For the Love of Community: Bank Square Books in Mystic updates to a new location

There is something about the smell of a bookstore, the sharing of favorite reads and favorite authors, and the astute recommendations of a fellow book lover, your local book seller.

A cornerstone of the community since 1988, Bank Square Books has been owned by Annie Philbrick for 18 years. And now she’s committed to making a change she believes will better serve the community, moving just over a mile away to a new location that will be more accessible to locals year round but still within the reach of tourists.

By the time you read this issue BSB has already relocated to that new store at 80 Stonington Road in Mystic. Their grand opening was held on September 17, and it was wonderful, featuring the release of cherished, local author, Luanne Rice’s 35th novel, If Anything Happens To Me.

Famous whale sculpture

Although the new store is roughly the same size, it’s still a big change after 18 years. It was designed by Dan Morosky, who's worked at the bookstore for 30 years, so he knows how to create a welcoming space. Annie had pondered moving before but says, ”I never could find a place that was comparable, that was in an area where people would see it and be able to park easily.

When this new space came up for rent, I started exploring it last winter, and it all began to make a lot of sense. Our mission statement for years has been to serve the community and be a community bookstore.

I just felt we'd somewhat lost sight of that in downtown with the changes that have happened in Mystic over the last 10 years. We want to serve the locals, and we miss them. I'm hoping that with this move we’ll attract both locals and tourists.”

Annie herself is a bit of a maverick, well suited to run a fiercely independent bookstore in the age of Amazon even though she came to the business somewhat circuitously. At the time she was working at the Small Business Development Center at UCONN at Avery Point. “I had run a few other small businesses before that, and honestly, it was a little bit boring. I don't fit in very well to a bureaucratic job or a standard 9:00 to 5:00 job.  That's just not who I am,” she says.

a bookseller helping a customer

Her son had been working summers and holidays at BSB in high school, he was probably 17, and he had worked over Christmas of 2005. Out of the blue, he came home one day and said, “Mom, I think Stuart (then owner Stuart Lamson) is going to sell the store. Annie thought “Oh, that would be fun!” She says, “I love to read for sure, but I never had run a bookstore. But then a couple friends, Patience Bannister and Jane Hannan, and I started talking about doing it together. We thought ‘Huh, that does sound fun. That sounds different.’ And my son was like, ‘You know, Mom, it's really complicated, but I think you can do it.’ So, we approached Stuart, and he said, ‘I am going to sell it.’ And six months later, we bought the bookstore!”

It was a steep learning curve. People have asked Annie over the years, "Why did you buy a business that you didn't know anything about?" And I always say, "Because I wanted to be part of the community!" Pretty maverick to buy a business you don’t really know anything about!

It was a bit bumpy of course but the team persevered. Yet it was always rewarding and fulfilling. “You can put a book in someone's hands, and it's giving a gift from you. If you share a book with someone and they say, ‘Oh my God, I love this book so much.’ That's just sharing a part of who you are,” Annie says.

Eventually Jane went back to teaching while Patience ended up doing the books and then also spent time on the floor, which she swore she never would, but she did. “It was great, and it was fun,” says Annie, “Patience retired, probably 10 years ago. She's no longer a part of the business, but she's still what I call my ballast. We’re friends, we talk quite frequently about everything.”

Annie of course, got even more involved in the store as well as the local community and the booksellers community. She was a board member and then president of the New England Independent Booksellers Association. She was also a director of the American Booksellers Association for six years. And she is currently the vice president of BINC, which is the Book Industry Charitable Foundation, having been on the board since 2013.

Featured summer reads

the store signage; and a small part of the cookbooks section

Annie explained that when Borders Bookstores existed, employees were able to contribute to the Border Charitable Foundation through payroll, and there was quite a significant fund left when Borders closed in 2011. Pam French, the current director, and others worked with Borders to establish a non-profit foundation called Book Industry Charitable Foundation with those funds, now known as BINC. Annie says, “We have grown that fund. We've helped so many booksellers. We raised over $4 million from authors, publishers, individuals, whatever, to help bookstores that were really in trouble during the pandemic. It's one of the best boards I've ever been on. I mean, it's so rewarding.

“That's how I got in the book business, and I love it. We have amazing staff currently. They're really steady. Obviously, we have summer help and such, but everyone is really dedicated to the bookstore. Some of our booksellers remember going to the bookstore as kids, they're adults now, and they want to work in the bookstore, which is great. Local author Jeff Benedict's daughter, Maggie Benedict, works for us too, which is really fun because we have that connection with her dad. They're just really good people. We're like a big family,” says Annie proudly.

This is exactly what you’d expect to feel in a local bookstore, where everybody's close and has a shared love of the business and the community. When people walk into the bookstore, and say, "Oh my God, I just love the smell of books," that's never going to go away. It's never going to go away.

• Bank Square Books is newly located at 80 Stonington Road in Mystic.
  Visit www.banksquarebooks.com