CONTRARY TO WHAT one might imagine, Tim Huggins does not have recurring dreams of the Amazon.com Web site being taken down by hackers. That’s because his Newtonville Books is doing just fine. The independent bookstore, open since the fall of 1998, attracts customers from well beyond its Newton neighborhood, drawn partially by Huggins’s tireless event planning. His Books & Brews series brings nationally recognized authors to the store for readings, followed by pints and grub at a local restaurant. Earfull, which has just wrapped up its second series, combines author readings with musical performances by local and national artists. During a time when not only Amazon, but also chains like Barnes & Noble and Borders dominate the literary landscape, the tiny Newtonville Books is proving that when it comes to the total book-buying experience, less may indeed be more.
Q: So tell me how it’s going.
A: Well, all things considered, it’s going well. We’ve been growing month to month, up until the fall, you know, when things got kind of funny, but we’re holding our own with last year, which I think is great. Not many people are. I feel lucky. I mean, the community’s just been really supportive of us since the beginning, and the publishers have been, and there’ve been a lot of great writers, a lot of great press. I feel like our work is getting noticed and that I’ve just been lucky at the same time, that things have just kind of fallen into place.
Q: That’s a nice balance.
A: It is a nice balance. Yeah, nothing wrong with hard work and luck. It’s definitely a lifestyle choice; you know, I’m not going to get rich, but it’s paying the bills.
Q: Is owning a bookstore what you expected?
A: I think yes and no. I grew up in a family that owned small businesses, so I was not under any illusion as to how hard it was or what the hours were like or that it wasn’t always great pay. So in that aspect I think I knew what I was getting into as far as owning my own business. I think I am surprised that it’s actually working. And I’m surprised that we’re getting as many authors as we’re getting, and I’m surprised that the community is supporting us, because we’re not a discount bookstore. You can get books cheaply just about anywhere, and I think I’m surprised by the fact that so many people are willing to pay more. I mean, it’s not a market that doesn’t have access to the Internet and all of these things. And they will even say, "I know I can get these books cheaper, but I love the work you’re doing and I love the fact that you’re bringing writers to the community."
Q: But that couldn’t happen in every community; this is an affluent community that can pay more for books.
A: But when you’re talking about paying more, you’re really talking about maybe two or three dollars. It’s more of a mindset that the book has kind of become a commodity more than a reading experience. And once the book became like a commodity and a product, and people started looking at it as a product, then it makes it harder to bring people back to seeing it in a different light. That’s the only thing I’m surprised by; people are being more supportive than I’d even hoped.
Q: Has anything been harder than you expected?
A: I had absolutely no experience managing people or things like that, so I find the things that weigh me down are the things I’m not experienced at. You know, the administrative stuff is boring; a lot of running your own business is so boring. If people knew how boring it was, they would not think it’s nearly as cool. I feel like I’ve come a long way, but still I think managing the staff is the hardest thing, because you’ve got people a lot older than you and a lot younger than you, a lot smarter than you, with different motivations and reasons that they’re working here. I’ve been really lucky with the staff that I have. I mean, they truly run the day-to-day things that it takes to run the bookstore. I don’t come in and open the store, I don’t have to stay here to close the store, I can sort of focus on more visionary stuff and marketing stuff, and I don’t think many small businesses can say that. I think that they’ve sort of given me a luxury and a freedom because they do very well at managing the store in the way that I would want it managed and run. But that’s more because of them than anything that I’m doing.
Q: Did you ever give any thought to opening another kind of business, or was it always going to be books, if you opened a business at all?
A: My family owned a wholesale-and-retail-produce place. Most of my experience had been in book-selling of some sort, so it just felt like a natural evolution, if I were going to open anything, that it would be something book-related. I mean, I sort of started reading late in life, but I love it. I’m not a writer, but I really appreciate artists a lot, and I appreciate their work a lot. I’ve always had very much an appreciation for the working craft of being an artist, and so this kind of allows me to share in this world, and I’m sort of helping in some way and connecting and creating something. And I get to be around artists and enjoy art, while doing what I’m capable of doing, which I think is running a business.
Q: So you won’t be writing a book?
A: Absolutely not. It seems too hard. I’m too lazy. I think having met writers and seen them work, I just know how hard it is, and what a commitment it is; it’s a lifestyle choice, too. I think if more people realized how hard it actually was, fewer people would think it was a cool thing to do. They make a lot of sacrifices that I don’t think I would be willing to make. And I don’t think I’d be any good. So two reasons not to do it.
Q: What’s the first book you remember reading, or having read to you?
A: I loved Dr. Seuss. My family were not big readers, but if anyone in the family was a reader, it was my mother. She used to read to me. And I think that’s when I fell in love with books, with just sort of the rhythm and the cuteness of the language, and then later in life, I kind of went through this long phase when I didn’t like reading at all, and I would avoid it at all costs. Most people think I’m very well-read, but there’s a huge gap in my life where I was lazy and, I don’t know, maybe I was the kind of student who didn’t like to be told what to read. I was a little bit rebellious, and not doing what people said, what people assigned, sort of gave me a chance to exercise that rebellion.
And then later in life, a friend gave me a copy of Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and that was when I was in college. I was at an influential age, and that book is just so well done, and so smart, and it just started something in me, and I found myself just looking for more stuff to read. And that was the beginning of really wanting to become a part of the book-selling field.
