Angel’s Mom.

Like realms of light that suddenly appear in the sky, ethereal, mesmerizing,

discordant Juno would enter The Book Cove with a smiling sweetness offset by a

constantly blinking eye.

Juno, a former Hollywood actress, appeared to have all the time in the

world and will always be one of the sweetest, most sincere people I will ever

know. After she and baby Angel conversed with me, at length, she would

nonchalantly amble back to the children’s cove which housed a card paper house

that children now grown still affectionately refer to. She would take baby Angel,

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now two, now three, now eight inside that house, position themselves on the floor

and breastfeed. Today, it will be hard to imagine any discomfort over this, but at

that time, a couple of decades ago, I walked an emotional tightrope lest

customers be at the very least startled and quite possibly offended upon entering

the children’s cove. Eventually, a second child was similarly, lovingly handled.

Juno had a brilliant mind; that was obvious. She was often, quite simply,

in another universe. I learned that she had had the most amazing future as an

actress, and gone abroad with a Director (who apparently was Angel’s father).

Eventually she returned to the U.S. after drugs had pierced her psyche, causing a

kind of stutter and a pronounced twitch in one eye. Juno’s mother lived in nearby

Westchester.

I saw one of Juno’s movies, pre-drugs; she was an outstanding actress.

Also, there was no Mother who was more loving to her children, or mine.

Eventually, maybe a dozen years later, Juno moved back to California. The last I

knew, she was a practicing channeler.

Paul D. Travers was the most fascinating, brilliant and helpful person to

ever walk through The Book Cove portals. Initially, he approached me with a

poetry special order. In that conversation, I recognized a kindred literary spirit,

but I did not recognize how important Paul was to become to The Book Cove or

my family before he went on to his heavenly reward in 1991.

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After retiring as Director of New York State’s Division of Parole with five

secretaries who assisted him daily, he suffered two heart attacks. I couldn’t afford

to hire anyone; eventually, Paul brought me so many orders and was in the

bookshop so much, that I would often find myself turning to him for the literary

expertise he had acquired through his lifetime. He was one class in German short

of a PhD. in philosophy. Eventually, it became very upsetting to me when new

customers would brush by Paul, requesting me, when he was the one who I knew

deserved their respect. Paul was dedicated and totally unselfish. Eventually, he

showed up to work, free of charge, six days a week and became a loving

Grandfather to each of my six children. The few days of vacation my husband

and I and our children took, were with the compliments of Paul Travers. I

attempted to reciprocate with suggestions for occasional trips. On one occasion I

drove Paul and his wife Eleanor to the train station in Poughkeepsie, New York to

connect them with a train trip across Canada eventually winding up at Lake

Louise.

Paul was short and robust in stature, with a wit that helped put my

incredibly busy life in perspective as well as many of my customers. He always

maintained that he had no more heart attacks after looking forward to coming to

The Book Cove each day. He would come in early, around 8 a.m. and leave

about 3 p.m. On that last Saturday, I waved him off in response to not only the

cheeriest of smiles, but his leprechaun-like lilt on the sidewalk.

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Paul loved to write. Each and every day, he wrote in his journal,

philosophic musings, both political and nature oriented, as well as poetry, and

often gave me copies. Following his death, it was a labor of love for me to create

small, hand-sewn volumes of his poetry and distribute them to his family and

friends. I concluded the first volume with his words that follow:

He kept tuppence in his pocket

To put upon his eyes,

Lest they bury him as a pauper

When he really owned the skies.

And all the lovely flowers

That grew along the way

They shared with him their beauty

And brightened up his day.

He died one day

As he walked along

His eyes alert and seeing,

And in his heart a song.

Now his song is silent

There is stillness everywhere,

But where he used to walk

There is music in the air.

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Weep not for his passing

He was the richest man I knew

The rosy grain of dawn was his

As was the morning dew.

Paul’s death occurred a little more than a year after my husband’s. Recently in a

class on Human Interest Writing, the professor asked we students to write on

something “we had recovered from.” I remember thinking that there is so much

recovery in a life lived three-quarters of a century that there was no way I could

dive into such moments of trauma in my life. Instead, I wrote something from

humanity’s generic bridge; I chose not to dive into those too personal waters.

