Open An Indie Bookstore? Sounds Like A Story!

Most people say they want more community. Will and Paula DeBoard actually built it...one shelf at a time...by opening Bookish Modesto, an independent bookstore in Modesto, California, at a time when most people think bookstores are disappearing. During this interview, I kept coming back to the same idea: books don’t just sell stories. They create an environment where people start recognizing and reconnecting with each other.

We talk about the moment their bookstore idea stopped being a fun dinner conversation and became a real plan, along with the practical reality of starting a small business without a traditional retail background. Paula shares how she learned the behind-the-scenes work—inventory, systems, all of it—while Will gets candid about what it felt like to take a leap after a lifetime of steady work.

From there, we go straight at the Amazon question: What does a local bookstore provides that online shopping never will? The answer might surprise you. Events, story times, local authors, and a store with an actual point of view.

If you’ve been thinking about a midlife pivot, building something local, or investing in community, this one will resonate.

If you enjoy the conversation, send me a voicemail/text, subscribe to The Mango Times, share it with a friend who loves books, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show.

⸻
Guest Information
Paula and Will DeBoard  are the founders of Bookish Modesto, an independent bookstore in Modesto’s college area. Leaving more traditional career paths, they built a space centered on books, community, and connection—now a gathering place for readers, writers, and neighbors looking for something more than just a transaction.

Resources and Links
Facebook: Bookish Modesto
Website: Bookish Modesto

Music used in this episode:
All music in this episode is licensed for use through Epidemic Sound.

⸻
IF YOU LIKE WHAT WE'RE DOING HERE AT THE MANGO TIMES, PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW BY...
✅ Send me a voicemail/text and let me know what you think.
✅ Share this episode with a friend RIGHT NOW!
✅ PLEASE LEAVE ME A REVIEW ON APPLE PODCASTS HERE.

Transcript

Books That Build Community

Fletch 0:06

A lot of people talk about wanting more community in their city, but very few people actually build it. Today's guests opened an independent bookstore in my town of Modesto, California. It's called Bookish. And they did this at a time when most people assume bookstores are disappearing. And what they've discovered is that books don't just sell stories, but they create community. This is the Mango Times Podcast. Hey, welcome back to the Mango Times Podcast. This is your host Fletch, and this is the place where midlife curiosity meets a little bit of adventure, a little bit of humor, and a whole bunch of human stories. You know, in this season, we're exploring what it looks like to wake up in the second half of life and realize there's still plenty of adventure left. And as you know from my story, sometimes that adventure looks like riding a motorcycle across the country. But sometimes it looks a little different. Like opening a bookstore. Today I'm sitting down with Will and Paula Debord. They are the founders of the independent bookstore called Bookish Modesto. And we talk about a lot of these second half of life topics. Pivoting. Uh going a new direction. Uh the risk of starting something new, the fear of starting something new. Well, let's stop talking about those things and let's get into the interview. So follow me as I head into the studio for this interview.

Introducing Bookish

Fletch 1:50

Today I'm sitting down with Will and Paula DeBord, founders of Bookish Modesto. Will and Paula, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

Hi. Hi, Fletch.

Fletch 1:59

Hey, thanks for being here. Take me back to the time, that moment when this idea first became real. When did you look at each other and think we might actually open a bookstore?

SPEAKER_03 2:12

I think this was in about March of 2023. We had a dinner with our friend Isaac, and we were, I don't know, drinking a little bit, not a lot. I'm not going to say that was a huge factor, but you know, I guess inhibitions were lowered. And we said, you know, what if what if we opened a bookstore? And talking about we wish Modesto had an independent bookstore, et cetera. I think it took a few weeks after that for us to realize this wasn't just a crazy conversation. We were actually planning it. Like there was an actual Google Doc that had plans in it. This was the farthest we'd gone so far with this idea. So it just kind of kept snowballing from there. It was like, well, if we did this, what's the next step? What's the next step?

SPEAKER_01 3:01

And yeah, when when we get together with our friend Isaac, who is also your friend Isaac.

Fletch 3:06

Isaac has been on the Mango Times.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Excellent. Very cool.

