Congratulations to Maryann Calendrille and Kathryn Szoka, who will be celebrating their 20th anniversary as owners of Canio's Books, Sag Harbor, N.Y., tomorrow with a literary costume party, fun, food, games and prizes. The store was opened by Canio Pavone in 1980.
The Express reported that it was "a moment of wild inspiration and derring-do, an upcoming leap of faith, that stopped Maryann Calendrille and Kathryn Szoka in their tracks on a late night in 1999, standing across the street from Canio's Books in Sag Harbor. They considered the dark blue door and the threshold they had crossed so many times. The gray floorboards that creak with familiarity every few steps. The musky scent of paper that lingers in the air, and the rows upon rows of bookshelves that command attention and tower above all else." Soon they would be the new owners of the 900-square-foot bookshop.
"I'm very grateful," said Calendrille, "It's been a tremendous opportunity and really a privilege to be able to move the shop forward."
Szoka added: "Looking now back on it, it came at a crossroads moment for all of our lives, including Canio's. It was something that couldn't have been predicted, but now, looking back on it, couldn't have happened any other way. It's been, as we often say, like our own higher education experience.... It's continued education, or, as Melville would say, the ship is his university. The store, the shop, is our university, and we have grown in many ways over those 20 years."
Ultimately, it was their "shared love of community that led them to take over the store, and a desire to continue the serendipity, growth and magic they felt there during their earliest days in the village--and continue to feel today," the Express wrote.
"Our interest in the shop, in the community, in cultural preservation, in the literary heritage of the bookshop all fueled our audacity to go sit with Canio about taking over, and he couldn't have been more encouraging and helpful and supportive," Calendrille said.