Human Interest writing has always been my favorite writing. For over a

year, some 20 years ago, I wrote stories on local citizens for the Pawling News

Chronicle. One young woman who worked in the A.G. Market, Elaine Smith,

presented me with a bright red notebook full of my stories because she said she

enjoyed finding out things about the people in our community.

My column was called, “Echoes From The Book Cove”. I loved that

writing. You see., I knew what kind of a writer I was. When I had four children

under the age of 3 ½, I had a need to fulfill that personal urge to write that was

always tickling the coves of my mind. I remember reading Redbook Magazine

savoring its articles and fiction. I had very little time; but, those brief moments

with a magazine were my salvation. Ultimately, I decided to get out the

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typewriter and accomplish something. I submitted my short story called “Seashell

Hopscotch” to a Writer’s Digest national contest. I wondered and waited and

thought maybe I’d be number 3? I didn’t hopscotch enough. I was a very

disappointed number 32. The following year, I said, “ o.k.” (I talk to myself even

more these days), I will attempt non-fiction. I researched the Open Classroom

like it’s never been done. I visited open classrooms (Was I also hoping they

would accept some of my kids?); I read everything I could and sent in my

perfectly finished manuscript. I waited and waited. You guessed it. I was

awarded and this time accepted my fate, Number 32.

These days I take Human Interest writing to find out what I’ve been doing

wrong all these years. Actually, I’ve learned a lot. Maybe I’ll try Writer’s Digest

again if they still have contests?

The Human Interest story which I most enjoyed writing, relates to Peggy

McKearney. Peggy had a degree in music from The New England Conservatory

of Music, Boston. I wrote, “Peggy McKearney sings all kinds of music –from

blue to Sesame Street but its to whom she sings that makes all the difference.

Peggy sings to life – she sings to its hope, its frustration, to its joy and especially

to its loneliness; she picks it up and tosses it around like a skillful juggler

balancing a ball of emotion. She bounces that ball as high as you can feel and as

low as you’ve ever touched.”

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Peggy performed at The Book Cove. By now you’ve gotten the picture.

One fine artist by the name of Lorna B. Halper, a neat lady, gave me a very heavy

bronze pig with a huge number of piglets sucking away because she considered

me a nurturer. I guess I am. Reading covers all arts. I just wanted to keep that

arts emphasis alive at The Book Cove so that the literature I was selling didn’t

slip too far from its cultural roots.

Peggy performed at other local places as well. Wherever she entertained,

when my husband Don and I entered, she would break into “And I Love You So”,

a Tanner favorite. It was her invitation to accompany her to the Bedford Hills

Correctional Institute that caught my attention. It was a tentative situation for a

while. Walking through that security and being locked in was not at all like going

through airport security today. I had a definite feeling of, “What have I gotten

myself into, and will I be able to get out?.” It took a long time for the inmates to

file in. “Quickly capturing their attention…Peggy sang, “There’s Going to be the

Devil in Someone Else’s Arms Tonight.” Subsequently a note was delivered to

Peggy saying there was an inmate by the name of Audrey who sang “real well.” ,

Peggy called her forward …and played the accompaniment while Audrey sang

“Ebb Tide.” As “beads of perspiration rolled down Audrey’s dark face, slowly,

professionally, she clung to the microphone, stroking each word, flaunting its

emphasis – like a shore knowing the inevitability of the teasing tide but enduring

for the last glimpse of glory. Thunderous clapping greeting the conclusion, amid

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the spontaneous laughter that evaporates as soon as it is created when human

beings react with childlike pleasure to another person’s simply being. (Later, we

learned Audrey was in prison…for robbery because in her words, “Someone

robbed my momma, so I robbed him.”)

A few years ago a talented children’s book author, Helen Lester (of Tacky

books fame) and her husband Robin, (who always brought The Book Cove

spring’s first daffodils) told me they were going to the Bedford Hills Correctional

Institute to work with the women there in their literary education. I’m sure I

nurtured their enthusiasm, but there was no question that I didn’t volunteer to

accompany them.

