Victoria Moore and Julian DeLesDernier opened Whitty Books last month at 2407 E. Admiral Blvd. in Tulsa, Okla. "The store's home is roughly a 1,400-square-foot space formerly occupied by Flash Flood Print Studios, which recently moved to a larger, refurbished place down the street. Moore and DeLesDernier, who plan to wed in September, live in the neighborhood, behind Circle Cinema," Tulsa World reported.
"I feel like it started almost as a joke with my complaining that there wasn't a bookstore over here," Moore said. "That idea developed and developed, and we kind of thought we can do this."
Noting that the bookshop features a highly curated collection of new books, Ed Sharrer, executive director of Kendall Whittier Main Street, a nonprofit that supports revitalization of the area, observed: "That business model has actually made a bit of a comeback. It used to be that the big Barnes & Nobles and Borders totally swallowed up the little guys. Now, Amazon is swallowing up the big box guys. What that has done is that it has actually created a bit of a model for those who want that smaller kind of niche book-selling business where they feel like they are getting that personal service and the collection is going to be highly curated."