In Which We Consider Buying a Bookstore

Thoughts on living a way of life that leans into mystery

A few weeks ago, I saw in my Instagram reels a post someone had shared about a local bookstore that was closing its doors. The owner was a young mother, with tinies, and she was feeling overwhelmed by her thriving bookstore business and wanted a life where she could focus on her children instead of all the many concerns that go with owning and selling things.

Maile and I know the feeling. Three times in our lives we’ve had two kids under two . . . and our first four kids were six years apart. Owning and running a business is possible when you’re a mom with young children, but it can be an overwhelming stage of life.

After I saw the reel, I sent the post to Maile and said, “Want to buy a bookstore?”

I was mostly joking.

I was sure she would send me back some kind of shocked emoji with a comment about how we barely had time to get the kids to all of their activities as it was, without a business to run. I figured she would say, That would be amazing, wouldn’t it? but then we’d both go back to our normal lives.

She didn’t. Her reply was simply,

Yes, I do.

Well. I wasn’t expecting that.

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How does one go about deciding whether or not to buy a business, or to put money into something or other? The normal way is to try to calculate a return, and if the return justifies the investment, the answer is yes. In our capitalist society, one in which I continue to voluntarily contribute, this is a reasonable calculation. Or at least a logical one.

Keeping that in mind, I ran some numbers, trying to figure out how many books we would need to sell in order to make this business work.

I was surprised as I explored the figures. I thought the idea might be okay, or at least not lose too much money, so I started picking the brains of the smart business people I know, fully expecting them to pat me on the head and say, “Shawn, put your money into (fill in the blank). Anything but a bookstore. Buy some property. Flip some houses. Not books. Dear God, not books.”

Books are very low margin. Many bookstores are struggling. Most people would rather order their books for less money from Amazon and have them in their hands the next day, despite our hand-wringing about big business and corporate hegemony and the machine taking over our lives. It’s amazing how we will invite the machine into our living room for a cup of coffee if it offers free shipping and overnight delivery.

But, after reviewing the idea with my smart, business-minded friends, they surprised me.

Sure, they said, the numbers look like they could work. But more importantly, this is something you and Maile are passionate about. We think that if anyone could make this work, you two could. You’re a perfect fit for this.

If anyone could make this work, we could. And the more people we spoke with, the more we heard it.

You’re a perfect fit for this.

I wasn’t expecting that.

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So I ask again:

How does one go about deciding whether or not to buy a bookstore?

Is it about plugging in X+Y=Z and seeing there will be profit or not?

Is it about counting the traffic and multiplying that by the net sale per customer times number of hours per week times weeks per year?

Is it only gross profit margins and utility costs and bottom lines?

Or, quite possibly, could the decision be about something much more mysterious than the almighty dollar? Could the decision really be about love and beauty, community and legacy?

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During a conversation between American poets Coleman Barks and Mary Oliver, Barks states of Oliver (while she is sitting there waiting for his question),

“I love those questions that she fills her poems with. And they leave me open and empty. And pleased to have no answers. Is that the way you want it?”

Mary Oliver laughs, and her reply is priceless.

“That’s absolutely the way I want it . . . so many of us live most of our lives seeking the answerable and somehow demeaning or bypassing the things that can’t be answered, and therefore denuding one’s life of the acceptance of mystery and the pleasure of mystery and the willingness to live with mystery, is greatly what I think about. And if I could do something for people, I would say, don’t forget about the mystery, love the mystery . . . don’t want answers all the time.”

This quote did more to convince me that we should own a bookstore than any profit and loss statement or balance sheet.

What if the decision before us should be entered into as a mystery . . . and not an equation to be solved?

What if the path of our lives was leading not to dollar signs . . . but to creating places where people could find a tiny piece of community, a respite from loneliness, or another beautiful world in a book?

What if there are no (or few) answers as we consider buying this bookstore . . . but what if there are only questions and mysteries and pleasures to explore?

I write this midway through the process, on February 29th, 2024. I don’t know yet what will happen. Today we met with the landlord. Everything is moving ahead . . . but we still need to secure financing.

Can I put to the side my strong desire for the answerable?

The mystery is calling.