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VII. THE FUTURE OF BOOKSELLING

When Carl Dill, owner of four hardware businesses within perhaps fifty

miles, asked me to arrange to have James Earl Jones sign books at his Beacon,

New York store some 30 miles distant, I knew I was no longer riding Morley’s

Parnassus On Wheels. I was in a different bookselling van. It was the 90’s.

Autograph in a hardware store? I would have arranged an autographing tea party

on top of Rockefeller Plaza for both Mr. Jones and Mr. Dill. But, it was precisely

then I knew bookselling was taking a cultural turn. I also recognized that

bookselling was a labor of love for me and many other booksellers. Author

signings anywhere always benefited authors and publishers while adding hours to

the booksellers’ already demanding schedules.

As I reflect on author signings and scheduling, I think about the northeast

weather. Heavy snow frequently blocked my store entrance. I shoveled, as did

every one of my small business neighbors. I think about carrying heavy boxes of

books to local schools autographings and sometimes returning with many unsold.

I think about the piano requested by author and musician Christopher Cerf and his

co-author, and the amount of time our local piano tuner Chris Farrell put in to

getting it set up and properly tuned, only to have that author state that there

weren’t enough people present for him to play. (Probably only a dozen.)

37

I think about a recent Book Cove autographing. One client whispered, “I

miss your punch.” Actually, the bottles of water being served were much better

for health, and my raspberry sherbet and gingerale tally over 30 years cost

considerably more than water. Kudos to the new Manager.

A March, 2008 publication, Greenwich Time (Greenwich, Connecticut),

sums up the vision close to what I originally targeted. “When Jenny Lawton

purchased Just Books, Too, and Arcadia Coffee Co., she wanted them to be places

where the community could come together, share stories, meet authors, read

books and enjoy a cappuccino... Although they have become just that, financial

pressure and personal concerns have forced Lawton to put both businesses up for

sale. “I’m in an impossible financial situation right now,” Lawton said. “I’m just

not able to continue to subsidize the businesses any longer.” This in spite of the

fact that Greenwich, Connecticut is a community with one of the highest

standards of living in the U.S.

My daughter Beth lives there and loves the “Just Books, Too” store. Past

autographings there included Stephen King and Frank McCourt. Lawton

entertained the idea of running the store with a non-profit organization but

apparently found “that too, had its drawbacks,” proposing, “Investors interested in

keeping this community asset appear to be the best solution.” All communities

need book store Angels like Pawling’s Chuck Werner.

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In today’s culture one’s attempt to operate an independent bookstore on

too tight a budget can scatter the customer base. Accessory items such as greeting

cards (an important addition), music and other non-book items such as socks, add

some monetary support, but never enough to compete with the big box stores.

Quoting The New York Times, “More people are bypassing bookstores and

buying at mass-market merchants, online retailers and specialty stores, says

Albert N. Greco, a marketing professor at Fordham University’s Graduate School

of Business Administration.”

At The Book Cove, approximately a decade ago, we added a separate

Antiques operation. That area is staffed by nine individual dealers who pay The

Book Cove a portion of rent and utilities. They keep separate accounts of income

and taxes and therefore don’t automatically accept credit cards as do most

businesses today. They have each become personal friends, but integrating that

business, apportioning individual space, etc. was no easy task because some

spaces are more inviting and there are a limited number of prominent retail

spaces.

That brings to mind the evening of the torrential rains that created a flood

throughout the store. I prevailed upon Taren, my son, and he created an ingenious

siphoning device that conquered the immediate threat, but still left a soggy

residue everywhere. Because I recognize that I am not only not logical, but in

39

fact am the least mechanically inclined person ever created, I was often forced to

call upon my sons.

Art was displayed above the books from the early months of opening of

The Book Cove. At one point two clients wanted the same painting of peaches.

Those clients, both women, each claimed the red dot marking the sale was theirs.

I couldn’t split the painting and give two peaches each, although at one

contentious moment, it seemed the only viable alternative. The artist, Peter

Colvin was not only one of the most revered painters in our community at that

time; he was also the local postman. He was a graduate of Cooper Union and his

original oils were highly collectible; his talent akin to the Old Masters. Peter

promised to paint a second peach “just like the first.” Of course, it turned out to

be more contemporary than renaissance-like, but as always, he charmed the

customer, and they purchased it.

