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Bookstore Tour: The Shire

  • Kayla Roy
  • Aug 21, 2017
  • 7 min read

Hello my fellow bookworms! Welcome back to Roy Reading Co.! Thank you so much for checking out my blog! Today's post is the first in a new series that I will be doing on an on-going basis! Living in Boston, there are so many indie bookstores in the area. So, my goal is to try and visit as many as possible, go on a little tour and share them with you! This will be a lot easier to do in the fall when I go to school, because I'll be right in the city of Boston and there are tons of bookstores around!

Today's bookstore tour is of a really small bookshop, called The Shire. Franklin, MA used to be a center of factory working in the industrial revolution. Like many of the towns around it, Franklin still has some of its old mill buildings. It's in one of these mill buildings, wandering booklovers may stumble upon a certain paradise. A little wooden sign out front, directs you right to the magic.

There's approximately two parking spots out front, but for what it lacks in parking, it makes up for one hundred fold in books. The Shire is a used bookstore, but there are scads of books (cascades of books, mountains of books, books on every subject- Beauty and the Beast anyone?) in various conditions. From the moment you step inside, frankly, you get overwhelmed with books. As in after your first steps into the building, you run serious risk of knocking over teetering stacks of dusty books. IT WAS THE BEST THING I HAVE EVER SEEN.

Let's start from the beginning shall we. At first I was brought to tears by the sheer volume of books this place had. There were 6 rows of book shelves that had to be at least twenty feet long, which led to a little commune of assorted comfy, lumpy, reading chairs and behind that there 6. More. Rows. of these huge book shelves. There was also floor to ceiling shelves around the perimeter of the entire place. Mind you, this place was an old mill factory. It had to hold a lot of machinery and people. It was huge. BUT THAT'S NOT ALL FOLKS. There was another section, which I have deemed "The Restricted Section" of rare books that were upwards of $250 on the low-end. Literally too many books.

There was a nice, little old man who runs the place behind a counter, and he may be slightly senile but he's harmless and sweet and loves books as much as I do. I have named him Norman. Norman and I are friends. He might not know it yet. ANYWAY. You walk in and you're greeted by Norman, who totters around all hunched over and bustles to different stacks of books and then back to his computer. The best part of Norman, is that when you walk in he tells you everything is 20% off and to help yourself to complimentary tea. I know, I know. THIS PLACE IS HEAVEN.

So I walk in, slightly speechless, and trying to take in the enormity of the books that I could possibly buy, and Norman points me in the direction of a map that tells you what's on each shelf, but also (for those of us who struggle with the numbers-me on all occasions) what the 20% makes the cost of each book.

And then I am set free. My compatriot on this journey, bustles off to who knows where, and I just stumble around dazedly for a few minutes. And then I realize, Kayla, get your head in the game you've got a job to do. And I'm off. Once I've got my bearings, I'm all in. I start at the children's section and they have literally everything. First editions of The Hardy Boys, vintage Disney picture books of every story you could ever want, illustrated versions of classics everything.

I make my way over to the writing section, find some copies of The Writer's Market circa 2001, but then I find them. The old, old, old leather bound dictionaries. This is what I'm here for. I look through them. I cry. I pull them from the shelves. There are thesauri from 1923, printed in green leather and blue leather and red leather, and my heart is singing. And then my eyes travel to England's Literature in the Renaissance and there SEVEN volumes and I want all the lilac leather books, but my heart falls as its $300. And so my trip continues.

And then I looked up. I broke into a grin. I had finally found it. A PLACE WITH BOOK SHELF LADDERS. They sadly weren't the ones from Beauty and the Beast where she glides down the stacks, singing her heart out. No these were just ladders with hooks to balance against the shelves. But bookshelf ladders nonetheless. I have never felt more in my element than climbing those ladders to grab a different leather bound volume of Egyptology in the 1930s.

