The King’s English Bookshop
Wasatch Hollow is a nature preserve open to the public from dawn to dusk, about five miles southeast of downtown Salt Lake City. In addition to playing home to wildlife, Wasatch Hollow is largely residential. It sits away from the hustle and bustle of nearby skiing attractions, with a few houses of worship in the area as well as some other local businesses—among them an art gallery, a “wine and work” bar, and The King’s English Bookshop.
“Our store is an old house, so when customers walk in our front door their shopping experience begins right away,” says co-owner Anne Holman.
The space is long yet narrow, packing a lot of books (and a small children’s-section treehouse wrapped in fairy lights) into about 2,600 square feet. The book club picks are immediately on your right when you walk in, whereas titles that will feature in upcoming store events are directly in front of you. That leaves a little room for the register on your left. Mismatched chairs perch in openings through the store between shelves against blue, orange and cream-painted walls with old book posters featured as décor. A greeting card display sits in one corner, some seasonal gifts in another. If you time it right, delicious smells from the tapas restaurant next door will make their way into the cozy mix.
“We’re small, so can’t afford to give customers room to acclimate,” explains Holman. “What we do instead is give them a second to come in and then we greet them cordially, reading their body language to see how much if any help they want at the moment.”
The King’s English first opened on September 10, 1977 under the ownership of Betsy Burton and her friend Ann Berman. “Betsy quickly became so enamored of bookselling that we’ve continued, much as we were, for the past forty-five years,” Holman says, who began working at The King’s English as a bookseller in 1999 and has been a co-owner of the store since 2014.
Indeed, Burton continued to lead the store with various co-owners by her side up until last summer. After a taxing first year of the pandemic that kept the business booming, but involved shifting from in-person sales to more optimization of online transactions and contactless pick-ups, Burton decided it was time to look for her successor. She wanted someone who, like her, appreciated fiction and poetry, but who also understood the modern bookselling business. Oren Teicher, the former executive director of the American Booksellers Association (ABA), suggested Burton reach out to then executive director of the California Independent Booksellers Association (CALIBA), Calvin Crosby.
Crosby had grown up in Utah going to The King’s English as a teenager, and after moving to San Francisco twenty-five years ago, he worked at Books Inc. and Books Passage before stepping into a role with CALIBA. More than familiar with the book business and charmed by the idea of returning to run his hometown bookstore, Crosby offered himself up to buy Burton’s shares of the business, and she agreed.
“She was comfortable with the thought that he would carry us into the future safely,” says Holman.
Just over a year later, Holman and Crosby are continuing to run the store together, helping the business climb out of the pandemic as well as working toward new goals of expanding their reach locally and nationwide.
“Like most small businesses, we had to pivot,” says Holman. “We had a few booksellers who opted out of working, but fortunately, we had enough people stay that we were able to turn the store into a mini fulfillment center as the online business began to explode.” The King’s English also received a PPP loan, which allowed them to pay booksellers who had to stay home for health and safety concerns.
Holman adds, “One unexpected bright spot was that so many people finally understood what happens when you don’t shop local. Your favorite restaurants, bars, and stores, they go away and they don’t come back.”
Community has long been at the heart of The King’s English’s mission. Burton was one of the founders of the Vest Pocket Coalition (now the Utah Independent Business Coalition) which became one of the largest and most active local first movements in the country. The store also incorporated their shopping block into the 15th and 15th Neighborhood Business District about a decade ago where they continue to advocate at the state and micro levels for small businesses.
In addition to gaining hundreds of new fans for the store through an increased internet presence, Holman and Crosby are working to make The King’s English more welcoming to historically underserved members of the Salt Lake City community. This includes the native population as well as BIPOC and queer readers.
As part of this initiative, Crosby curates a Pop-Up market every Sunday in the summer on the store’s 300 square-foot patio, featuring different, diverse local makers of jewelry, pottery, and other artisan goods. They’ve also teamed with Under the Umbrella, a new queer-focused bookshop, on occasion. The goal is to expand these efforts with ethnic food trucks and more Indigenous works in the future. Additionally, the store is working hard on getting a 501(c)(3) set up to run a book mobile where they will be able to provide free books to literary deserts across the state to make sure that all children have the opportunity to learn to read.
All in all, the success so far has left Holman feeling optimistic not just about the future of The King’s English, but also about the American independent bookselling industry at-large, a topic which has gained traction in the past few weeks after the New York Times covered the subject.
“We’re fortunate to have a trade association in the ABA that understands the importance of shopping small, keeping it local, and calling out the giant online retailers who are harming everyone, not just indie bookstores,” Holman says. “Maybe booksellers are natural born loudmouths, but we seem to understand that we have to show up and not shut up when it comes to the health and welfare of our communities.”
As far as I can tell, The King’s English won’t be falling silent anytime soon.
Recommendations from the Bookseller
Properties of Thirst by Marianne Wiggins
The latest novel from a National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist—out in August—is set during the early days of World War II, where our protagonist Rocky has been protecting his California ranch from the city of Los Angeles manipulating its water supply. The situation grows more complicated when Rocky’s son goes missing in Hawaii after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, followed by a Jewish government worker looking to build a Japanese-American internment camp next to the ranch, only to soon fall in love with Rocky’s daughter. “This is a marvelous, gut-wrenching story of the personal toll the second World War took on America,” says Holman. “I will recommend this to everyone!”
Calling for a Blanket Dance by Oscar Hokeah
This coming-of-age debut from a “an exciting new voice” (Publishers Weekly) in Native American literature explores the life of Ever Geimausaddle through multiple members of his extended family as well as multiple generations of systemic trauma and injustice they have all suffered as undervalued and underrepresented members of society. While Ever’s rage continues to build as he grows up, his family’s opinions on how to solve their collective problems never cease to penetrate and create tension within the narrative. Ultimately, though, it will be up to Ever to decide what is right move to make: for the greater good, but most importantly for himself.
The Full Catastrophe by Meira Cook
“I loved this funny, maddening story of who gets to decide what another person gets to do and what happens when that person takes the reins of their life and literally rides off into the sunset,” says Holman of this complex novel about a Jewish intersex teenager named Charlie, living in poverty with his artist mother and derelict dachshund in downtown Winnipeg after his father abandoned the family to move back to Brooklyn. When Charlies tries to distract himself from the turmoil around him by throwing his grandfather a much-belated bar mitzvah, he ends up getting a lesson in what it means to try to truly be yourself.
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