The owner of The Community Bookstore has finally gotten around to her occasional newsy newsletter, The Slant. Here’s the latest from Catherine Bohne. It’s been a busy and exciting year since the store nearly went under. Bohne has much exciting news to report. Sales are up, inventory is up…Yay team!

The State of the Store. Hi Everyone! Greetings and salutations! The last time I wrote to you, almost one halcyon year ago, was to say that perhaps you’d heard we were in trouble (dire, grim, Dickens-worthy trouble), but not to worry (who me?), solutions were on the way. So many of you have been so kind, present, concerned, supportive, and often actively involved, that it hasn’t seemed urgent to sit down and actually write (haven’t I spoken to each of you, but recently?), but . . . it was one of my save-the-store resolutions of yester-year to be better about communicating. Here it goes, then – New Year, New Beginnings (autres temps, autres whatsits). So.
The financial news is that . . . . (fingers crossed and all that, but ) . . . it seems to be working. No, we’re not totally out of the woods, yet – although our rent is generous (or whatever the opposite is, rent-wise . . . . restrained?) by Seventh-Avenue standards, it does tend to go up every year in the manner of these things, and we do have only two years to build up reserves & repair credit before we’ll have to refinance our current situation, and the ambitious benchmark we’re boldly setting is that the business won’t actually be sustainably healthy until we can afford health insurance, which we can’t yet (crazy that in this day and age that seems like the dizzying heights of success . . . . did someone mention Dickens?) – but we’re definitely seeing blue sky through the trees.

Sales are up! (no, seriously – 40% over same period last year – that would be thanks to you, methinks?), and accordingly, inventory’s up! (50% over last year!), and not only are there more books, but better books! Just last week we ran out of room in literature and had to go through and weed out every weird old thing (you know, those in the ‘how did this get here?’ category) and send ‘em back to make room for the good books. It’s incredible to stand in the doorway, and look around the store, see the shelves jam-packed, and be able to reasonably suppose that there isn’t one dingy book in here.

How did this happen? How is it possible? Twenty Advisors, who came up with a plan, a dozen Investors, who bravely decided to put their money where their home is, one amazing neighborhood, and the determined support of the Community. On behalf of the bookstore, it feels a bit like having been a Dodo, translated (oh, Bottom!) to a Phoenix . What next? And what can I say, but: Thank you.