Books With A Past, the beloved used bookstore in Glenwood that last week was on the brink of closing, will remain open thanks to a New Jersey woman who has become its new owner.

“She has come through and we are all so happy,” said Marvin Schaefer, speaking about Erin Matthews, who will take over ownership of the store on Dec. 1.

Schaefer, 66, and his wife, Mary Alice, 70, have owned the store in the Inwood Village Center on Route 97 since 1996 and decided to sell due to health concerns. The store was going to close on Oct. 31 if the sale did not go through.

Schaefer will work along side Matthews, 25, as she learns the business, he said.

“We are resuming buying books,” he said. “We are here and we are going to stay here.”

Matthews, 25, of Allentown, N.J., heard about the bookstore for sale from relatives who are customers.
“I am hoping everything works well for her,” said Schaefer.

Last week was “crazy,” Schaefer said. After a story appeared in the Oct. 29 edition of the Howard County Times, “we had the busiest day in our history,” he said.

Customers traveled from Washington, D.C.,  Virginia, Pennsylvania and West Virginia thinking it was to be their last visit to the bookstore, Schaefer said.

“We had phone calls literally coming in from across the nation. Word really spread.”

By 3 p.m. Friday he learned that Matthews’ bank loan was approved, paving the way for her to buy the business.

“Saturday was a joyous day,” Schaefer said. “People were wishing us well.”

Long-time customer Angie Boyter, of Ellicott City, was delighted to learn that the store will not be closing.

“I am thrilled that Books With a Past is going to continue,” she said. “No one can replace the Schaefers, but that's the delight of small independent bookstores — they're all different.”

Organized by genre

From Nancy Drew adventures to rare collectibles, Books With A Past consists of three store fronts of neatly lined, custom-made shelves everywhere one looks, all labeled and organized by genre.
“We are here seven days a week,” Schaefer said in an interview last week. “That is not going to work for us much longer.”

The Schaefers came to the difficult decision in September that it was time to get out of the business and gave notice to the landlord.

Word began to spread of the impending sale, reaching Matthews in New Jersey.

It was only about three weeks ago Matthews contacted Schaefer expressing an interest to purchase the business.

If the sale did not go through, another bookstore was slated to purchase the books, the shelves would have been cleared and the doors would have closed, Schaefer said.

At its peak, the store that consists of three storefronts had an inventory of 125,000 books. At 4,200-square-feet it was considered one of the largest used book stores in the state. The store features 170 different subject areas of nonfiction, plus the seven genres of fiction.

Schaefer estimates he is down to 100,000 books now in the store largely in part to a 40-percent-off sale that has been running for several weeks in an effort to clear the shelves to “get books into good homes.”

“To some extent, it has been like seeing children leaving the nest,” he said.

He still delights in hearing a customer have what he calls “one of those wonderful Eurekas!” where he or she has stumbled upon something to treasure.

He has been touched by the dismay and sadness he has seen expressed by his customers, including at least two who were moved to tears at the thought of their beloved bookstore closing its doors.

“We have had wonderful relationships with a large number of people,” he said, noting the bookstore draws people in from Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C.. Sometimes the same customers came weekend after weekend. Others Schaefer would only see once a year.

“We have had customers come in and call us for directions from the airport,” he added.

A retired mathematician — as is his wife — Schaefer’s favorite section of the book store is section of higher mathematics volumes.

Literate comminity

The biggest surprise over the years has been the quality of books coming into the store. Schaefer said.

“We didn’t realize how literate this community is,” he said. “It was only when people here started bringing us books that we saw the depth and breadth of the reading habits of people of western Howard County.”

Before buying Books With A Past, the Schaefers completed an apprenticeship at The Book Alcove in Gaithersburg, where the owners showed them everything there was to know about buying books, selling books, shelving books and repairing books. With that store closer to Washington, D.C., good books were plentiful.

“But when you are out here, in western Howard County — and when we opened there was this strip mall and we were surrounded by fields under cultivation everywhere we could see — we had no idea what kind of books we would get. The answer was they came to us, we didn’t have to go out and find good books.”

The store has no Web site. The owners bucked a trend in the used-book industry of going online for sales.

Matthews heard about Books With A Past being for sale from her aunt and uncle, Mike and Sharron Pirrone, of Glenwood, who are customers of the store.

“I thought, ‘Hey, what about me?’ ” she said in an interview last week. “I began thinking how can I get involved in this?”

Since a visit to a used book store in Tampa, Fla., when she was 15, she has been intrigued by the thought of owning such a store of her own.

“Off and on I have been thinking, if you are going to own your own business, and you are me, this is the way to go,” said Matthews, who graduated from Princeton University in 2006 with a degree in classical studies. In New Jersey, she worked three jobs, one in customer service, one as an SAT tutor and one as a freelance editor.

“This is the time to do it because it’s just me. I don’t have a lot to lose. It’s not like I have to uproot a family.”

When she becomes the new owner, Matthews said the first order of business will be to create a Web site for the store. She also wants to establish a mobile book stand to bring books into retirement communities and senior centers.

This article has been updated.

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