It’s difficult to explain what Mary Gay Shipley has created in Blytheville, AR. A fabulous bookstore? Too generic. A quaint shop? Totally misses the point. Heaven for Bibliophiles? Now, we’re getting close.
Not a wonder that John Grisham and Bill Clinton (among dozens of other authors) put That Bookstore in Blytheville at the top of their booktour schedule! For 32 years (this fall) Mary Gay Shipley has been selling books, creating a community and fostering the talents of authors in such a smart, kind and nurturing way that you really don’t want to leave the store.
For Susan Gregg Gilmore’s booksigning the other night, Mary Gay made sure there was a crowd even though we didn’t know a soul in town. And she served everyone Dilly Bars.
The seats the audience sits in are signed by various authors (each year she dedicates a new chair to the authors appearing in the store). Susan got to sign on the same chair with John Grisham, which is totally cool.
Marvel, just the kind of person you want to meet when you go to a bookstore, sent us in the direction of the Sharecropper Restaurant. We had dinner with Kay Richardson, the most delightful, funny woman from Little Rock who reads voraciously. The chicken-and-dumplings were out of this world! And the merangue on the top of the homemade chocolate pie was fluffier than clouds.
I’m organizing a mother-daughter trip to That Bookstore in Blytheville for this summer that will enchant and open the eyes to our friends of some of the finer things South of Nashville.
Comments
Leave a Reply