A Conversation With a Bookseller: Malaprop's Bookstore
What is the secret sauce behind Malaprop's Bookstore's excellently curated collection? Senior Buyer Justin Souther talked me through the process of choosing books.
I love bookstores. I love everything about bookstores. I love the books, of course, but I also love the personality of independent bookstores—the staff picks, the regional authors, the cozy reading nooks, the café (for those who have one), the bookstore dog (or cat). Some are dark and dusty and smell of old leather bindings. Some are bright and cheery and smell of fresh brewed coffee. All have hidden treasures waiting to be found if you take the time to look for them.
When I travel, I always try to find the local independent bookstore. There is one in Jackson, Wyoming, Valley Bookstore, where I found a lovely collection of photographs called Homegrown by Julie Blackmon that sits on my coffee table and makes me happy every time I look through it. For many years, my family spent every Thanksgiving in Vero Beach, Florida, and we always made a trip to the Vero Beach Book Center for an hour or so of browsing. A staff pick in the Young Adult section led me to the Lunar Chronicles series, which I thoroughly enjoyed and widely recommended. Stephen and I found a little bookstore on a backstreet in Venice a few years ago, and even though I couldn’t read a word of any of the titles, I loved browsing through the store—under an intricately painted ceiling no less.
As many of you know, Asheville, North Carolina is one of my favorite places in the world. We love it so much that Stephen and I will likely retire to the area once the kids are grown. An art deco throwback to the Jazz Age, Asheville is a delightfully quirky town, and I like to tell people it’s weird like Austin but with a better view. Asheville is also home to my favorite independent bookstore, Malaprop’s Bookstore, on Haywood Street. Every single time I visit this store, I walk out with something I had no idea I needed until I saw it on the shelves. Malaprop’s is where I discovered J. K. Rowling writes crime novels under the pen name Robert Galbraith, and I once picked up a book on travel writing that helped me land magazine work.
Justin Souther, Senior Buyer and Bookstore Manager, was kind enough to let me peek behind the curtain at the magic behind curating Malaprop’s books. Part of the secret is in casting a wide net. “The fun part of my job is finding things people don’t know they need,” Justin told me, “and taking the time to look through the catalogs and find those hidden gems, just things that seem interesting to me and I think other people will find interesting.”
This means sorting through information on well more than a thousand books in major publisher catalogs as well as books in catalogs for smaller publishers. Justin says, “I like to wade into the deep end of every catalog and every university press and every esoteric book because I want to see what everyone’s got. I don’t want to miss something because there might be something that could be a good seller for us or something that could be a staple for us for years or just something someone is going find and be happy about. It’s important for me that they have the opportunity to find those books.”
What is Justin looking for as he digs through the catalogs? “I try and find things that feel interesting or neat or curious. We also spend a lot of time listening to what our customers want and what our community's interested in. That's super important. But I look at everything—content, the cover. The press is a big decider, too, since there are numerous presses we have a great and undying respect for.” It sounds like curating a bookstore collection is more an art than a science, so Malaprop’s buyers and booksellers themselves must be the secret sauce.
Part of the magic is also building relationships with local authors. Malaprop’s supports local writers by stocking an excellent regional section and offering consignment sales with self-published local authors. The in-person author meet and greets are on hold due to COVID, but they have been able to shift to online events with regional authors that have been well attended. It’s not the same, but it works for now. They are still doing pre-sales with signed books for local authors too. Like many of us, they’ve found odd little upsides to the COVID situation in that they have been able to have online events with national authors as well.
“We are always going to be partial to Asheville/Western North Carolina authors,” Justin told me. “We have really good relationships with a lot of regional authors. I think with every bookstore their best selling section is going to be their regional section, especially in the South. We are in an interesting spot because we are both a Southern bookstore and an Appalachian bookstore so that kind of gives us two different spaces that we work in.”
One of my favorite things about Malaprop’s is their Blind Date with a Bookseller section. This is a section where all the books are wrapped in brown craft paper so you can’t see the covers or look at the pages. The fronts have brief, high-level descriptions of the books. For example, Blind Date 407 says, “Family secrets, dual narrative, immensely pleasurable, soaring, vulnerable and deep-hearted voices, compelling, sharp as a blade, tense and layered.” It’s a great way to find a new author or genre.
What began as a Valentine’s Day promotion morphed into a best-selling regular offering. As Justin explains, “I think for some people it can be intimidating to come in a store where there are so many books and so many titles it’s hard to know where to start. To have something that is curated, you’re not going to be overwhelmed with covers or too much information. You’re just getting a synopsis of a book in very broad strokes, and that can be comfortable and easy.” All of these books are staff picks, and Justin reports they have been a very popular item in online sales lately.
Customer service is another key element of the Malaprop’s experience, and it’s something they highly prioritize. “Customer service is important to us because we know people can get books from all over the place. We really want to have that personal touch of having that personal interaction of someone being able to recommend something in person to someone,” Justin told me. “Going further than an algorithm can go as far as recommending books. We really want this to be somewhere they feel comfortable and they can find things and enjoy themselves when they are here and still relax and feel like it’s a good atmosphere. That’s really important to us.”
