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| The future Beach Read Bookshop. | |
The Tiniest Bookshop, which opened in late summer at 300 West River Street, Savannah, Ga., will soon have a second store, Beach Read Bookshop, on nearby Tybee Island. "It all started with a bus full of books," Connect Savannah reported. About two years ago, owner Kaitlynn Perry converted a school bus into a bookstore and drove it around Savannah and Tybee Island. It was originally intended as a side project, but quickly evolved.
A history lover, Perry had moved to Savannah to study archeology at Georgia Southern University and worked for a few years as an archeologist, but her plans changed when the Books Bus started taking center stage.
"Last year, I was about to start applying to Ph.D. programs and I reevaluated my life a little bit and I realized I didn't really want to be in academia for the rest of my life, and the Books Bus was going so well. So, I decided to just drop everything and focus everything into that and see what happened," she said.
The 150-square-foot Tiniest Bookshop was born, and Perry's next project, Beach Read Bookshop, is set to launch in another tiny space at 1213 Hwy. 80 E on Tybee Island later this month.
"I'm very passionate about giving back and I'm also queer and disabled owned and operated and I like to make sure that my bases are a safe place for the LGBT community and I want to give back as much as I can."
Noting that "her efforts are far-reaching and support a variety of causes in our community that go well beyond the four walls of her bookshop," Connect Savannah wrote she also "enjoys bringing more literacy to the community and said it can influence every other aspect of one's life."
Perry added: "It is tied to absolutely everything and so the support of literacy in the community and having a place where people can come in that are independently owned bookstores, and they can get recommendations and they can have that community support, I think is so important."