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BOOK VALUE
A local treasure gets the gold
BY CHRIS WRIGHT

IF THERE IS AN ACADEMY AWARD in the book-selling arena — a Pulitzer Prize, a World Series — then the Publishers Weekly Bookseller of the Year award is it. "There’s no other award like it in the business," says John Mutter, PW’s executive editor of book-selling. "It takes a lot to get this. It is not a spur-of-the-moment thing."

So when the Harvard Book Store was named PW’s Bookseller of the Year last month, it was a real hats-in-the-air moment. "Oh boy, we were thrilled," says the store’s owner, Frank Kramer. "We were just over the top." And perhaps a little relieved, too.

A couple of years ago, the Harvard Book Store was on the ropes. Competition from Internet retailers and chain outlets had taken a bite out of profits. Harvard Square, where the store is located, was losing many of its independent businesses to mega-chains. The economy was teetering on the edge of recession. During a particularly low point, Kramer called his staff together for a strategy meeting. "We thought long and hard about who we are and what we had to do," he says. "We were in a survival mode."

Shortly after the meeting, Kramer received an e-mail from a customer, which said, in effect, keep doing what you’re doing. "It was unbelievable," Kramer says. "It gave us a tremendous lift." Since that day, the Harvard Book Store has gone from strength to strength, precisely by doing what it’s been doing for the past 70 years — knowing what kind of books its customers want, and what kind of prices they are willing to pay.

"We’re not in this to make huge amounts of money," Kramer says. "We’re a literary, scholarly bookstore. We don’t sell a lot of Gothic romances. We don’t sell Westerns. Our bread and butter is books that most people can’t pronounce the names of, let alone read. And there is a group of customers who value that. They are the some of the most interesting and challenging people you could hope to meet. It’s a group that I respect and like dealing with."

Indeed, part of the Harvard Book Store’s success can be attributed to the fact that its staff goes out of its way to make everyone — even the Square’s kooky, curmudgeonly intellectual community — feel welcome. "You have to value every customer who walks through that door," Kramer says. "Show them. Make them feel valued. People should come in because they want to spend some time here."

This approach has not been lost on the Harvard Book Store faithful. "Frank has been a bookseller to me for decades now," says the writer James Carroll. "And he’s just about the best bookseller I’ve ever known. His store proves this, year in and year out."

In fact, there are those who are surprised that it’s taken the Harvard Book Store so long to get the kind of national recognition that the PW award will bestow. "I would say [the award] is overdue," says Rusty Drugan, executive director of the New England Booksellers Association. (The last time a local bookstore won the PW prize was in 1998, when Brookline Booksmith took the honor.) "Frank has been extraordinarily generous both to the community and to his colleagues. It really is a case of the good guy finishing first."

No one would deny that Frank Kramer is a good guy. Though he is loathe to talk about it, he is a frequent and generous benefactor to various good causes. He has worked tirelessly to make Harvard Square a conservation district. He even serves as a warden during local elections. "I never wanted to be a big corporate executive, and I never wanted to control huge amounts of real estate," he says. "What I’ve always wanted is to value what I do. If you are going to be in business, do something that contributes to the community." He adds, "I feel good about myself and this business. I love what I do."

He didn’t always feel this way. Kramer took over the Harvard Book Store in 1962, when his father, who had founded the store 30 years earlier, died unexpectedly at the age of 56. Kramer was 20 at the time. "Frankly, I wasn’t a big book lover when I was a kid," he says. "I’d worked at the store various times, but it wasn’t something I wanted to do at all."

Forty years on, Kramer is not only a contented bookseller, he is, by all accounts, a very good one. "I think they have fabulous taste, the best secondhand-book section in town," says author Margot Livesey. "I have to say, just from going in his store, he seems to be someone who values books over profit."

Kramer, meanwhile, takes these kinds of accolades in stride. "I’ve been very lucky," he says. "We have staff who love what they do, who just love being in the book business." He reserves special praise for Carol Horne, who has worked by his side for the past 28 years. "Carol is one of the best things that has happened to the Harvard Book Store," he says. "She’s an extremely passionate bookseller."

And, these days at least, Kramer isn’t lacking in the passion department himself. "I feel as though the bookstore has a life that’s bigger than my own," he says. "It’s bigger than I am." Kramer’s only regret, he continues, is that he wasn’t able to convey these feelings to his father while he was still alive. "I was an adolescent," he says. "We didn’t talk as adults. I was in a huge stage of rebellion."

Kramer does, though, take some comfort in the fact that his mother lived to see him make a go of things. "She was very proud," he says. "She would always introduce me as her son, the man who made a success of the Harvard Book Store." In August of last year, Kramer’s mother died at the age of 93, which adds a bittersweet note to the PW award. "I know," he says, "how much she would have savored this."

Issue Date: March 14 - 21, 2002
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