Fletch 3:10

Wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

I I don't know. We we get together and we're we're kind of big talkers sometimes. And we were lamenting the closing of yesterday's, which I I think had been like maybe six months prior, eight months prior, or something like that. And and I could I I literally saw the light bulb go off in Paula's head where she was like, Medessa needs a new indie bookstore, Medusa needs a new indie bookstore. And all of a sudden it's like, hey, why don't we do this? And and like she said, it was for her birthday in April coming up, coming up in a month. For her birthday, then I got her a provisional membership to the American Booksellers Association. And included in that membership, I bought a a folder that is how to open a bookstore. And neither one of us are business owners or were business owners at the time. And you know, we'd always been kind of cogs in the wheel and that sort of thing. And and it literally, you open up that, you open up that folder, that that binder, it gave you steps one through like 30. She started working on number one, and then we checked off number one, and then she started working on number two. We literally went from one to however many numbers there were.

SPEAKER_03 4:28

We didn't need the binder anymore. We knew what we were doing.

Fletch 4:30

From what you're saying, it sounds like what you need is a good friend, a little bit of alcohol, and then just a birthday. It sounds like those were the three main parts.

Before the Bookstore

Fletch 4:41

So what were you both doing before Bookish?

SPEAKER_03 4:44

We're kind of both still doing those things. Yep. Um, but I'm teaching at the University of California, Merced. I teach writing, and I've been there for 11 years.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

And I am an assistant commissioner with the California, California Interscholastic Federation, the governing body for high school sports in California. I've actually worked in high school sports my entire life. I was hired on at the Modesto B back in '92 when I was 19 and worked there for 17, 18 years. And I've worked with the CIF now for 17, 18 years. And and so I'm the I'm the Saturday and evening bookseller where Paula's there a little bit more than I am.

Fletch 5:26

I feel like it has to be said, were you both always big readers?

SPEAKER_03 5:31

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

Oh yeah, big time. I'll take you back to uh when we started getting serious in our relationship, and we've been married since 2000, which which is good because it's the only way I remember how many years we've been married. But yeah, it's a good and round number. But when things started getting serious, we looked at each other's bookcases and it was a very big deal. And and we realized each one of us had a copy of Helter Skelter. The Charles Manson story. Yep. And we're like, all right, I think I can hang out with this girl. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:07

Those weren't the only only books we had in common, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

It's merging our book clusters.

SPEAKER_03 6:12

It was a good one.

Fletch 6:14

For sure. Yeah, that's important. Do you do you find yourself doing that when you go to someone's house? You look at their bookshelf so you can judge who they are.

SPEAKER_03 6:21

Absolutely, a hundred percent.

Fletch 6:22

Yeah, because people always talk about the medicine cabinet. I go, no, go to the bookshelf.

SPEAKER_03 6:26

I I'm even I'm more scared if there are just no books, you know. That's that's a sign for me of something too, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

We we have some friends who sort their books who who shelve their books by color, which I think is kind of wild. You know, I mean, uh I think back to that line in in High Fidelity, John Q's like, how do you sort your music? It's autobiographical. So I know I know when I got these when I got these albums in order, and everybody has a method to their madness, but at home we at home and here we roughly alphabetical. Yeah, and here it's roughly alphabetical.

Fletch 7:03

So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:04

That's right.

Fletch 7:04

Yeah. So when did books start moving you individually?

SPEAKER_03 7:08

I mean, I just I rose I was a reader from a young age, and I credit my mom with this. She was an elementary teacher, but I look lived in this little town in Ohio, and like our our big you know, weekly excursion was to the public library. I'm a huge proponent of public libraries, and I would go every week, and the librarians greeted me by name, and they knew the next next but I was greed, and I think I'm frozen on there. And it was it was really a great way to be introduced to books because it was personal and it was like books are in conversation with you.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Yeah, say same goes for me. I I grew up in Houston, and the library at Houston was this little room in in a little a little branch, a little office, I guess, as part of the IOF hall. And that's that's uh you you go there and it was it was this wonderful place of all these stacked books all over the place. So you just you know, it was an adventure. You never knew what you're gonna find. We knew everybody, and and so they wouldn't let me, you know, they wouldn't let me get the books that would be considered, I guess, a little, you know, racier for a 10-year-old or anything like that. But Kelter Skelter. Well, 11. So I I think it was I was probably 11 or 12 then, but but yeah, I mean, and and grew up going to bookstores all over Modesto. Have an aunt and uncle live on the other side of town, and B. Dalton Books there and Century Center was a big stop, and Walden Books and Stacy's in the mall, and Read More Downtown, and the bookstore on Floyd. I think it was Floyd and Coffee, and then they moved to McHenry Village. So there were a bunch of Modesto's got a pretty cool history of of bookstores, that's for

Fear, Funding, And Proving Doubters Wrong

SPEAKER_01 8:49

sure.