The poetry section. Jiminy Christmas. There were illustrated editions of The Canterbury Tales from 1912, anthologies of Robert Burns poetry from lord-knows-when. And the best part, is to truly find the gems, you have to glance at every book on the shelves. It takes real time and dedication to find the hidden treasures. Considering how many books there are, I could easily spend three days there. And don't get my started on The Restricted Section. My guess, is those books have to be pre-20th century. Many of the covers and spines were embossed, which wasn't very common in the more practical times of the 1900s, compared to the more opulent years in the 1800s. Editions of Wuthering Heights, and King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table were beautiful and delicate, and living pieces of history. And way out of my budget.

In the end, I did end up finding a lot of books. You have to be careful. You might find that perfect, pale yellow leather bound Wizard of Oz, but depending on the condition and the year of publication, it could be $50. Whatever Norman, has deemed is a fair price. I trust his judgement. There was definitely a range of prices, to match the range of conditions. For example, I found a pamphlet of Shakespeare's, Henry V printed in 1901 (see below) which wasn't really in readable condition, but holy hell it's a collectible from 1901. It was only $15, and with Norman's 20% it was only $12. A true gem. Unfortunately I talked myself out of it and put it back, but I will one day go back and find it. So really, if you're passionate about finding really cool, rare collectible pieces, or finishing a collection, or building up a library: this is the place to go. Paperbacks, with the discount, were around $1.75, totally worth it!

I will say if you're looking for new books or new releases, this is not the place for you. Norman sells used books, and some of them, you wouldn't even be able to tell. But others, it's obvious. I almost bought a first edition of Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass, but someone had written in and annotated the entire thing, so I had to put it back. I'm not positive, but I believe that The Shire runs mainly on donated books, or books Norman's picked up somewhere so it's not likely that this week's NYT Bestsellers will be there. Also, I wouldn't recommend going there with a specific title in mind that you need urgently. It doesn't really appear to have a cataloging system (but Norman could be more technologically savvy than I give him credit) and it's possible that if you asked him he would know if he had it/where it is, but there's no guarantee. I would say that it's much more reasonable to say "I want to expand my classic fairytales collection, maybe I can find a few more leather-bound copies for that," which is what I did, and I found just what I was looking for.

In the end, I bought seven books, for $37! A steal in my opinion considering what I managed to find! Norman struggles a little bit with the card reader so I recommend bringing cash. But he gives you book marks and a cute bag to put your books in. And really its a wonderful experience. When all was said and done, I ended up with:

  • A Quarto sized version of Macbeth, with the Historie of Macbeth from 1577.

  • An impeccable copy of The Arabian Nights from the "Best Loved Classics Series"

  • How to Train Your Dragon. :)

  • King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table from the "Great Illustrated Classics" Series.

  • Robin Hood and His Merry Outlaws (1923)

  • The Annotated Alice: Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass

But the real magic is in the ambience. Norman has written the price of each book in pencil on the title page. There are over 100,000 books in the blessed place. The whole place smells like that lovely, slightly musty smell of old books and leather. There are old type-writers stacked up in heaps at random parts of the store. There are train tracks that run the perimeter of the building, and every so often you are disturbed from your browsing by the sound of the whistle and the shaking of the shelves. The mill on the second floor is still in use, and you hear the soft whir of the machinery. And with tears in your eyes and mint tea on your lips you have found Nirvana.

I am beginning to consider myself a book collector and it's always so much fun to visit a place like this, and find so many beautiful pieces to bring home. I genuinely found myself close to tears at how wonderful it was to have found a place where someone had amassed such incredible books and clearly cared for them. I was literally in pure happiness to be there. I highly recommend The Shire Book Shop for anyone looking for used books, or a nice quiet reading or writing spot. I'll definitely be headed back there soon to find more beauties and even take some time to read in one of those squashy armchairs.

I hope you enjoyed this post, and I really hope that if you're ever in Massachusetts, and you have some time, that you travel on over to the Shire and check them out. I think you'll love them just as much as I did. Do I think this hole-in-the-wall book shop is worth it? As Mackenzi Lee would say, Abso-bloody-lutely! This bookshop is for sure Roy-Reading-Co-Approved! The Shire Book Shop gets 📚📚📚📚📚 out of 5! I'll put a gallery of the pictures I took of the place down below, as well as the books that I purchased!

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-Kayla

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