"There seems to be a weird perception that Houston is a backwater," said Jeremy Ellis, general manager of Brazos Bookstore in Houston, Tex. Brazos has been a mainstay of the Houston literary scene for just shy of 40 years, and Ellis has been with the store for nearly three. "There are more bookstores in Houston than any other city in Texas. There's a tremendous reading audience here."
Planning for the store's 40th anniversary, which will come in early April, has fallen to Ellis and his staff of nine. There will be three days of celebrations, from April 4 to April 6, and Brazos plans to honor all those who have made the store a success. The party on April 4 will be devoted to Karl Kilian, the store's founder and long-time owner who sold the bookshop in 2006.
"Karl is a pillar of Houston letters," explained Ellis, who came to Brazos Bookstore after working at two indies in Dallas that have since closed. "And his support of my efforts has been huge. We're kicking it off that Friday with champagne and hors d'oeuvres and music."
From noon until 6 p.m. on Saturday, April 5, Brazos will host an open house party for customers that will feature kegs, barbecue and activities for kids. Then, on Sunday evening, the store will host a cocktail party honoring its "patrons and partners," including the owner group that bought the store from Karl Kilian.
"When we were planning the anniversary, we thought, should we do readings? Bring in authors?" recalled Ellis. "But we decided no, this should be a celebration for everyone who loves the store."
Over the decades, Brazos has built up a base of loyal customers, and from those customers and community members came the owner group that purchased the store. The neighborhood loved the place so much, Ellis explained, that they didn't want to see it closed. Ellis, in fact, is now a member of that owner group as well, and he's the only one involved with the store on a day-to-day basis.
 |
|
| Jeremy Ellis | |
Since his first day of work in 2011, Ellis has set out to refocus and revitalize the store, he said. "The store was in something of a decline when I got here. It had gotten too general, lost a little bit of what made it special."
To Ellis, Brazos is a literary bookshop first and foremost ("a smarty pants bookstore," he joked), and he's worked hard to make customers feel that they're in the presence of a "great book brain." As one might expect, literary fiction is the biggest seller; history, science and art books also do well. And every section of the store, from Spanish-language fiction to kid's books, is heavily curated. Ellis's staff members take a big role in inventory selection.
"I really believe in having a chorus of voices," Ellis said. "I really try to empower my team to put in their voices, their personal touch. We're not a huge store; we've got 3,200 square feet of sales space. We never intend to have everything. The store is great because we've found our audience, and we've worked very hard to maximize that experience."
Brazos Bookstore hosts about 200 events per year, and Ellis and his staff are working to increase that number. Ellis has 22 events scheduled for the month of March, and 27 for April. Among the standout events this month is Pirate Week, a week-long event series for kids that coincides with spring break for Houston public schools; the festivities include story times, reading groups, treasure hunts, art projects and a movie night. During summer vacation, Brazos will host reading groups and events for teens and young children, and for adults, summer 2014 has been declared the "Summer of Proust." In the works is a wide array of events, both highbrow and lowbrow, revolving around In Search of Lost Time.
Lately, Ellis has had "visions of expanding," with either an international, all foreign-language store or a kid's-only store, or both, but no plans are in place.
"It's so exciting now, with everything working and all the store's parts moving together," said Ellis. He and the other members of the owner group have their eyes on how to keep Brazos vibrant and evolving for the next four decades. "And the main question is: What do we need to do to grow now that the house is in order?" he continued. "We're looking at how we can expand without leaving this spot. We don't want to lose the essence of what we are. We are all very protective of keeping the original thing intact." --Alex Mutter