Mark Your Calendars! Our First Author Event: Elliot Reed

One of the things we're most looking forward to is welcoming writers to Skylark to talk about their books and writing. There are already some wonderful authors scheduled to come and speak - you can read about them all here. All events are open to the public and completely free. 

We wanted to tell you about our inaugural event, which takes place on Tuesday, September 11. Elliot Reed has written one of the most eagerly awaited fiction debuts of the year, A Key to Treehouse Living. For fans of Mark Haddon, Tony Earley, and Jonathan Safran Foer, this is an epic tale of boyhood from an unforgettable new voice.

It's fair to say that I've never read a novel quite like this one. It's wildly ambitious and Reed has adopted a brilliant and innovative structure: the novel is presented as a list of definitions of peculiar terms such as ASPHALT PATHS, BETTA FISH, MULLET, MORTAL BETRAYAL, NIHILISM, and REVELATION. The compiler of this strange list, a boy called William Tyce, is trying to make sense of his existence by this dogged process of idiosyncratic codification. 

Unlocking an earnest, clear-eyed way of thinking that might change your own, A Key to Treehouse Living is a story about keeping your own record straight and living life by a different code.

And don't just take our word for it. Acclaimed novelist Joshua Ferris writes: “A Key to Treehouse Living by Elliot Reed scrambles up all the customary codes of the novel to piece together, at last, the moving story of a lost boy searching out his place in the world. What appears as all indexed coda turns out to be a well-told tale and, more vitally for me, the accumulation of enormous incidental pleasures.” 

Elliot will be speaking at Skylark at 7:00 p.m. with a book signing to follow. There will also be some live musical entertainment before the event. Come by and help us launch our first author visit with a bang!

Storytime!

If you haven't visited our children's nook at the back of the shop yet, you should come by and check it out. We're very proud of our wide and diverse selection of books for children of all ages, from infants (we have books that are literally indestructible - we have tried) to the most discerning YA readers.

At 11:00 a.m. next Wednesday, September 5, we'll be starting our regular Wednesday morning story times for our younger customers. Come by and listen to our staff read from some of their favorite kids books! It's very fun, and very low-key (and completely free!) 

You might stop off at one of the many excellent coffee shops in the District for a cup of coffee first and bring it into the store with you to enjoy while you listen.  And, oh, I don't know, maybe a doughnut?

See you next Wednesday morning? Call the shop at (573) 777 6990 for more details.

Grateful.

Day one of Skylark Bookshop is in the books, and yes, the pun is very much intended.

It was a wonderful, miraculous, exhausting day. We (Carrie and Alex) have so much to be thankful for. 

We're grateful to all the local businesses and craftsmen who helped us turn the space into something truly special.

We're grateful to Allison Smythe for our logo.

We're grateful to our wonderful staff, who were brilliant and worked insanely hard all day, especially when various gremlins appeared to cripple various bits of equipment at crucial times. 

We're grateful to everyone who posted photos and messages of support on social media.

We're grateful to the thousands of authors who wrote the amazing books we get to sell.

We're grateful to our spouses and our families, who have hardly seen us for weeks but who have been unwaveringly supportive throughout.

Most of all, we're grateful to our community, who turned out in droves and bought books.

And we're grateful that we get to do it all again today.   

So Close.

We are so close.

It has been a crazy week. We have discovered all sorts of interesting things about what goes on downtown late at night. It turns out there’s a nightclub, or something that requires bouncers anyway, in the alleyway behind the shop. All very exciting, although my goodness, it made us both feel old.

We’ve been so grateful for the messages of encouragement that we’ve received throughout this process. Thank you to everyone who has been kind enough to reach out. We believe strongly in our mission, but it certainly helps to know that we have your support.

This week we’ve been working with our fabulous new staff. It’s been fun to get to know them, and to watch as we become a team. Theo (the bookshop dog) has spent a few days in the shop this week and he seems to be making himself at home.

