The Fifth Anniversary of Our Opening Day, Though the Party is April 28.

Believe it or not, it was exactly five years ago today that we opened our doors. After about ten days of painting, replacing cases, putting up our temporary banner sign that stayed up a bit too long (replaced by a permanent sign that several folks would love to see augmented), shelving, and so forth, it was pretty exciting to be able to say welcome.

Folks were pretty enthusiastic, but it took a long time to build the business. We started our email list and loyalty program from scratch, and a lot of folks' take-away regarding the state of the bookstore business was that Harry W. Schwartz closed and didn't listen long enough to hear that two other bookstores (and eventually three) opened in their place.

We called this our soft opening, knowing that a lot would not be ready, and really didn't have our grand opening until May 8. With that tradition in mind, we decided to host our official fifth anniversary party on Monday, April 28, celebrating The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, Gabrielle Zevin's fictional ode to bookstores and people who love them. Zevin herself will join us for the party, with her talk/reading starting at 7 pm.

I thought you'd enjoy seeing Mel's window, just in case you don't follow our other blog, The Boswellians. We always have glare issues in the front window. My apologies. Note the "5" made out of advance reading copies.