Fletch 8:49

So when it came time to open bookish, what scared you the most about making the leap?

SPEAKER_03 8:57

Well, yeah, I think we'll mention we don't really have a background in business. So we had to learn a lot of things. I spent a summer interning at the closest independent bookstore to us, which is in Elk Grove. It's called a seat at the table books. So I sent us spent a summer up there kind of just like learning the business. Like how how do you do this? Not only like how do you sell books, but also point of sale system, inventory, you know, all the all the kind of you know, unsexy behind the scenes things that are ultimately my job now.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

I think in the very beginning, the thing that scared me the most was honestly everything. I I mean, when it comes to taking that big leap and jumping out there and putting yourself out there, that sort of thing. I mean, I've basically had two jobs my entire life. I grew up in the 209 and I live in the 209. And I'm in in that sense, I'm a little bit conservative by nature, I guess. And I'm like, holy crap, how is this gonna work? And then I told Paula, and I'm sure you remember what I told you, is because Paula was definitely she was she was leading the charge here, that's for sure. She was like, this is gonna work and it's gonna work well. And I said, Well, as long as we do something cool and break even, that's all they really care about.

Fletch 10:08

Well, you bought her the book, you bought her the notebook on how to do this.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

Of course, she was leading the way essentially very true, very true. I mean, I mean, even now it's like we're we're both rule followers by nature, and you realize that being rule followers by nature, it it has it's it it it's it's meant things have been a little more expensive, you know. We get every single possible license you can possibly get. Yeah, you know, and but the support, the community support, the local support, Paula was a hundred percent right. I mean, it's been there, you know. She found this, she found this property in Roseburg Square. I was very much team downtown, but the the more we've been here, the more I'm realizing this is absolutely the best space. This is, you know, we did a crowd fund. You know, I mentioned I worked at a newspaper, meaning we we we didn't have a lot of money saved up or anything like that. Newspaper journalists don't make a lot of money. It's a fun job, but you don't get to put a lot aside or anything like that. And and so we did a crowd fund for this, and the community support was pretty large, and it was a lot of it was in this college area. It was out of this college area. Like these, you know, we we found out pretty fast these are our people.

Fletch 11:27

That's fantastic. So you mentioned having a friend that was supporting you, and I you we've talked about that. There was some alcohol involved. Did anyone try and talk you out of it?

SPEAKER_03 11:38

I mean, I feel like a lot of people tried to talk us out of it.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Yeah. Some that's fair.

SPEAKER_03 11:44

Family members.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:46

Just some people just like, are you sure this is like you're gonna have to, you're gonna be tied to the store, you know? It's gonna be a daily commitment for you. I was like, okay. I think I understand that. We did have we've had some random people make comments like, well, nobody reads anymore. But I think that's more indicative of the reading habits of the person who made that comment than the general public. I mean, last year, book sales, even in an economy that's not doing well overall, book sales are up. It's just 1%, but that's not nothing. It's still a huge, it's a huge kind of corner of the, I don't know, leisure market, really.

SPEAKER_01 12:23

There were a lot of people, there were, there was a lot of excitement when we finally put it out there that, you know, hey, we're we're doing this. And and, you know, we'd walk our dogs on Virginia Trail and we run into somebody and oh, I'm so excited for you know for this bookstore coming, blah, blah, blah. And invariably, this was almost always a woman saying this, because I would say 85 to 90 percent of our customers are probably women, uh a high, high percentage of readers, that's for sure. And they would turn to whatever guy they were with and say, Oh, they're opening a bookstore at Roseberg Square. And immediately their next words would be, Well, good luck, you know. And and when the Modesto B, the Modesto B is really they were singing our praises right at the very beginning. It was nice. They think it was really nice. And the comment section on Facebook and the Modesto B. And and and I have to read the comment section, and but but you realize when it comes to stuff like that, it's like the people that were kind of negative toward bookish, and there weren't very many. Most people were like, hey, this is gonna be really cool. But the people that were negative, they're like, I haven't read a book, I haven't read a book in 20 years. And I'm thinking, I don't think that is the flex that you think it is. I still remember all that stuff, but but I've been very good at like keeping it behind, you know, keeping it bottled up. So it's all good.