Today will be another busy day as we prepare to open our doors to the world tomorrow. We have a ton of last-minute stuff to do: there are shelves to dust (always!) and a few more boxes of books to unpack, process, and shelve. We can’t wait to peel all the Harry Potter pages off the windows tomorrow morning and welcome you inside. We think it’s pretty special. I hope you’ll agree. Come by and say hello, and buy a book! (Or maybe two.)

Presidential Reading...

Some of you may have seen the following recent social media post by President Obama about his summer reading list: 

Excellent choices, each and every one - and we just wanted you to know that we have multiple copies of all of these books in stock, should you be inclined to check out what our erstwhile Reader-in-Chief has been reading this summer. In particular, Carrie loved EDUCATED by Tara Westover, and those of you who heard Michael Ondaatje speak when he came to Columbia for the inaugural Unbound Book Festival a couple of years ago won't be surprised to learn that WARLIGHT is a complex, thoughtful, and deeply rewarding novel (just in case Mr. Obama's recommendation wasn't enough.)

Come by on Saturday and pick up your copies!   

Let The Countdown Begin...

Many people have been asking us exactly when we're planning to open, and we have always replied, somewhat cagily: sometime in August. 

The time has come, though, to put on our big person pants and declare our hand, and so we're very pleased to announce that Skylark will be opening our doors for the first time on Saturday, August 25.

Put another way: we have less than two weeks. No biggie.

Of course, we still have an absolute ton to do before we can peel those Harry Potter pages off the windows and welcome you all inside. Our shelves have now been installed, and they look stunning. We spent several happy hours (fueled by Shakespeare's Pizza and Sparky's Ice Cream) over the weekend unboxing thousands of fiction titles. It has been a wonderful experience to watch the shelves slowly fill up with these beautiful books. We're actually starting to look like a bookshop! Next it's - well, it's basically everything else. We have a million and one little things to do (and a few big ones) but it's exciting to have a date to aim toward now.

As we get closer to the time, we'll be giving more details of what to expect on August 25. There won't be a big party - not right away, anyway. We're just ready to sell some books to all you lovely people! 

Watch this space for more details...

Do Not Stack on Top.

Earlier this week, two guys showed up at the shop with eight pallets of books. Each pallet contains forty-two boxes. That's three hundred and thirty-six boxes, each one absolutely crammed with books. There are a lot of people going in and out of the shop these days, so we put all the pallets at the back of the store, in what will soon be the children's section, just to get them out of the way. This afternoon we began moving the boxes to approximately where they should be in the shop so that when we start unpacking and shelving everything will be more or less where it needs to be. It is hard work, even in our lovely, air-conditioned space. So far we are two pallets down - only a quarter of the way through, but enough to have learned the following hard-earned truths:

• There is a difference between waving vaguely at a bit of the shop and saying "Philosophy is going over there," and knowing precisely where philosophy is actually going to go. There's probably a really funny philosophical joke about this proposition, but we can't make it because we haven't read all the books yet.
• Gym membership is overrated. Open a bookshop instead. Full body (and brain) workout.
• Books are heavy.
• No, really, I mean they are really, seriously heavy.
• All of the various joys and excitements of the past few weeks were eclipsed by the moment when we cut through the tape on the first box and saw books. Lots and lots of 'em. Because that, after all, is why we're here.

Progress continues apace. By the middle of next week the computers should be up and running and the maple shelves ready to be installed. We're still a couple of weeks away from opening our doors, but getting closer every day.

Local.

Amidst the retired Harry Potter pages currently covering our windows is a “Shop Local Buy Local” poster for The District. As an independent bookstore, this fits right into our philosophy.

We are enjoying being on the other side of the Shop Local Buy Local picture. Yesterday we sat in our back office, crowded with furniture and boxes to be distributed around the bookshop in the coming days. There were piles of paperwork, overtasked computers, conference calls, and some slap-happy banter. Meanwhile, local businesses were putting their mark on Skylark Bookshop.