Q: Any other turning points?
A: When I started working at Lemuria Bookstore, in Jackson, Mississippi, I was not that well-read, and the owner there just really knew books, and he gave me a copy of one of John Steinbeck’s books that I don’t think many people read — To a God Unknown — and it was just wonderful. And I started meeting the writers who were writing these books that I loved and admired, and I think that’s what gave me the bug of wanting to create an experience with the event in my store, because it was such an important thing in my life, to get to talk to the writer and see what they were thinking about, and just getting to meet these people you admire through their craft. It just elevated the reading experience, getting to hear the writer read from their own work.
Q: As the owner of a bookstore, do you look at libraries as competition?
A: No, not at all. I think bookstores and libraries really complement one another’s work. To me it just seems like you need both, because it’s most important you get access to the work, and sometimes that’s purchasing the book and sometimes that’s borrowing the book. So the roles are very different, and I hope that my bookstore complements the Newton Free Library. I don’t really see them as a competitor. That’s even true of some bookstores like New England Mobile Book Fair and Brookline Booksmith; I mean, I know the owners well, and we have a good relationship. My feeling, and I hope this is their feeling, is that anyone who comes in and stimulates the market is a healthy competitor, and if they’re good, they make you better, and if they’re stimulating the market, and if you all are stimulating the market, then hopefully you’re increasing the number of people who are wanting to read, who are wanting to buy books. As long as it’s not a competitor who comes in and tries to devalue the book by undercutting the price and things like that, and they’re not really stimulating the market. I would see them as more of a threat just because of what they’re doing to the book-buying process.
Q: Do you ever have a dream that Amazon’s site goes down to hackers?
A: No. I know a lot of people in bookstores feel differently than I do about Amazon, probably because Amazon came in and was undercutting; they really deeply discounted books to try to acquire the yuppie customer, and they did that before I was open. So had I already been open, I might feel very differently about what they do. I’m not a big fan of the whole discounting just to get somebody to buy from you, and I do think in a way they did use the book, almost sort of prostituting the book to get the customers to buy other things or get comfortable buying from them. But I think what they created is amazing as far as, there’s not many times in business evolution that you have someone come in and create a whole new way of distributing and buying books. I think they did that and they did it brilliantly, and they’ve now become an important part of book distribution for publishers. So if I’m looking at it on a bigger plane, say if Amazon went out of business tomorrow, it would not be a good thing for the book-selling industry. I might get more customers, but at the same time probably you’re going to get a huge amount of returns, and book prices would probably go up. They’re just too important, they’ve become an important part of book distribution. For better or worse. In my own little Newtonville world, maybe yeah, maybe I’d love to get all those customers they have. But in the bigger picture, I don’t think it would be good for book-selling.
Q: How did the Earfull series come about?
A: One of my goals is [that] I love creating a community of people who love literature. And one of the other things that I’ve noticed over the years is there’s not a lot of young people going to author readings, and there’s this sort of stigma that it’s kind of a stifling experience. One of the series I started, Books & Brews, was to try and make it more accessible to people, make it a little bit more fun, make it a little bigger and a little more of a community event. And then I got to be friends with Jen Trynin, who’s a musician. I started inviting her to come to author readings, and then in turn, she started inviting me to her shows, and through our friendship and these late-night conversations over drinks, we just realized that there was a lot of overlap in the people who go to author readings, who listen and buy music but probably don’t go to hear live music for one reason or another. And vice versa; I was meeting a lot of musicians and people who went to music shows who were very well-read, but just didn’t think going to a reading was very cool, weren’t down with it, and we thought if we created a conducive environment, we could get people who normally go to readings to come to hear live music, and people who normally go to hear live music to come hear the readings, and they both would end up enjoying another art form that they would not have otherwise even given a chance.
Q: What about the store are you most proud of?
A: In the very beginning, I was trying to create a store with just a brilliant ambiance, where people walked in and said, "God, I wish this were my home." And I meet with publishers directly, and I hand-buy every book that comes into the store, and it takes a lot of work, but I wanted the store to have a particular feel. You’ve got to have books that sell, but they’re also books that I like. I want it to be an eclectic selection. So I’m very proud of the ambiance in the store, and the selection. The only way I can compete is to create a better experience than other stores, because I’m not going to win on price or any of those other things.
Q: When do you have time to read?
A: I have a lot more free time than you would imagine. I don’t read nearly as much as most of the people who work here. They’re reading three to five books a week. I’m not at that kind of pace; I’m usually reading a story collection and a novel. It depends; sometimes I read a book in a month, and other times I’m more focused, and I can read a book a day when I’m on vacation.
Q: Do you think you should see the movie first or read the book first?
A: I think you have to read the book first, otherwise I don’t think you’d ever read it. I’m just thinking from personal experience. Tom Perrotta, who’s a friend of mine — I don’t think I’ve ever confessed this, but I’ve never read his novel Election; it’s the only thing of his I’ve never read, because I saw the movie, and it’s harder to go back.
Q: How often are you disappointed by the movie if you’ve already read the book?
A: Almost always.
Newtonville Books is located at 296 Walnut Street, in Newton. Call (617) 244-6619. Tamara Wieder can be reached at twieder[a]phx.com
