The Wild Detectives, the bookstore, café and bar in Dallas, Tex., has celebrated its third anniversary with several changes: it's inviting "the Dallas literary community to choose the books that will be sold in the store," the Dallas Observer wrote; it hired Lauren Smart to head a revamped literary events program; and it's changing its hours, opening later in the morning and extending bar hours on Saturdays "to keep the literary conversations going."
The Wild Detectives bar will now be open until 1 a.m. on Saturdays, rather than until 12 a.m., and the store will open now at 10 a.m. rather than 8:30 a.m.
Lauren Smart, who headed the store's month-long festival Women Galore last year, will focus on the store having one event per week rather than several, and specialize in events that are "more interactive and discussion-focused" than traditional author readings, q&as and book signings.
The idea of having more book selections from "literary friends" grew out of the store's annual December request of people to send their best picks for books, movies and records, Andres de la Casa-Huertas, brand director for the Wild Detectives, told the Observer. The recommended books tended to be titles that hadn't been released during the year, books from "their own personal to-read list."
So now the focus is on "a broad selection of titles people have found relevant in one way or another," he continued. "All in all, we wanted to pay more attention to those books that people would like to read over the fast-paced rotation of titles that the industry imposes."