Ryan from Homecraft Painting was meticulously touching up paint. Adam from Withrow Electric was pulling wires and installing lighting (from Bright City Lights). Jeff and Jesse from Midwest Remodeling and Restoration were busy building stairs to the front stage. Back at their shop, Andy Werth and his crew (including the fabulous & detail oriented Pete) from Stickman Woodworks were busy with the ridiculous number of maple shelves and our other stand-alone fixtures. It is difficult to describe how wonderful it was to work in the shop with that hum around us. Even harder to explain how valuable the relationship with these folks has been.

We are investing in them, and they are most certainly investing in us. The care of their labor is evident as soon as you walk in the door. They are patient with us as they walk us through the endless decisions we need to make. We might be a tad bit tired these days, perhaps a little decision weary, but they somehow make everything easier and more exciting.

As we approach opening our doors to the public, we are looking forward to developing similar relationships with our customers. We are downright giddy about putting the right books in the right hands. We are also a bit teary as we think about showing you this space. It is beautiful, and we know just how hard these guys are working.

Small is Beautiful

Here’s the thing when it comes to bookshops:

Yes, it’s nice to have a beautiful logo. Yes, it’s nice to have a shiny new website. And yes, of course it’s nice to have a lovely space. But let’s be clear: these things are not what makes a bookshop a good bookshop.

What makes a bookshop a good bookshop?

It’s the books.

We’re a small shop. We don't have the space or resources to stock every book out there, and we would be crazy to try.  Instead we’re going to make a virtue of our size: we’ll be presenting a highly curated inventory that we think people in our community will enjoy and be interested in.

When we think about our own trips to independent bookshops, the word that most springs to mind is: discovery. You’ll find all the usual bestselling titles at Skylark, of course – but we’re also hoping to introduce a lot of you to a lot of new, brilliant books that won’t necessarily appear on the front tables at Barnes and Noble, or get coughed up by some dubious online algorithm. In other words, we want to surprise and delight you with something a little different.

With so many titles being published every week, there are many, many wonderful books that don’t get the attention or publicity that they deserve. It’s our job to find those under-the-radar treasures for you. We spend a lot of time reading pre-publication copies of books that are still months away from arriving on the shelves. We pore over publishers’ catalogues. We speak to sales reps who tell us about their forthcoming titles. We talk to other booksellers. (Also, there’s this great thing called the Internet, which you should totally check out.)

At the front of the store we’ll have two huge tables of paperbacks – one table of fiction, one of non-fiction. We’ve just finished selecting which titles we’ll be featuring when we open our doors for the first time. It was a difficult process, but very fun – and we can’t wait to share these books with you.

As Carrie said the other day: we’ll just be stocking just one genre of books: good ones.

We Are Hiring!

As we edge closer toward August, we're looking to recruit some brilliant, funny, hard-working, and kind people to help us run our shop. If you've always dreamed of working in a bookshop, or if you just love books and people, please go here, read all the stuff (including very important information about drinking coffee and loving dogs), and - if all that nonsense doesn't put you off - send us a job application. We'd love to hear from you.

Skylark Bookshop construction underway!

Right now, with about a month to go before we open, we’ll admit that the shop looks like a bit of a war zone. There are half-built shelves all over the place. There are wires peeking playfully out from behind screens. (Where do they go? Nobody knows.) There are light fittings we can’t wait to replace. And there’s half a Harry Potter novel plastered to the front window to protect our modesty from curious eyes.

What there isn’t much of, so far, is actual books. We’re nearly ready, though.

In the back room stands this beauty, which will hold the shop’s galleys, or ARCs (Advanced Reading Copies).  These are uncorrected proofs that publishers circulate to booksellers and other industry people several months before scheduled publication, in the hopes that early readers will rave about the book and start creating a buzz about it. These galleys are one of the best things about being a bookseller. When we went to the American Booksellers Association Winter Institute in Memphis this January, there was a whole room full of the things, and we each returned with – well, it doesn’t matter exactly how many we had in the trunk of my car, really, but it was a lot. It’s fun to read the hot new books before they come out – that’s how we’re able to give our customers recommendations about the vary latest releases as soon as they’re published.

There are already many treasures nestled snugly inside this beautiful box. We can’t wait to tell you about them.