Nancy Braus (center in light green shirt) and staff at Everyone’s Books, which is marking its 35th anniversary in Brattleboro.
By Kevin O’Connor
In 1984 — the year, not George Orwell’s dystopian novel — Nancy Braus and Rich Geidel decided to take on the establishment by opening a Brattleboro bookstore.
That might not sound revolutionary until you consider the town already boasted two literary landmarks: the Book Press factory, publishing 750,000 best-selling volumes a week, and the Book Cellar shop, pulling in loyal customers since Norman Rockwell appeared at its opening in 1948.
Braus and Geidel, longtime peace and antinuclear activists, wanted to offer something different: a counterculture alternative to an increasingly chain-store world. And so, stocking a downtown storefront with paperbacks, periodicals, and posters championing progressive politics, cultural diversity, and environment awareness, they opened Everyone’s Books.
Fast-forward to today and you’ll find the local landscape has changed. The Book Press, which once struggled to produce enough copies of the Harry Potter book series, was closed by its consolidation-minded corporate parent in 2000. The Book Cellar, which once showcased autographed photos of Robert Frost and Dorothy Canfield Fisher, shut in 2011 when fire decimated the store’s $250,000 inventory.
As for Everyone’s Books? The locally owned independent is marking its 35th anniversary this year.
Everyone’s Books in Brattleboro sells memorabilia championing progressive politics, cultural diversity and environment awareness.
“We certainly didn’t think we’d be in the place we’re in now,” Braus says. “We opened as a combination of an alternative bookstore and, more important for me, a place to get the kind of titles I wanted to read to my kids. Books looking at all different issues, from what if you have a deaf child in your class to what happens after a family breakup. All the different things not covered in mainstream stores.”
Everyone’s Books — which opened at a smaller location on Elliot Street before moving a half-dozen doors down to its current space in 1993 — was born in the prehistoric era before the internet or Amazon.com.
“There were a lot more people buying books in stores in those days,” Braus recalls nostalgically. “Some alternative stores had a lot of Mao and Lenin and little joy. That was never us. People have come in here during their chemotherapy or to breastfeed a baby or read with their children.”
People seeking to buy a new book in Brattleboro once had nearly a half-dozen options. Then finances or fire took the Book Press, Book Cellar and every other similar store, leaving Everyone’s as the sole survivor.
“We try to function as a family-friendly downtown community bookstore, yet also keep our progressive political perspective and social mission,” Braus says.
Everyone’s is plugged into the world through a website and social media. But the store continues to center on books, pins and bumper stickers, greeting cards and calendars — and personal service.
“When we first opened, the internet did not exist and we were selling things people couldn’t find otherwise,” Braus says. “Now the necessity is to create a welcoming space. I get that people will do anything to save a few dollars, but if they want a community that others want to visit, they need to support its businesses.”
Visit Everyone’s Books at http://www.everyonesbks.com.
