When I met Jamie Fiocco, Sarah Carr and Land Arnold--co-owners of Flyleaf Books, Chapel Hill, N.C.'s newest indie bookstore--at this year's SIBA trade show, I was immediately impressed with their knowledge and passion as booksellers, as well as their undeniable courage as business people.
Next Monday, Flyleaf will debut with a "soft opening" (a January grand opening is planned), and since we've been exploring Shame Lists recently, I thought it might be interesting to ask booksellers who've been deeply enmeshed in the process of creating opening-day stock how they approached the Shame List challenge.
"These days, at least for me, my favorite books and reading in general seem to be the last things on my mind," Fiocco observed. "I must say, though, as we’ve plowed through spreadsheet after spreadsheet of title lists, it’s a real joy to have an old friend emerge from the black-and-white lines. Land, Sarah and I had some funny conversations, usually yelled across the hallway as we were going through lists of books for opening day: 'Which knife skills cookbook do you want?' 'Oh, I don’t remember the exact name, but it’s from Norton and it’s got a white cover with an avocado at the top and every other chapter is for lefties.'"
Arnold has selected most of the adult titles for Flyleaf's stock and Carr is ordering children's books. Fiocco is "pitching in on a few categories and some nonfiction, like cookbooks. So, the merging hasn’t been too painful because we all have our 'own' categories, plus Land and I were working together at the same store [McIntyre's Books, Pittsboro, N.C.] before Flyleaf."
One aspect of the process she noticed while figuring out opening stock was that "no one quite understands we want to pick it out ourselves, from scratch. We have found wholesalers happy to create an entire 'opening-day order' for us, but not capable to just give us the data we know we need, like recommended steady sellers in specific niche categories. I’m not saying the wholesalers aren’t helpful; all of them have been incredibly supportive and very helpful, whether we were giving them business or not. It’s just that our decision to start up with stock primarily direct from publishers has been a major undertaking. And if the publisher has only an electronic catalogue, they’re the last to get ordered--just not the right medium for a collaborative approach to buying."
Fiocco shared some titles from "my personal 'shame' list, including cooking, but I’d like to say I have a penchant for cookbooks that make good reads."
- Joy of Cooking, 75th Anniversary Edition (which Ethan Becker "restored" back to the focus of the original '70s edition)
- Quick and Easy Indian Cooking by Madhur Jaffrey (Indian cooking is neither "quick" nor "easy," but this is a great introduction to cooking the cuisine, and Jaffrey’s comments before each recipe are fun to read.)
- Quick and Easy Chinese by Nancie McDermott (local N.C. food writer; same fun anecdotes and relatively easy recipes)
- The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters (I love cookbooks you can read, and this is one of the best. The line drawings scare off some folks but it’s just a joy to read through and learn about everyday food in the process.)
- The Sultan's Kitchen: A Turkish Cookbook by Ozcan Ozan
- Knife Skills Illustrated: A User's Manual by Peter Hertzmann
- Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue by John & Dale Reed (a great picture book, travelogue and just plain fun to read)
- Seasoned in the South: Recipes from Crooks Corner by Bill Smith (just another great read about food and people)
- A Love Affair with Southern Cooking by Jean Anderson (another romp through Southern cultural history, and oh yeah--recipes, too)
- Molecular Gastronomy by Hervé This (because it explains in scientific detail why water boils faster with the top on)
She also offered some non-cooking favorites "I would hate to be without."
- Coal Black Horse and Far Bright Star by Robert Olmstead
- So Brave, Young, and Handsome by Leif Enger
- A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore
- The Last Voyage of Columbus by Martin Dugard (Audiobook version)
- Grayson by Lynne Cox (great YA/adult crossover)
- Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls
- A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka
- Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician by Daniel Wallace
- Mudbound by Hillary Jordan
- The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
- The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean
- City of Thieves by David Benioff (the perfect foil to The Madonnas of Leningrad)
With the initial orders in place and opening day on the near horizon, Fiocco concluded that she's "never been more convinced that book buying is an art and not a science. Land, Sarah and I know that when we open our doors on Monday, we’re not going to have the correct inventory. We can look through catalogues and sort through spreadsheets until the cows come home, but until we open those doors and start talking to folks in our community, we’re not going to have the right stock, hence the 'soft opening.'"--Robert Gray (column archives available at Fresh Eyes Now)