That hands-on customer service has been hard in the Time of COVID. In an effort to keep their customers and their employees safe, they are offering browsing by appointment only to North Carolina residents. They have had to close their signature café, but are hoping to add curbside takeout soon. Their business model has shifted to distribution with curbside pickup and home deliveries to folks who live in Buncombe County. They are doing what they can to stay in contact with their customers and get them what they need safely. Their community has stepped up to support them through their pre-order campaigns to offset the limited availability for in-store browsing.
How can we support them? All of their super awesomely curated inventory is available online, including their Blind Date with a Bookseller selections. They are happy to ship, and they are happy to talk to you on the phone if you need book recommendations. They are planning a holiday catalog, so be on the lookout for that on their website. I’ll do my best to remember to put a link to it in future newsletters.
Malaprop’s Bookstore was founded in 1982 by Emöke B’Racz and has enjoyed warm-hearted community support from the beginning. Emöke recently retired—sort of—and longtime employee Gretchen Horn became majority owner in 2019. Gretchen’s story is a lovely one. She started at Malaprop’s as a barista in 2001 when she was a student at University of North Carolina-Asheville, moved over to the accounting side of the business, and later became Director of Finance and Operations before taking her current position. Malaprop’s is holding on to its local roots even as things are changing.
In retirement, Emöke remains the heart of the business, and her philosophy of books remains a guiding principle. As she writes in her greetings on the Malaprop’s website, “As a political exile from a communist country, I cannot overemphasize my passion to provide a space where freedom of expression is supported, where important literature—from authors backed by major publishers to those who self-publish—is available to all, where censorship has no place, where respect and service are practiced daily, where women feel safe, where all are welcome, and where books are the stars.”
Book Recommendations
No conversation with a bookseller would be complete without book recommendations. These are a few of the books Justin enjoys along with his Staff Pick notes from the website.
In the Distance by Hernan Diaz
“While In the Distance can be read as a revisionist Western -- and totally enjoyed and chewed on as such -- what makes Diaz's book truly exceptional is how far beyond a simple genre it goes. A beautiful, thoughtful and often heartbreaking exploration of lonesomeness, the simple confusion of just living, and the magnificent need for human connection.”
Crapalachia: A Biography of Place by Scott McClanahan
“Scott McClanahan's minimalist pseudo-memoir is a funny, clever, touching and honest book about growing up in rural West Virgina. A book about being proud of and finding beauty in where you come from, even when there's no glamour in it.”
Vernon Subutex 1: A Novel by Virginie Despentes, Frank Wynne (Translated by)
“Virginie Despentes is the great observer of Western modernity, especially the alienation, isolation and confusion it creates. A brilliant beginning to Despentes' masterpiece, a highly relatable, fierce and sneakily humane examination of seemingly shallow, unlikable people pleading for purpose. A truly astounding and modern work.”
Optic Nerve by Maria Gainza, Thomas Bunstead (Translated by)
“Warm, open-hearted autofiction focusing on the intersection of art and relationships. Hypnotic, really.”
Loudermilk: Or, The Real Poet; Or, The Origin of the World by Lucy Ives
“I absolutely loved this book. A grand comic novel with hints of Charles Portis and Pynchon, a great post-Millenium, pre-Millennial foray into America at the cusp of its decline. Hilarious, touching, ambitious and endlessly playful.”
Interesting Stuff From the Interwebs
This should be required viewing at least once a day. Really. There is nothing more awesome than a boy and his dog playing baseball.
This is a heartwarming story about Marietta, Georgia prodigy Caleb Anderson who is a sophomore at Chattahoochee Technical College at 12-years-old. You can read about his amazing story here.
You can read about his plans to study aerospace engineering at Georgia Tech here.
Tammy’s back, and she’s Road Dancing this time.
Public Service Announcement: if you visit the site of an ancient mass casualty event, don’t steal stuff.
Tourist returns stolen artifacts to Pompeii after suffering ‘curse’ for 15 years
You think an ancient curse is scary? What about a class of second graders left alone on a Zoom meeting when the teacher’s connection got dropped?
If you missed last week’s newsletter, we talked about deviled eggs. Friends left their unique twist on the deviled egg in the comments, so make sure you check those out if you haven’t already and leave your own recipe if you’d like to. I had a great time talking to Justin this week and want to send a big thank you his way. I hope you’ll check out Malaprop’s Bookstore. Support your local independent bookstore at home as well. If you haven’t already, please subscribe to Sweet Tea to get your very own email from me in your inbox each week.
Until next time,
Karla
Here's my recommendation if you're passing near the Dillsboro/Sylva/Cullowhee area on your way to Asheville: City Lights Bookstore & Cafe. 3 E Jackson St, Sylva, NC 28779. Cafe is downstairs, bookstore is upstairs. Tucked away off main street. Looks like an architectural marriage between a cozy courtyard house on the side and a store on the front. It's got the bookstore cat(s), the book smell, little nooks and window seats, and good eats. Love the local maps section showing all things southern Appalachia. And throw in Dillsboro Chocolate Factory for good measure. 28 Church Street, Dillsboro, NC 28725. Fudge for DAYS and lots of other treats in a former house.
I LOVE Malaprops and local booksellers in general. Saw the blind date idea at a seller in Chattanooga. Gonna go back and buy one next time. Thanks for the little moment of happiness in my morning.