SPEAKER_03 13:48

People have been supportive. I think some people have been surprised, honestly, that we've done as well as we've done, and that as many people know about us as you. But I I think that's again, that's like I mean, we have we've spent zero dollars advertising. And we get hit up all the time for like, do you want to advertise on this? Do you want to advertise on that? Like, I mean, we're being close with our money because it's gonna go to things in our store mostly, and we're doing a good job of getting the word out and our and our you know, our people who like bookish, they talk about us. So that's the best advertisement.

Fletch 14:23

Well, this, you know, what we're doing this year on the Mango Times is talking about these mid midlife shifts or mid-career shifts. And so many people are driven by fear. So I really, really appreciate your answers there. You know, I a question, what surprised you the most about you know, once you open the doors?

SPEAKER_01 14:41

Okay, I'm I'm definitely the more I I like to think I'm the more I'm the one between the two of us when it came to bookish, I'm the one more with feet on the ground a little bit. Paula was like, this is gonna be great and it's gonna be awesome. And people are gonna come out and it's gonna be work. And she's been right on all of those, on on every single one of those aspects. I think the most surprising, the most surprising were those first three days. We we hired a staff. I think we had five, five, six people working then, all part-timers, and and we had no idea what to expect. And the and the shelves behind us were, you know, they were not as full as they are now, that's for sure. You know, but we you you know, bookseller world, you figure out how to make it look bigger. You it's the turnout, right? You turn a book out and it it takes up the room of like eight books, you know, and it's like and it makes it look full. And there was this huge line out front, and it was Disneyland level lines for the first three days. And they, I mean, we sold like one third of our stock in those three days, which is just insane. And and we only had we I feel like there's one thing we have done very well during this entire process. We have hired well. The people who work here are families. That first week, you know, there's romance to working in a bookstore. There really is. It's like, all right, I'm gonna get a read and I'm listening to music, I'm gonna have some coffee, and I'm gonna help, I'm gonna help that little old lady find a book that's gonna blow her mind, you know, and and that sort of thing. And it, but but it's it's a little library, it's a little library-like, I guess. And that was not the case in the first three days. And we only had one person with real retail experience before, Courtney. And we finished those three days, and and after each day it was so busy, I you know, I just went to the talker next door and grabbed a bunch of tacos and just threw them on the table. And I'm like, all right, everybody, let's let's eat and put our feet up. And Courtney's like, man, I don't know. This is not what I expected for a bookstore. Like, this is like retail, retail, you know, and she's like, I I just don't know about this. And it and it definitely we we we found our groove after that, that's for sure. But those I was amazed at the number of people who came in and the level of excitement for just about everybody for a bookstore. I mean, yeah, it's kind of wild

Listener Messages And How To Reach Me

SPEAKER_01 17:13

to me.

Fletch 17:13

I mean, it it it really is Hey, just a quick break here in the middle of this interview. You know, every episode I ask you to send a message or leave a review, and a few of you actually did, and I want to be intentional about including those every time. So, first, my friend Erica Conway, who is uh the world traveling hiker, after listening to episode 57 with Kevin Delaney, she sent a message that just said, Fletch kicked it out of the park again. Which, you know what, I'll take that message every day, all day. I also got a couple of Apple podcast reviews. This one's titled Thought Provoking and Fun Podcast from 2890. Uh they wrote, The Mango Times podcast is one of my favorites. And he's a thoughtful and very funny interviewer who creates meaningful, engaging conversations. And then this one called When to Listen from Stahl's Lost a Beat. It said, From my years of listening to the Mango Times podcast, one thing I've learned is that there's more than certainly a time to listen. I commonly find myself on the road while Mr. Mango goes on. From the trips north to Montana to an everyday errand, always a great reminder to be intentional about the journey. Man, that's exactly what I hope this show is. So, like any of these listeners, feel free to just scroll down the show notes and click send Fletch a voicemail or text. And that's the fun part. Aside from just sending a text which I could read on the air, you can now send me a voicemail. And I think it'd be so fun to use your voices on upcoming episodes. Alright, let's get back to our interview. If you're just joining us, this is the Mango Times, and I am talking with Will and Paula DeBoard about starting an independent bookstore in Modesto.

