Oliver & Friends Bookshop & Reading Room, a 750-square-foot independent bookstore, will open in Belgrade, Maine, in May, Bookselling This Week reported.
Owner Renee Cunningham plans for Oliver & Friends to be a general-interest store with books for all ages, and while she has no events officially scheduled just yet, she hopes to host book club meetings, storytime sessions and traditional author signings. The bookstore, she told BTW, is named after her cat Oliver, who was in turn named after Oliver Twist.
"The store's mission is to be not just a bookstore, but a community gathering place where people can come and bump into their neighbor and talk about books in a really safe and inclusive environment," said Cunningham.
While Cunningham is new to the world of indie bookselling, she has been dreaming about opening a store of her own for at least the past two decades. But after moving to Belgrade in 2018 and learning that there was no independent bookstore in town, she "couldn't let it go."
So far, Cunningham's bookstore plans have met with an enthusiastic response, and she's currently soliciting feedback about what sorts of books her community wants to see in store.
"I'm looking forward to having people in the store, to talking about books and expanding my own realm of what I tend to read," she said. "I picture the space as a place for so many wonderful conversations, whether they're about books or anything else. I'm just excited to get here and to open up to the community."