Thank you for a great first week! There were a lot of new faces through the door, and we appreciate your business. We will be open tomorrow from 10:45-5:00 with Michael at the helm.

Not to stress you out, but Valentine’s Day is on Thursday. If you’re looking for a gift to give, books are a thoughtful choice! Whether you want a book of love poems, a book on fly fishing in Idaho, or a book as a gift to yourself, you are sure to find something unique at the Book Shelf.

 

The Book Shelf will be open for business tomorrow, Monday, February 11th from 10 am – 7 pm! The shelves are well stocked with books ranging from New York Times best sellers to obscure, out-of-print local history books.

We will be accepting books for trade credit beginning tomorrow, but we will not be trading books for cash until our grand opening (in about two weeks).

Starting this week, our regular hours will be 10 am – 7 pm Monday through Friday, and 10 am – 5 pm on Saturday.

See you soon!

 

We are busy putting some finishing touches on the Book Shelf. We got two new arm chairs for the seating area and baskets for books, and we are labeling the book shelves as we speak. We’ll be open for our regular business hours starting on Monday, the 11th of February. We hope to see you there!

 

This just in- we will be open for business on Monday, February 11th! We will be open from 10 am to 7 pm. We hope to see you there!

One of the things I love the most about used books is the idea that each book has a history of its own. You are not, and probably will not be, the only reader of any book. This reminds me of when I pulled up the carpet in my bedroom as a teenager. There was hardwood floor underneath, and in the corner, someone had clearly once snuffed out a cigarette on the floor. The idea of someone smoking a cigarette in my bedroom and burning it into the floor was fascinating! I imagined a young man sitting with his back to the wall smoking moodily in the late ’60s. My bedroom gained street cred in that moment, and I realized that my bedroom had a story of its own and would almost certainly outlive me.

As I was looking through the books at the Book Shelf recently, I was happy to find a few intriguing inscriptions inside the covers. Reading a book inscription is like observing a private moment between two people you’ve never met. Take The Sylvan Path, for example:

Who is Barbara, and who is Mary? Or is that Gary Ferguson, the author?

Another that made me smile was The Bears of Yellowstone.

Inside the cover was this personal note, essentially just a note to self. West Yellowstone and the Book Peddler holds a very dear place in my family’s collective heart. Does anyone happen to know Jim Guber? He read the book quickly, and I wonder what he thought of it.

Finally, I laughed when I read the inscription inside Spring Flora of the Wasatch Region. If Gene exists almost any place at anytime, does that mean he’s still here? Any what places are excluded from “almost any place”?

As 2018 draws to a close, big changes have been underfoot at the Book Shelf. In early 2019 we expect to be open to the public during regular business hours. We have been hard at work painting and organizing the shop, and individually pricing all of the books. A few more bookshelves, a new seating area in the back, some more rearranging- we can do that in a few weeks, right?