Photograph by Nick Schnelle
In unguarded moments, voracious adult readers may reveal a deep, dark secret: Walking through the children’s section makes them jealous. Where’s our Captain Underpants? they’ll sigh. Or they’ll admit that finishing the last book in the Nancy Drew series triggered their first official dark night of the soul, a trauma that was revisited when the Harry Potter series ended. Too many celebrity tell-alls now, they sniff. Too many boring novels full of characters named Nigel or Lyric. How many books can that damn Barefoot Contessa pump out, anyway?
“They haven’t tried Bigfoot’s I Not Dead,” replies Nikki Furrer, the effervescent proprietor of Pudd’nhead Books, grabbing a copy and handing it over for a flip-through. This clever cryptozoological romp, written by Canadian graphic novelist Graham Roumieu, is part of a trilogy that also includes Me Write Book: It Bigfoot Memoir and In Me Own Words: The Autobiography of Bigfoot. “They’re hilarious,” she says. “And yes—this is for adults. What is it? It’s fun fiction. Oh, and if you want to see real fun fiction …” She passes over a copy of Animals of the Ocean, in Particular the Giant Squid, by Dr. & Mr. Doris Haggis-on-Whey. Graphically beautiful, absurd and smart, the book’s foil-stamped cover reveals McSweeney’s as the publisher. Furrer cites them as one of her favorites (though she also admits she doesn’t really have favorite publishers: “I just go through catalogs and look for neat stuff”).
Furrer’s approach—the store’s slogan is “read for pleasure”—is resonating with a lot of people. Her Webster bookstore opened in late October, around the time the recession really began to sink in, but she was immediately swamped—even though she was open seven days a week from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. (she’s since scaled those hours back; she just wanted to know when most people shopped for books). Like any good indie bookstore, Pudd’nhead offers plushy couches, rich coffees, events from chocolate tastings to poetry readings and a crack team of literary experts: A local teen orders the manga and graphic novels; a 12-year-old helps buy for the young-adult section; and a fanatic knitter—knitting books are one of Pudd’nhead’s biggest sellers—consults on the fiber arts.
“I told my dad over 10 years ago, ‘All I want to do is open a bookstore,’” Furrer says. “He said, ‘It’s 90 percent about running the business, and 10 percent about the books. You’ll hate it.’ But I tried law school; I tried publishing. This is really just what I wanted to do.”
The name of her shop is not just a Mark Twain reference, but also a wink to doubting Thomases like her dad. “I had a friend who told me he was going to open a typewriter repair shop next door,” Furrer notes dryly. “So many people think I’m ridiculous for thinking this might work. But the Pudd’nhead character figured everything out eventually.” One guy, she says, stopped in just to say he thought she was “doomed to failure,” because books are cheaper online. “If I see him in here again, I’m kicking him out,”
she jokes.
Furrer, who was working as a literary agent in New York before coming home to start Pudd’nhead (initially, she was going to open the store in Brooklyn), says she organized the space to make sense from a book-browser’s perspective. One shelf is labeled “For Smarties.” Another is dedicated to zombies and vampires; another to moms and hippies (as two separate categories, of course). And she is nimble in responding to feedback. After discovering students in Webster’s music department wanted jazz books, not pop bios, she ordered accordingly; her foodie section is growing. “The number-one goal right now is to know what people are looking for, and have it,” she says. “I hate telling people, ‘We don’t have it.’ That drives me crazy.”
She’d also love to hook more grown-ups on graphic novels (so far, she’s had some success leading people to the work of local artist Matt Kindt, author of Super Spy) and keep an eye on POD (print on demand) technology. Oh, and one other thing …
“I want to have a bookstore with no shelves,” Furrer says. “The original plan was to get an old, empty big-box store or grocery store and be able to spread out and have a bed set up with romance books on it. Or a back end of a classic car with the trunk open and a body bag, with detective novels spread around. Honestly, just getting a normal, functioning bookstore up and running is enough of a challenge without subjecting it to the Kool-Aid acid test! So that’s gonna come later.”
Pudd’nhead Books, 37 Old Orchard, 314-918-1069, puddnheadbooks.com. Hours: 8 a.m.–7 p.m. Mon–Sat and 10 a.m.–5 p.m. Sun.
