A Great Books Bookshop
Responding to Demand For Cultural Substance
We’re still recovering here from a very busy couple of months. January is when Steubenville goes into its shell. Business slows down in the shop, and we look for ways to make things happen. We turn more to mail order sales, especially college books, as the spring semester starts. We will do some more writing. We have National Winnie the Pooh Day coming on January 18th, which we will observe in the shop, and on January 25th we have the inaugural run of one of our big literary events of the year: the Pride and Prejudice Ball, to celebrate the publication of Pride and Prejudice (which took place on January 28th, 1813). Leonardo’s, the coffee shop in town, has a big ballroom, and we’ve hired musicians. Julia Yost, the author of the new book Jane Austen’s Darkness, will be here. We’re looking at acquiring cheap costume apparel.
The Pride and Prejudice Ball is part of an effort to step into the role which the town appears to have chosen for our bookshop: focusing on the “Great Books.” The previous owner told us that he could never keep up with the demand for the literary classics, and we’ve put effort into making sure we make space for great literature and that those shelves are continually restocked. We still see it. Our number-one selling author in 2024 was Charles Dickens, who has been a century and a half dead now. I find this extraordinary. Our number two was J. R. R. Tolkien.
To us this is all to the good. These are the books we like, and these are the books we know. If a bookstore focuses on new books, the “front catalog,” as it’s called, the owner is dependent on marketing information to choose the books – a sucker’s approach to the publishing industry. For the “back catalog,” however, we can offer our own decades of reading experience. We’ve also been considering running “Great Books” classes, where over the course of a few years we offer customers familiarity with the canonical works of the Western tradition.
The demand is there. It’s coming from our customers. We see a hunger for something beyond the latest marketed fad. Here is another snapshot of a day’s sales in the store. The overall quality of the books we sell remains a continual source of pride for me. This day was December 23rd, 2024:
Bookmarx Sales, December 23rd, 2024 (Complete)
Edith Wharton Tea
Edgar Allan Poe Tea
Jane Austen Tea
Bronte Sisters’ Tea
Audubon Birds Coloring Book
The Essential Woodworker
William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism
The Nutcracker: Story Orchestra
Letters from Father Christmas / Tolkien
Christmas Poems / Everyman Library
Winter Fire: Christmas with G. K. Chesterton
Paradise Lost
Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta
The Essential Woodworker
Appointment with God / Michael Scanlon
The Apostle: A life of Paul / John Pollock
Pope Francis: A Guide to God’s Time
What the Church Teaches: A Guide for the Study of Familiaris Consortio / William Maestri
The Jungle Books / Kipling
Does God Exist? A Socratic Dialogue on the Five Ways of Thomas Aquinas / Matt Fradd
Here is New York / E. B. White
The Dark Tower and Other Stories / C. S. Lewis
Edgar Allan Poe: Poetry and Tales (Library of America)
Out of Africa / Isak Dinesen
The Idiot / Dostoevsky
Father Brown Short Stories / Chesterton
Beyond Recognition / The Red Room / Choke Point – Ridley Pearson
Frog & Toad Treasury / Arnold Lobel
Heidi / Johanna Spyri
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Stephen Biesty’s Incredible Cross-Sections
The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation / Michael Wise
Fancy Nancy: A Splendiferous Christmas
Laws of Masonry in West Virginia
Being John Lennon / Ray Connolly
Catching Fire – The Hunger Games #2 / Suzanne Collins
The Nutcracker / E. T. A. Hoffman
The Haunted Tea-Cosy / Edward Gorey
Are Gay Rights Right? Making Sense of the Controversy / Roger Magnuson
Winter Fire / Chesterton
Emeril’s TV Dinners / Emeril Lagasse
1984 / George Orwell
Cooking with Master Chefs / Julia Child
Beatrix Potter Tea
Poems for Christmas / Everyman Library
The Nutcracker / E. T. A. Hoffman
Summer Island / Kristin Hannah
Patchwork Christmas / Colleen Reece
Strangers in Death / J. D. Robb
Keeping Secrets / Nora Roberts
To Kill a Mockingbird / Harper Lee
The Chalice of the Gods / Rick Riordan
The Deep End of the Ocean / Jacqueline Mitchard
The Invention of Wings / Sue Monk Kidd
Have a Little Faith: A True Story / Mitch Albom
Let’s Look at a Masterpiece: Classic Art to Cherish with a Child / Madeline Stebbins
Nutcracker Sticker Activity Book / Carolyn Ewing
The Awakening of Miss Prim / Natalie Fenollera
Nutcracker Sticker Activity Book x 3
The Pacific and Other Stories / Mark Helprin
The Little Prince / Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Saint Patrick / Tomie de Paola
Winter Fire / Chesterton
Letters from Father Christmas / Tolkien
The Whole Message of the Bible in 16 Words / Chris Bruno
Anything for Billy / Larry McMurtry
A Column of Fire / Ken Follett
The Once and Future King / T. H. White
The Way of Kings / Brandon Sanderson
The Alchemist / Paolo Coelho
Mere Christianity / C. S. Lewis
The Old Man and the Sea / Ernest Hemingway
Invisible Man / Ralph Ellison
The Diary of a Young Girl / Anne Frank
A Christmas Carol / Charles Dickens
The Gulag Archipelago, 1918 – 1956 / Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Glitter Nutcracker Ballet Stickers / Darcy May
Emma / Jane Austen
A Christmas Carol / Charles Dickens
Death Comes for the Archbishop / Willa Cather
Literary Converts: Spiritual Inspiration in an Age of Unbelief / Joseph Pearce
Brave New World / Aldous Huxley
Les Miserables / Victor Hugo
The Drowning / Camilla Lackberg
Life of Pi / Yann Martel
Judaism and Vegetarianism / Richard Schwartz
Winnie the Pooh and the Wrong Bees / A. A. Milne
The Great Gatsby / F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Gospel in Dostoevsky: Selections from His Works
The Reading Life / C. S. Lewis
Leisure: The Basis of Culture / Josef Pieper
Piglet Meets a Heffalump / A. A. Milne
On Writing and Writers / C. S. Lewis
Amelia Bedelia 5 Book I Can Read Box Set / Peggy Parish
The Intellectual Life / A. G. Sertillanges
The Brothers Karamazov / Dostoevsky
Emma / Jane Austen
Pensees / Blaise Pascal
Oedipus Rex / Sophocles
God Emperor of Dune / Frank Herbert
Children of Dune / Frank Herbert
Heretics of Dune / Frank Herbert
Chapterhouse Dune / Frank Herbert
Jim Shaughnessy Essential Witness: Sixty Years of Railroad Photography
Caesar: A Sketch / Froude
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories / Washington Irving
Common Sense 101: Lessons from G. K. Chesterton / Dale Ahlquist