{"id":71798,"date":"2018-03-05T14:35:20","date_gmt":"2018-03-05T20:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=71798"},"modified":"2018-08-04T16:33:39","modified_gmt":"2018-08-04T21:33:39","slug":"the-maker-of-a-communitys-book-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/the-maker-of-a-communitys-book-space\/","title":{"rendered":"The maker of a community\u2019s book-space"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Vangmayi Parakala<\/strong>
\nMedill Reports<\/em><\/p>\n

You\u2019ll most likely miss it.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re new to Evanston, you\u2019ll wonder whether the fabled bookstore Bookends & Beginnings still exists.<\/p>\n

Because when your smartphone map announces, \u201cyou have arrived at your destination,\u201d you\u2019ll be looking not at books, but at the overflowing outside of a university merchandise store. Where is the bookstore?<\/p>\n

Until very recently, your concern might have been justified. Bookends & Beginnings, along with other independently owned businesses in the block, was living under a cloud of possible destruction for six months. A 37-story highrise designed by the renowned Chicago architecture and design company Skidmore, Owings & Merrill was proposed to take over the block, bringing back the Evanston-born Northlight Theater Company on two of its floors. After months of uncertainty, a final decision on scrapping this plan was announced on March 2.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are overjoyed and I do hope that going forward this resolution allows us to develop our location without fear [of displacement],\u201d says owner of the store Nina Barrett, referring to the plans that her store, as well as other independent businesses in the location, had in mind to refurbish the alley they\u2019re located in.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A petite woman in her 50s, Barrett is a wealth of stories and experiences \u2014 just like the physical space of her store. Small with low-ceilings, Bookends & Beginnings winds around, opening up at its heart to a cozy drawing-room-like area with huge wooden tables and rocking chairs on warm carpets.<\/p>\n

Having graduated in the ’80s from Northwestern University\u2019s Medill School of Journalism, Barrett flitted in and out of the books business until 2014, when she finally started the Bookends & Beginnings. She took over the space once occupied by Bookman\u2019s Alley, another Evanston legend.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn fact, one of the first things that I did as a Medill graduate student in my first quarter was come to Bookman\u2019s Alley and write an article about Roger Carlson, who was the owner,\u201d she says, recalling that she had known about this space going back to almost the first week that she was in Evanston.<\/p>\n

If that seems retrospectively serendipitous, then so will mostly everything she has done. As a new mother post-graduation, she worked part time at Women and Children First, a feminist bookstore in Chicago\u2019s Andersonville neighborhood while doing book-writing projects on the side. At one point, she was even its manager. \u201cI wasn\u2019t intentionally trying to learn how to run an independent bookstore, but I learned a lot,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Despite the hands-on experience, Barrett acknowledges that nothing had prepared her to start a book store from scratch. If true, in the four years since it has opened, Bookends & Beginnings has come a long way. At the store, Barrett crafts an experience that is uniquely personal.<\/p>\n

Her hand-written and signed review blurbs (\u201cshelf-talkers,\u201d in industry parlance), posted under favorite books, are a more personal take on the recommended bestseller shelves at chain bookstores. Adding to this is the amount of time and effort that goes into curating what sort of books find a home in the shelves at the store. Barrett makes Bookends & Beginnings a place for discoveries, making a trip to the bookstore a journey rather than a mere consumer experience.<\/p>\n

For instance, a whole shelf is dedicated to eclectic cookbooks from around the world. Barrett mentions one from Azerbaijan with a recipe for horse-hooves. At the table where we are sitting lays \u201cRestoring the Minoans,\u201d a book that puts to test theories about life in the Greek Bronze Age by famous British archeologist Sir Arthur Evans.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m looking more for a certain kind of book,\u201d Barrett says. \u201cAnd there are some books I can take a quick look at and know that that isn\u2019t really [for] our customer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Near where we are sitting, is her husband Jeff Garrett\u2019s specially curated collection of children\u2019s books. A product of his extensive travels, the collection has also benefitted from well-travelled and thoughtful customers from the community. There are titles from Spain to South Africa, and from Rwanda to China, Barrett says, adding how it is important for children to learn of how childhoods in different parts of the world can be so vastly different from their own.<\/p>\n

Just then, customers come by to browse this portion of the store. Their voices drop to a whisper, not wanting to disturb Barrett\u2019s meeting, even as one or two of them acknowledge her with a slight nod in her direction.<\/p>\n