What Amazon Can’t Replicate

Fletch 19:04

So let's talk about the elephant in the room that a lot of people want to ask about, or at least I think my listeners would want to hear. What does a bookstore provide that Amazon never will?

SPEAKER_03 19:15

Yeah, I mean, we like to refer to it as the river in South America. But yeah, there's so many things when you walk into a bookstore in a physical space that you cannot get when you're online and you're randomly clicking through something. People really love books, they like to just pick up a book, they talk about the smell of a book and they talk about all of those things. So that's definitely you'll get that in spades here. You'll get the charm of a small bookstore. But also, I think, I mean, you know, that that river in Amazon, they're not going to read to your kids. They're not going to make you a cup of coffee, they're not going to be a place to host your event or a kid's birthday party or things like that. And we're all of those things. So we kind of started bookish with this slogan that we call books, coffee, and community. And like, you know, those are those are things that I think are kind of hard to come by today. Like just that idea of a community space is not really something that you can find a lot of. And I mean, sure, we're a business, we sell things, but we don't mind if someone comes in here and has a, you know, a cup of coffee and hangs out for three hours on their laptop. Like, we don't care. We think that's that's a good thing. And we have a lot of people who come in, you know, maybe they're not even spending any money on a visit. They're just here for the story time, but they'll be back in another time, you know. So it's about building that community and like kind of keeping, you know, we're we're a space that's here and available for people. And we hope they'll remember that the next time they're like, oh, I do need a book and or maybe I need a gift card for someone or a greeting card or whatever. You know, we're gonna be that space for you.

Designing A Community Event Space

Fletch 20:53

Talk to me a little bit more about that community part. Because, you know, you people might be listening in saying, I came to hear about a bookstore, but you really are about community. What does that look like?

SPEAKER_03 21:07

Yeah, I mean, when we conceived of this space, it was like what's gonna be physically possible in this space. So we have all the bookshelves like on our main floor, anything that's not nailed to the wall, basically, is something that can move. It's on wheels. We or we can lift it and move it out of the way. So we've had large events here, small events too, but we really are kind of an event space. And that part has actually been taking off with like private rentals and things like that, have been keeping us pretty busy on our on our downtime as well. But just just that idea of like, I mean, I would say I didn't I don't think we really knew who our community was when we started this. And we we live love Modesto and we live here, but we weren't sure. You know, we kind of I'm I'm a writer, we're both active in writing events in our community and arts events. So I thought like we pretty much are gonna draw from this group of people we already know. Was our initial thought, like, you know, can we make a go of this drawing on these people who are kind of like-minded as us that we had encountered on many occasions before? And what's surprised us is that our family, our bookish community is huge. It's people from all over town, outside of town. Sometimes they come from the Bay Area or places like that. And there are all kinds of different backgrounds and interests. And it we're constantly redefining like what our community looks like and what our community could need. And that's why we offer like just really like a wide variety of events for different age levels and interests, because that's who's coming in here.

SPEAKER_01 22:39

Modesto has a lot of people who have relatives who live outside of Modesto. And we're we're one of the places in Modesto, they bring their family members and they tell us that. And just just pump that into my veins right now because that was all right. I I love that. Paula and I, when we go on when we go on vacations, one of the places we usually go to is a bookstore. We we always yeah to this day, we we're we're still going to other bookstores to see how they do stuff. Now we see it with a different eye for sure. Oh, I like how they merchandised over there, and and it's interesting that they have those two genres next to each other, you know, and that sort of thing. But I mean, we're we're still going to book to to to bookstores, and the fact that people in Modesto are bringing their family members who live outside of Modesto here. Yeah, that's that puts a smile on my face, that's for sure. And as far as events go, I mean, I know we're we're not here selling bookish or anything like that. The events calendar is there, but but we have had quite a few unique events. We do, you know, in in poetry slams and open mics and what a lot of event spaces do. We have a storytelling contest, we had a pop-up stand-up comedy show. Probably about 105 people in here. Don't tell the fire marshal. Well, although it's already happened, so I guess we'll go ahead and tell them. Hey, hopefully, there's a statute of limitations because that was, I think, over a year ago. That that one that one was a little that one might have been a little much. It was like woof, and and we didn't have the comedy show, was you know, it was it was it was a lot, it was a lot of fun, and it was something certainly I never in a million billion years thought I would be involved in. That's for sure.