The art above the books was one of the more successful ways to create

profit. It didn’t have to be divided among the publisher, wholesaler and the

bookstore. We had a 50-50 financial arrangement with the paintings selling for

much more than a book.

Eventually, my sons balked. They would hang no more art. This was

certainly not just a physical resignation. It surely had to do with the artist’s

modus operandi. Some measured distance between paintings in precise

centimeters, others liked them in line at the top, others, a balanced bottom look. I

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continued to pull out the ladder and the little sticky numbers identifying the

subject matter of the paintings all through my bookselling years and held many

opening receptions as well. I was motivated by the fact I was nurturing local

artists, bringing people in to see the changing shows, and glory be, enhancing my

profit margin.

Years ago, American booksellers were told they made more decisions in a

day than many people did in a year. A decade ago I was constantly judging new

book content for its potential for my customer base. A March, 2008 New York

Times Sunday feature Article titled, “Book Lovers Ask, What’s Seattle’s Secret?”

states, “For its part, Costco offers a relatively small, hand-picked selection to its

millions of cardholders. On the book tables in the middle of its 383 warehouses

nationwide are just 250 titles. When a title makes it to Costco, however, it

generally sells in vast quantities.” Contrast that miniscule hand-picked selection

with the thousands of titles I handpicked for my small book store and the

arithmetic is obvious. There is no way I could compete with Costco’s distribution

potential.

As I made book-buying decisions, I asked myself questions like what

percentage of my clients were interested in land use and how many would

purchase a new book on game cooking. That response depended on how much

local discussion was currently ongoing regarding sustainable land planning and

how much pheasant hunting was pursued that year. Then I attempted to balance

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that small percentage of specialized genres with the much larger percentage of

across-the-board generalized need in both fiction and non-fiction. The previously

mentioned New York Times article reveals that Amazon editors “can…create a

level of national excitement for previously unknown books and help propel them

to the best-seller lists. “A buyer of Harry Potter” books might receive a

recommendation to read A Wrinkle in Time or The Golden Compass. These

suggestions become the virtual bookstore employee who “hand sells” or

recommends a book to customers, based on what they have already read. The

connected books can rack up robust sales.” Any qualified bookseller knows that.

Amazon runs with a suitcase of our secrets.

A 2008 Bookselling This Week publication of The American Booksellers

Association, stated that ABA staff “joined representatives of the Retail Council of

New York in Albany, where they met with key legislators” urging them “to

include in the final budget the Internet Sales Tax provision, which would enforce

existing sales tax laws by requiring out-of-state retailers like Amazon.com to

collect and remit sales tax on sales made to New York residents.” Four times a

year I tallied sales tax figures and sent a check. It seems only fair that the

Amazon’s of the world fulfill the governmental regulations required of all U.S.

independent booksellers.

I always found the ABA more than responsive to my bookselling needs.

The political clout they provide from the reasonable dues each book store is

42

charged to be a member, was not only fair, but tremendously supportive. Their

website BookWeb.org provides booksellers “with information about Local First

Initiatives, free expression and e-fairness issues and more.”

ABA’s once a year Book Expo was their greatest contribution in my

opinion. It is there that booksellers come together from their individual islands of

decision making and uniquely varied customer base, to compare lives and cast

their eyes on the cream of the crop of authors and publications which they hand

sell daily.

Many a bookseller stands in long lines awaiting a top-selling author in

order to get that author’s signature on a book which they can then take home to

surprise a good customer panting for this new hot-off-the press book. There

aren’t too many clients who would then go to another bookstore for that author’s

next title. Time spent in such autographing lines also creates autographed copies

of books that can be used as highly prized awards for in-store book functions.

My most positive experiences were with authors Jim Davis (Garfield),

Tim O’Brien and Robert Parker. Why? They obviously respected The American

Bookseller. The only negative experience I recall was a popular political TV

author. He just couldn’t take the time to look up as he scribbled his name like an

automaton.

