Iconic NE Arkansas Bookstore: For Sale

Recall Meg Ryan’s dismay in the movie “You’ve Got Mail” when she must sell The Shop Around the Corner, that neighborhood bookstore founded by her mother.  Businessman Tom Hanks as Mr. F-O-X brings in the Evil Empire of Mega- Bookstores with coffee bars and escalators.  Fox Books puts her out of business (yes, it is personal), but Tom’s charm brings Meg ultimately into his arms.  That’s a movie.  This is real life.

That Bookstore in Blytheville is for sale by its owner, Mary Gay Shipley, as she has reached her time to retire.  She opened the store in 1976.  She will be running for a seat in the State Legislature representing the Mississippi County, Arkansas, district.  With strong ties to the local high school (helps plan her class' 50^th HS reunion) Mrs. Shipley is probably a shoo-in for the position.  MGS  is a Mid-America bookseller celebrity with That Bookstore.  However, she is leaving her downtown independent bookstore for different adventures and hopes to find a buyer by the time Children’s Book Week concludes later this year.

How did I learn so much about her?  Just talk to her when you visit That Bookstore in Blytheville.  Not only will you learn about the store and its owner, you will overhear shoppers share their tales of local color.  Unabashedly and with no concern for who is listening, patrons talked among themselves and with MGS  about what makes a 50 year marriage work (“We don’t boss each other around”).  In addition, another customer held forth about someone’s husband and his Tunica escapades with another woman on his wedding anniversary. Classic line from that conversation: “I’d of (sic) just shot him and gotten it over with.”

Autographed posters of book releases line the walls with notables  including Laura Bush, Hillary Clinton, John Grisham, Jill Conner Browne, Cassandra King, and Kathryn Stockett (The Help) to name just a few.  Oversized rocking chairs serve as seating and focal points in the back reading area.  Complete with original hardwood floors and shelving, this area invites me to take a seat in one of the rockers, so I do and spot the folding chairs autographed by well-known authors, one signature per slat of the chair.

As I am later browsing the hard cover titles of fiction and non-fiction, easy conversation flows with the booksellers, mostly about books we’ve read lately, those we loved and those we want to read next. They have a copy of The Rebel Wife, the author (Taylor Polites) visited Memphis this week promoting his story of a woman’s strength during Reconstruction.  “TBIB” also has on its shelves copies of several  local authors’ works, (including Whistling Dixie in a Nor’easter and Yankee Doodle Dixie by Lisa Patton), plus all the #1 Best Sellers such as Defending Jacob by William Landay.

TBIB brochure states that they embrace all the ways people read, from the paperback to the e-reader and gladly sell them all, in person or on-line,  to cultivate the generation of readers to come.  A sign posted in the shop reads, “Snack, Nap, Read.”  Hmmmm, that sounds like a phrase synonymous with my early days of retirement.  It’s time for me to go read a book.

                                                                      www.tbib.com