Page 7 - BusinessWest March 20, 2023

“People like the community aspect of this ... meeting people, discussing books with other people. That’s what we can offer people.”
she said, and this explains why the Bookmill has been able to sur- vive and thrive over the years, and why many other stores have as well.
Indeed, she said the pandemic might have helped reinforce the importance of not only books, but bookstores as well.
“It’s a place that isn’t home and isn’t work,” she said of book- stores in general. “It’s a place where you can go and be. People come here to sit and read, they come to sit and work, students come here, professors come here to grade papers; a lot of books are written here. And that was part of the model for the Bookmill from the very beginning; it would be a place where people could come and spend time.”
Elaborating, she said that most bookstores today have other things for people to do; many have a café — the Bookmill has a small café next door, a separate operation — or another value-added proposition that makes a visit to the store an experience, or even more of an experience, as the case may be.
Buy the Book
Grenier said she has also long understood the importance of cre- ating an experience, and not just shelves with the latest titles.
That’s why Odyssey stages several events a week, ranging from book-club meetings to regular author appearances, including the “Evening with Bernie Sanders” event staged March 13, at which he talked about, and signed copies of, his new offering It’s OK to be Angry About Capitalism.
These events are ways to bring people to the store and generate interest in books and those who write them, said Grenier, adding that it has been this way pretty much from the start, and certainly since she assumed ownership from her father in the early ’90s, after the store was destroyed by arson for the second time in two years.
She remembers what he said as he was passing the torch: “I’m not sure if I’m giving you anything more than headaches, but if you want the insurance money, we can try again.”
She decided to accept that challenge, but the intention of doing it for “a little while.”
Matt Tannenbaum’s story became the subject of a highly acclaimed documentary film called Hello, Bookstore.
Staff Photo
That little while has turned into a 37-year journey that has taken the store through those myriad challenges mentioned earlier.
“There’s been a lot of change and a lot of challenge,” she said of that time, adding that the store has been reinventing itself through- out that period, and especially during the COVID years, when people couldn’t come to the store for several months and instead ordered books from the store’s website.
Much of this reinvention involves events, Grenier said, adding that they come in many varieties. There are several book clubs,
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