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| Parenthesis Books' future home | |
Parentheses Books is tentatively set to open this summer inside Liberty Street Mercantile, a new indoor market at the corner of Gay and Liberty Streets in Harrisonburg, Va. WHSV reported that owner Amanda Friss decided to open an indie bookshop in the city last year, "and over the last several months the business has begun to take shape." A $50,000 Kickstarter campaign was successful and the Liberty Street Mercantile building is being transformed into a new indoor market that will feature other small businesses.
"We ended up raising almost $56,000 and those funds were the bulk of what we needed to open the store. Without that I'm not sure it would have been possible," she said, adding that some delays in construction should not interfere with a summer launch. "Right now it has floors that still need to be finished, it has walls, it has paint, the windows still need to be put in, but it's getting there."
Community support has been key throughout the process. "One of the fun things about the Kickstarter campaign was as it was happening I got to speak with a lot of people and hear how excited they are that this store and finally an independent store [will be] here in Harrisonburg," Friss said.
Noting that the store has begun to take shape, which is making her even more eager to open its doors officially, Friss added: "I am most looking forward to the space being finished and filling it with books and finally being able to share it with everybody because I've been working on it for so long now and I am just so excited."
On her Kickstarter page, Friss wrote that prior to moving to Harrisonburg 10 years ago, she "lived in New York City where I worked in a magical little bookshop called Three Lives and Company. I love books. Reading them. Talking about them. Working at Three Lives taught me that bookstores are more than just stores that sell books. They are vital to our communities because they help foster relationships. They serve as safe spaces in which people can connect. In a world that's becoming dominated more and more by digital communication, I like to think of bookstores as little beacons of humanity."