Bookseller Profile

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My Bookhouse

Our store has been going now for 20 years, believe it or not. I wouldn't know how to do anything except sell books. When I was a little girl, I was in Philadelphia with my family on a vacation and we went into a used bookstore downtown. I really don't remember much about the store except the bargain book bins outside. I bought two books there and I still have them! There weren't any bookstores at all around here, let alone ones like that, and when I got a little older, I just dove into used books without knowing a thing about them. Our first buy was a carload of books at an estate sale for $18. I just love to buy books! I can't help it. I love building up odd little sections of the store that probably no one cares about but me (like when I bought the hypnotism books).

Have you ever read Pride and Prejudice? You know where Darcy is talking about his family library that each generation added to and maintained? That was in 1800. I dream about that library. I fantasize about having those books in my store. Honest!

So we started our little store with hardly any money and no knowledge. We began specializing in juvenile series books because at that time no other dealers cared about them. They were cheap! and plentiful. And the collectors were so much fun. We've met so many goofy series book people that we're proud to call friends. I guess I'm just as goofy, however. If we get an odd series I've never seen before, I get so excited. Boy's books sell faster than girl's, but I can't help liking girl's books best and I look for them with a vengeance.

Nowadays we have a store full of all sorts of books, but we still have a room devoted to children's and series books.

Personally, I own way too many books at home...a few shrewd investments, but more books that are just because I like them (my collection of 1st edition Richard Bissells, for instance). Other than books, we have a little greenhouse where we raise orchids and mealybugs. We are into Mayan archaeology, but can't get away very often to go look at it. I am poetry editor for a magazine called the Wastelands Review, and I write songs and sing in a band.

I love books, though. I love reading. I don't know how to have a conversation with someone who doesn't. When we were on vacation in Mexico last winter we went to a little flea market and found books for the store. When I walk into someone's house I am drawn to their bookshelves, not because I have dollar signs in my eyes, but because you learn so much about people scanning their titles.

It was in 1963 when I was in that first bookshop in Philadelphia. I was 12, I think. One of the books I bought was Little Town on the Prairie with the Helen Sewell illustrations. Alas, not in a dust jacket, but still a nice pick out of the bargain books (after 30 years).

The other book would probably STILL be in bargain bins - it's called Anything Can Happen and is the story of an immigrant who comes to the US and makes all sorts of false starts and ends up in all sorts of trouble, but manages in the end to make good. Like The Little Engine That Could he just kept jumping in and trying. That's my inspiration for starting a bookstore with $18 worth of books from an auction.

Our first shop had shelves made with bricks and boards. I'm sure we made quite an impression on our customers. When we opened our store downtown, we didn't have enough books to fill it up. It was maybe a third full in the beginning, but I knew that if you leave two books together on a shelf overnight, the next morning you have four books, so I wasn't worried. When we did our first shows, we couldn't figure out where the heck everybody got their nifty dust jacket covers, so we made our own out of waxed paper. I remember dealers clustered around our booth trying to figure out why our books looked so weird. I'm sure we made a big impression there!

People in Tiffin just think we're nuts, lots of people are worried and donate books to keep us going. We will come to work and find a little offering on the doorstep. I won't say there's NO one in Tiffin who reads, but the readers are way outnumbered.

If I started over again today, I'd open up in a city. Detroit, maybe. On the strip between Library and Classic somewhere. Or downtown Ann Arbor. Or in Columbus next door to Karen Wickliffe where I could feed off the customers she doesn't have room for (if I were beside Acorn Books, I would go to that little french bakery too much and I'd weigh 200 pounds and wouldn't be able to straighten the bottom shelves). I think you can buy better books in a city.

We don't have bargain bins in front of our shop, but we have a bargain back porch. Sometimes it gets so stuffed we have to have a half price sale to make room for new ones.

Last year I bought an estate that was van load after van load of books. We had books piled everywhere, even in the yard. I'm just addicted to buying. I can't say no! There was this collection of German books I bought to get the shelves they were on. No one in our store speaks a word of German. I can't even figure out what the letters are to type them into the computer! The van loads of books were 60's science fiction and beat literature and we hardly have any of those left. The German books (history and literature) I'll probably have till the day I die. (But they were great shelves!)

- Cher Bibler, Owner of the Bookhouse

The views of the author, expressed above, are not necessarily those of the Advanced Book Exchange