Bookies 2018-09-05 010
Local News

Bookie’s set to open Saturday with visit from children’s book author

Bookies 2018-09-05 010
Keith Lewis, owner of Bookie’s New and Used Books,   talks about plans for the children’s area in his new Homewood store. The shop will open its doors for the first time on Saturday, but a grand opening 
  has not been scheduled yet. (Photo by Eric Crump/H-F Chronicle)

Bibliophiles who have been waiting all summer for Bookie’s New and Used Books to open won’t have much longer to wait.

Bookie’s opens its doors at 2015 Ridge Road on Saturday.

It will be the beginning of a soft opening. It might even be a little mushy, according to owner Keith Lewis.

The shelves are ready for books and staff on Wednesday were beginning to stock them, but the inventory won’t yet be up to Lewis’s standards by Saturday and finishing touches are still being applied to the furnishings.

But Lewis has been as impatient as local book lovers to get the shop going.

“I’ve been ready to open since July,” he said. The build-out, of course, took a little longer than that.

The first day will feature a chance to meet an author.

Children’s book author Jamie Swenson will make an appearance from 2 to 3 p.m.
Lewis said he got an advanced copy of her latest book, “A Fall Ball for All,” about five months ago.

He said he reads many children’s books as part of his job, and sometimes finds the rhyming, which children love, to be a bit forced or “clunky.” But when he read Swenson’s book, he found something different.

“This book just flowed,” he said. “I loved it instantly.”

Lewis said he is already lining up more events for the store and plans to have regular activities and performances.

He hopes to be able to schedule a grand opening event on or about the last day of summer.

“I’ve been telling everybody we would open this summer,” he said, and he hopes to make good on that promise.

Bookie’s will be open daily from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.


More information:
Jamie Swenson
Bookie’s

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