Book Store Comes to Ball Square

In the five weeks since he opened his business, a number of people have stopped by Gil Barbosa's store in Ball Square to thank him.

"People are thanking me for opening a book store," Barbosa said, somewhat shocked.

Perhaps that's because the idea of opening a small, independent book shop that specializes in used books, when conventional wisdom tells most people that such establishments are a thing of the past, strikes many as quixotic, brave, stubborn, foolhardy … something, but whatever it is, it's making a statement.

But Barbosa, a Somerville native, is not making a statement. He's no last of the Mohicans, standing defiantly by a roaring fire. He's not out in the back alley in blue face paint shooting arrows into Kindles and yelling, "They may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom!"

The Book Shop
Barbosa's store, The Book Shop, at 694 Broadway, opened on June 1, and from his perspective, owning a small used bookstore is a business that works. It worked for his aunt, who ran Annie's Book Stop in Belmont, and Barbosa thinks it will work in Ball Square.

The Book Shop is in many ways the successor to Annie's Book Stop, which closed not for financial reasons, he said, but because his aunt was ready to move onto another chapter in life. Barbosa helped out at Annie's for years before opening his own store.

"It was an operational bookstore in a nice area," he said of Annie's. Ball Square, he said, offers similar possibilities. For one thing, there's a lot more foot traffic, he said, and the people who live nearby seem eager to support a local bookstore.

"There are a lot of authors around here," he said. "A lot of local authors."

Used Books tailored to Ball Square
Because The Book Shop deals mostly with used books—although it does carry some new books and can order new books for customers—a lot of money isn't tied up in inventory. Barbosa acquires a lot of his books by offering store credits.

He is selective about the books he takes on, because with only 900 square feet of floorspace, he doesn't have a lot of room. Every title he carries comes with careful consideration. In being selective, he tries to adapt and tailor his inventory to fit the needs of his customers.

In Belmont, he said, romance was a popular genre. Here in Ball Square, fantasy and science fiction do better, along with classical literature and non-fiction.

At the moment, Barbosa is trying to increase his collection of children's books in response to a local thirst for them. "I'm constantly looking for children's books," he said.

He also carries titles that are on the summer reading lists for Somerville High School and Saint Clement High School, which is just across the boarder in Medford.

Book people
People—the customers who buy and trade books—make a small, independent, used bookstore work, said Barbosa.

"Book people are just really nice people," he said, and in the book people community, "Nobody wants to throw a book away."

Out in the world, there's a lot of handwringing about the future of the book business, the fate of large bookstores like Borders, which has been going through bankruptcy this year, the state of online and electronic books, and other weighty issues.

But in Ball Square, at The Book Shop, Barbosa is more concerned with setting up shop. That other stuff "didn't cross my mind," he said.