Howling Basset Books opened this past weekend in Oldwick, N.J. The store is owned by Lisa Lynch and Zohar Kfir, two academics with a long-time interest in starting a bookstore. On staff is their basset hound, Stella, whose specialty is announcing the arrival of customers and the UPS truck.
At just under 700 square feet, the store carries a mix of literary and genre fiction, children's and YA, and nonfiction titles, including sections on cooking, nature and science, and feminist and progressive politics.
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| Stella at work | |
Lynch and Kfir's plans include partnering with local conservation nonprofit Whittemore for readings and events, and hosting both live and virtual story hours.
Oldwick is a semi-rural community, surrounded by farms and rolling hills but within an hour of New York City. The last bookstore in the town that focused on new titles closed in the early 1990s.