It is clear that Barrett\u2019s relationship with Bookends & Beginnings and its customers is intrinsic to her contained personality. But she reminds me just then that there was a time when she\u2019d quit the book business as a whole. This was around 2005, when e-books were on the rise and things got worse for bookstores. She\u2019d dropped all ties with books and enrolled herself in the Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago, and worked in various kitchens for a few years. In a few years, she\u2019d circle back to her journalistic roots, combining her culinary training with it, to develop the James Beard Award winning \u201cFear of Frying\u201d radio series for WBEZ. The influence of this experience is clearly visible even to this day, with the collection of cookbooks at the store.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was fascinating to me what the differences are between having a voice in print, and having a voice with your voice,\u201d Barrett says.<\/p>\n

It was only when the bookstore chain Borders had shut shop in 2011 and Barnes and Noble had started diverting its interest away from books that she started taking notice of the book-selling space again. Her beloved Bookman\u2019s Alley and Women and Children First were also on the brink of closure, despite weathering the 2005 e-book storm.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when she decided to step in.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The plaque outside Bookends & Beginnings paying tribute to the older store, Bookman’s Alley. (Vangmayi Parakala\/MEDILL)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cMy husband asked if I\u2019d be interested in buying Women & Children First. I told him I\u2019d have the concept re-tooled a little bit,\u201d she says. \u201cNot that I wouldn\u2019t want it to be a feminist bookstore, but I\u2019d want it to be a neighborhood bookstore with a strong feminist bent.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s exactly what Bookends & Beginnings has grown into. A few days before the verdict on the Northlight high-rise was announced, an Evanston prep school had a grade 5 class trip to the store. They spent their time here learning through conversation and various books at the store about life in ancient Egypt, and how Cleopatra might\u2019ve studied.<\/p>\n

There are also weekly events at the Bookends & Beginnings. In addition to readings with authors, multiple book clubs run in parallel. The Very Short Book Club for instance, is working towards exploring a title each month from the Oxford University Press\u2019 Very Short Introduction series of books, while The Mortality Book Club reads and discusses oft-avoided topics that confront people at the end of their lives. Another popular series of events at the Bookends & Beginnings is Storytime!, aimed at children between ages 2-6 to come in and spend their evenings with real time storytelling.<\/p>\n

Barrett has ensured, through these beyond-commerce interactions, that the store and the community share a strong and continuous relationship. This came of use especially when the space was, for six months, simmering in the uncertainty of its existence. Barrett had mobilized the community to speak up about what the space meant to them. For five months, she continuously pushed citizen petitions to stop re-development of the block through the store\u2019s newsletter.<\/p>\n

But on 31 January, the day that the issue came up for discussion with Evanston\u2019s Economic Development Council, Barrett was sick with the flu and couldn\u2019t attend the city council meeting. That didn\u2019t stop more than 20 Evanstonians from speaking up for her store \u2014 for their store.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see it as a sort of intercostal muscle in the city,\u201d said Elena Gonzales, an Evanston resident of over 30 years and Bookends & Beginnings regular, at that meeting. \u201cThe businesses in and around the alley in particular are so special that novelists have written about them. I don\u2019t know if anyone here has had the experience of having someone say \u2018Oh you\u2019re from Evanston? I\u2019ve read the Time Traveler\u2019s Wife! Is that bookstore real?\u2019 Yes, it is real! We have it, let\u2019s not ruin it,\u201d she said to the aldermen, referring to the store\u2019s importance and reference in pop culture.<\/p>\n

Barrett watched the proceedings through a livestream feed online. Weeks later, she\u2019d attribute the success of the campaign to \u201cpeople power\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe book business doesn\u2019t have that many rewards other than loving reading, loving being a reader, and sharing that with other people,\u201d she says as her younger son George Garrett puts two Hershey\u2019s kisses with the receipt, on top of a book that one of the last customers of the day has purchased. It\u2019s almost last light of day, and the store will soon shut, but the fairylights dangling at the storefront will remain lit long into the night.<\/p>\n

Photo at top: A patron walks into Bookends & Beginnings in downtown Evanston. (Vangmayi Parakala\/MEDILL) <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Vangmayi Parakala Medill Reports You\u2019ll most likely miss it. If you\u2019re new to Evanston, you\u2019ll wonder whether the fabled bookstore Bookends & Beginnings still exists. Because when your smartphone map announces, \u201cyou have arrived at your destination,\u201d you\u2019ll be looking not at books, but at the overflowing outside of a university merchandise store. Where […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":481,"featured_media":71799,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194,3987],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-culture","category-winter-2018"],"yoast_head":"\nThe maker of a community\u2019s book-space - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/the-maker-of-a-communitys-book-space\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The maker of a community\u2019s book-space - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Vangmayi Parakala Medill Reports You\u2019ll most likely miss it. 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