Author breakfasts, for which we booksellers paid a reasonable fee, were a

delight for me. Each table had compatriots with whom to compare notes, people

43

who understood the trials and tribulations encountered in your individual

business. On one occasion, I was seated next to an editor of The American

Bookseller magazine. She was thinking about eliminating a portion of the ABA’s

convention magazine section and wanted to know if I thought it had benefit. I

pulled out my magazine, with that tremendously helpful section all marked.

Obviously pleased with the immediate positive feedback, she was affirmed

because someone had ‘listened’ to the verbal call she had cast out to bookseller

seas.

Several authors spoke at each such breakfast. Many moons ago, Stephen

King, spoke about the fact that his father left home when Stephen was around

five years of age, and his Mother read both he and his brother to sleep with Dr.

Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He promised that when he grew up, he would

write scarier stories, and we all know that track record today. The best author

speaker I ever heard at an ABA convention was Pat Conroy. We booksellers have

read a lot of stories, but Pat could take us on a roller coaster of emotion that

touched me personally and professionally like no other speaker. One cried one

minute and laughed the next. For me, he provided a reason to be born.

What is the future of the independent bookstore and book selling?

In an October, 2007 publication of BOOKSMITH, a San Francisco,

California independent bookstore created in 1976, mention was made that “Over

the past five years the number of new bookstores has declined from 5000 to under

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2000 in the U.S. leading many people to question the future of independent

bookselling.”

A recent seminar at Western Connecticut State University, Danbury,

Connecticut, attempted to identify ways to improve student performance and

aptitude for college. The possibility of heightened collaborative business and

school relationships was suggested.

Max Weber pops on my mental canvas. Because Max is an accomplished,

fervent reader and The Book Cove is locally convenient to him, Max could come

to me as he did when he was perhaps twelve, and say, “Mrs. Tanner, there’s

nothing for we kids who aren’t jocks to do.” I suggested to Max that we start a

reading club for young adults. He thought he could find friends who could attend.

Mea culpa; It took me three years to get that off the ground, advertised and with

participants. By then, Max was taller than I am and had moved on to other

reading adventures. The children who attended that first meeting named

themselves “Bookies.” I eventually got them caps boasting that name. After a

while, their younger sisters and brothers wanted their club and they called

themselves “Bookends. Today, Max Weber is finishing high school and couldn’t

be prouder of any job in the world for he loves working at The Book Cove.

That example of a collaborative business and student relationship is truly

the hope for books and meaningful literary discussion in the future.

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That can only happen when students feel comfortable about expressing their need

and we in business adapt to that need. That also means accessible independent

bookstores where one’s young adult or primary school interest can be explored

and valued.

Many know I have said that if I could leave but one word as a legacy for

my six children and seven grandchildren that word would be “reach.”

Independent bookstores allow our young people to reach to their heart’s content.

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WORKS CITED

Everett, Paul. The Prisoner. New York. Paulist Press, 2005

Morley, Christopher. The Haunted Bookshop. New York: J. B.

Lippincott Co., 1955.

Morley, Christopher. Parnassus On Wheels. New York: Grosset &

Dunlap, 1917.

Peale, Norman Vincent, Dr. The Power of Positive Thinking. New York:

Prentice Hall, 1952.

Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore’s Dilemma. New York: Penguin Books

2006.

American Heritage College Dictionary, 4th Edition. Massachusetts:

Houghton Mifflin Co., 2004.

Bick, Julie. “Book Lovers Ask, What’s Seattle’s Secret?” Sunday New

York Times 9 Mar 2008.

O’Connell, Vanessa. “Macy’s Plans Local Emphasis.” Wall Street

Journal 7 Feb. 2008.

“Acquisition of the Booksmith Complete Literary Entrepreneurs Aim to

Create the Independent Bookstore for the 21st Century”. 23 Oct 2007. The

Booksmith Your Neighborhood Bookstore in Cyberspace.

<http://www.booksmith.com/newsarchive/10-23-07news.html,

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Greenwich Time. “Owner Selling Beloved Book Store”. 19 Mar 2008.

<http://www.greenwichtime.com