Knoxville Bookseller Seizes the Book(store)

March 09, 2005

Flossie McNabb and her daughter, Bunny Sonneland, in front of the store. The four owners of Carpe Librum. Left to right: Claire Poole, Flossie McNabb, Martha Arnett, Shiela Wood-Navarro. An interior view. Children's programming at Carpe Librum.

The beginnings of Knoxville's Carpe Librum can be traced to January 2000, when the closing of the area's Davis-Kidd Booksellers was imminent. It was then that Davis-Kidd bookseller Flossie McNabb canvassed fellow staff members to ascertain their interest in collectively opening a new store. After four years during which she never found the right location, McNabb had her "now or never" moment. Last June, she attended Booksellers School at BookExpo America in Chicago, and soon after recruited her business partners, Shiela Wood-Navarro, formerly of Davis-Kidd, Claire Poole, and Martha Arnett; enlisted general manager Victor Herron (also of Davis-Kidd); and found a location in Knoxville. McNabb opened Carpe Librum on February 7.

"There hasn't been an independent bookstore [in this neighborhood] for the past 10 to 15 years," said McNabb. "I felt it really needed one." Customer response bore her out. Over 200 people showed up for one of the grand-openingparties (celebrations lasted a week) with live jazz and dancing. The retail space was previously a dance studio, and McNabb kept the hardwood dance floor intact. "People were just kicking up and dancing," she said. The event was catered by the store's neighbor, independently owned Gourmet's Market, which will partner with Carpe Librum for future events.

The 3,000-square foot, naturally brightly-lit (a little too brightly, said McNabb, who has immediate plans to buy blinds) general bookstore is in the Beardon neighborhood of Knoxville, an upscale section of the city two to three miles from the University of Tennessee. Specialties are regional books and children's literature. Other sections include fiction, mystery and sci-fi, poetry, and bibliophily. "Bibliophily focuses on the love of books," said Herron. "It includes literary criticism ... books on book collecting, building bookshelves, history of publishing, jacket art..."

Carpe Librum coordinates sidelines, some of them unusual, with the appropriate store sections. In the science section, Herron stocks lab equipment -- beakers, flasks, and other science-related exotic inventory. "It's the stuff you get after you've done everything in a chemistry set," he said. "I'm an amateur scientist and study science with my 12-year-old son. I know how hard it is to find this stuff." A family recently bought $138 worth of equipment and planned to come back for more, he reported. (See American Science and Surplus at www.sciplus.com.)

Herron told BTW that during the five-year hiatus between Davis-Kidd and Carpe Librum, McNabb never lost her determination to open a new independent bookstore. "Nobody really knew how serious she was about opening a new store," he said. "But Flossie kept her idea going until she turned it into a vision. She came to me last June and said, 'I really want to do this and would like you to do it with me.' I said, 'Yeah!' And now I'm having the most fun I've ever had in my whole life."

The vision extended to hand selecting, with Victor, nearly all of the 14,000 titles, and displaying freshly cut flowers, busts of literary and historical figures, which double as sidelines, and Book Sense gift cards. Carpe Librum sold over $1,400 worth of cards in its first month.

Carpe Librum will soon incorporate used books and literary DVDs and VHS cassettes into its inventory. "We always planned to sell used books, but when we opened it wasn't our first priority and we didn't have used books yet," said Herron. "We'll be as selective with buying used books as with new. We'll exercise the same sensibility." The used books, DVDs, and videos will be shelved with the new books. Herron said, "We'll have movies based on books with the books themselves. So, Gone With the Wind in paperback, in hardback, and the movie will all be on the same shelf." --Karen Schechner

Topics: Book Sense, About Bookstores,