Inside on of the lone reaming used bookstores; what makes them special
You can look up when the first bookstore opened, but you can't look up when the first used book store opened. Google can find a lot, but it can’t find that. A search turns up pages and pages of websites selling used history books. No matter how you word the question there is nothing, no matter what browser, including the library. They are so full of history but somehow at the same time, they lack one. They are a mystery, a place with no collective origin like a Barnes & Noble does. It is as if they have been around forever. And they will be around forever, long after we are gone. Maybe not the stores themselves, but at least the books. All around the world there will always be used books. This is not a story about Riverby books, which is my favorite bookstore. This is a story about the books in Riverby books.
Riverby is a bookstore in downtown Fredericksburg. On the outside, it looks like the rest of the stores in downtown. It could just as easily be a boutique instead of a bookstore. As the surround stores flip their signs from open to closed and the doors slowly creak shut, locking them with a flip of the finger, a golden flag wisps in the breeze reading “open late.”
Still outside, there is a lone cart full of discarded books. I place my hand on it’s splintering red wood, then rub the spines of the books laying out on the tattered shelf that sit lonesome on the sidewalk. Despite not being in the store yet I feel transported.
When I step onto the old checkered floor, I feel like I just entered somewhere special. Historic. Not historic because of the building, but because of what is in the building. The books. They make the everything seem new, even though they are used. When I walk into the creaky old store, I don’t immediately notice the young woman sitting at the counter fumbling around on the computer or even the indescribable smell of used books. I see the books, wall to wall. Stacked on the floor, covering the stairs. Laying on red and yellow shelfs, some appearing to defy gravity.
My eyes can't help but widen because I want to see every book, read every book. When I walk into a used bookstore it is like time slows down. I slow down. My pace becomes sluggish and my feet drag along behind me. I will wander around the store for hours because my eyes have taken over. Because my eyes want to see every rip, every fold, every coffee stain, every little note, everything. My eyes are curious for not only the stories in the books but the stories of who owned the books. And I like to believe everyone else is too, but I may be wrong. Either way Riverby Bookstore is special to the people of Fredericksburg.
I love used bookstore because they are like an escape. Any time my life isn't going my way I can always find an oasis in a book. It’s comforting to know that maybe out there in the vast maze of books someone read a book to escape too. Used bookstores make me feel less alone.
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My favorite part of a used book store is the stories within a story. On the second floor of Riverby sitting on a red, almost orange shelf is a tattered copy of Gone With the Wind. The inside pages are stained with mildew. As if it’s previous reader was so focused on the way the words are woven together they forgot they were walking in a downpour of rain. Later when the pages dried up sprinkles of watermarks stained the pages and grew darker and darker as the pages yellowed and the reader grew and forgot about the day they walked out in the rain.
Then there is the book I never heard of Quo Vadis, a book without a jacket sleeve to tell me what it is about. When I pick it up the green, nearly brown fabric of the book is sticky and as a germaphobe I almost dropped it, unsure of what I was touching. But then I open the first page and see a note: “To my dear Aunties with best wishes for a happy Christmas.” It was written in cursive and is so elegantly written that I could not untangle the intricacies of the letters to form a name. At some point in time. Possibly ten years ago, 50 years ago, or even more, Quo Vadis was a gift. And I was holding it, holding the a thoughtful gift from a young women to her aunts. A gift that somehow made its way here. Abandoned.
Every book in a used bookstore used to belong to someone else. Several of my own childhood books lay on a dusting shelf in a used bookstore, waiting to be taken away to a new home. There was Cat in the Hat, one of my all time favorites when I was younger and Mother Goose. A few may already have found one, possibly all, possibly none. Books are like the worn little toys at an antique shop. Once upon a time ago they were a child’s toy, their favorite toy, the one they slept with well into their older years or the toy that was always left behind in favor of the favorite toy. Used books have stories. That is what makes them magical or at least give me the sense of magic.
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As much as I like to think of used bookstores as magic and immortal, I know that is not the case.
Books on on the decline. Between kendals, Ipads, and tv, people don't have much of a reason to read anymore. It's time consuming and if they do read its normally on a device instead of a hardback book. No one wants to deal with paper anymore. According to the website “Stuff Nobody Cares About” at one point there used to be thousands of used bookstores, now there is only around a thousand. Bookstores are victims of of technology.
The reason Riverby books has that oh so beautiful cart outside of the store that I adore and makes me feel nostalgic everytime is see it is actually there to draw in customers because like many used bookstores they are probably not doing all that great. According to the Washington Post article, ‘Chaotic glory’: Why four millennials bought a used bookstore on Capitol Hill,” those are the cheapo book for two or three dollars used to bait people in. Bookstores are not easy to maintain. While I might view a used bookstore as something close to a winter wonderland. To the owners it might feel like a nightmare a times to keep afloat. Not to mention there are books everywhere and the majority of them are not going anywhere.
“The logistical nightmare of transporting books to Capitol Hill. Cleaning them. Pricing them. Selling enough to fund purchases at more estate sales,” states the Washington Post.
The regulars at the bookstore thinks of the store like it's Narnia. I can definitely agree with that. When I walk in Riverby, it’s like I’m walking in to that never ending closet that transports me to another land. Though if I’m going to compare a bookstore to a child's book, I think the better analogy would be its like going down the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland because I have spent quite some time sinking deeper and deeper in to the bookstore and I’m sure the owners can relate. Used bookstores do not make anyone rich for a reason.
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I could hear a soft voice welcome me into the store. Hidden behind the counter was a blond bobbing head smiling at me. When I was younger I always wanted to work at a bookstore. I wanted to be surrounded by the comfort of other people’s words. I never fulfilled my child-like dreams to work part time at a bookstore, but I knew anyone who works at a bookstore had the same dream as me, only theirs was fulfilled.
“I actually went to Riverby as a kid and I kind of always wanted to work here,” said Savannah Tweadale, who American Studies major at the University of Mary Washington. Tweadale began working at Riverby Books three months ago after her third of fourth time applying because her desire to work at a used bookstore drove her to continue trying.
Tweadale like many other native born Fredericksburg citizens grew up with Riverby just around the corner. Riverby does have a story according to Tweadale. The store originally opened in Washington DC, which still stands today. There is an ongoing phenonium that bookstores and used bookstore are closing. Most likely due to the rise in technology; however, Riverby, twenty three years strong remains afloat. A haven to college students and children and every person who has a love for books. I hope it will always remain open, but that may just be wishful thinking. Books, real books are a dying breed. Despite that, I strongly believe even after Riverby Books someday closes and its shelves are town down and the upstairs wood floors collapses onto the worn-out, teal painted stairs, I believe the books will remain. Maybe not there but somewhere, maybe in someone else’s house.
My favorite thing about a used bookstore, not just Riverby Book is it is a store of abandoned stories. Books that once belonged to someone who loved to read and will someday belong to someone else who loves to read. Used bookstores are the beginning and end of a books life.