Fletch 24:28

You know, I love it. I we here on this podcast, we talk about community and just finding that connection with one another, you know, whether it's a fire pit or as you guys know, I'm I'm doing this interview with a pipe in my in my mouth. So you know, just to sit around and enjoy face-to-face conversation, that's super important. And I love, I'll just let the cat out of the bag. I'm a half mile away from you guys. So I'm just down the street. It's when I found out where you were going, I was one of those people going, Oh, hell yeah. This is this is in my hood. You know, based on that comment, that idea of community.

Why Indie Bookstores Matter To Cities

Fletch 25:05

Why why do independent bookstores matter to a city?

SPEAKER_03 25:08

Well, like Will was saying, when we visit a city, we go find those places, we seek out those independent bookstores. And I think that it is for that reason because you get a little flavor of like, this is what like in a big city, it might be this is what this neighborhood's like, or you know, like these are these are kind of the values, these are the people, these are the ideas that make this place go. I mean, we do have like local, local authors, local vendors, a local art wall. So we have those things too that you're you're not gonna get. And and like honestly, no shades to barn shade to Barnes and Noble, because I'm glad there's more, you know, literary options for people, right? I think that's that's the more the merrier. But but you're not gonna find like a hyper local focus there, but you will when you come in here and you can be like, I if I'm gonna buy something from a local person, I can do that here. And and also, you know, I mean, we have we have a point of view. We're not, I wouldn't say we're like loudly political activists or anything, but we have a point of view when you walk in here and you can kind of see like, oh, this is the selection of books they have, and these are the titles they're featuring and things like that. Um, there's not like a corporate sense to it, you know what I mean? Like, like you can walk into pretty much any Barnes and Noble and you're gonna be like, here's the top 10 books selling in America right now. Here they're all on a table, whether that's relevant to your region or not, right? Um but yeah, I mean, we take pride in like really carefully curating everything that goes into the store.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

When this became a real thing, I was like, hey, there there was there was this moment of excitement, panic, call it what you will. This is like really going to happen here. You know, we we took a couple of trips and we did nothing but go to bookstores. I I had a summer conference in Seattle and we bounced around five or six or seven different, you know, independent bookstores to see what they're doing. I mean, there was one called Finny Books, was actually funded by a Jeopardy winner, a guy who won Jeopardy, and he took all poured all his Jeopardy winnings into this Finny Books, which I think Finney is not the guy's name. I think it's the name of the neighborhood. And it and they on the left side were all the fiction, and on the right side were all the nonfiction, and the left side it said lies, and the right side it said truth. That though those were the genres. That's it. I mean, we went to we went all through San Francisco, and San Francisco is a great city with so many different, wildly varied neighborhoods. And we saw, I think it was Blackbird Books right outside of, you know, in the Sunset Ocean Beach. And that was, you know, a very pristine, really nice coffee place, you know, with you know, books that was what we like to call like a book museum, you know, book bookstores are book museums, and then there are book zoos. And we're somewhere in the middle. We're somewhere in we like to think we're somewhere in the middle. And then there was another place called Burden Beckett, and it was more south San Francisco, and it was a book zoo. There were books just stacked everywhere, more used books than new. And I'm walking down and I noticed there's this little elevated area, and I look a little closer and I realize there's a piano here and a whole bunch of musical instruments, and I realize people from the neighborhood come there and play every Saturday and Sunday night. And it's not a booked musical act, it's just people from the neighborhood come in and they they do a jam session, you know, and and I I I like the variety of indie bookstores and and and I think we provide something pretty good for Modesto, at least we have so far anyway.

Fletch 28:36

That's great. Will, I think you answered this question, so I'm gonna ask Paula. Paula, was there a moment in the store where you thought, okay, this is why we did this?

SPEAKER_03 28:48

I mean, honestly, I have those moments all the time. So it might be hard to pinpoint one of them. But I mean, for me, those moments typically involve kids. We have a lot of kids and you know, parents looking for things for their kids to do. This is our we do story time with them a couple times a week. And I mean, that's that gets me in the feels every time. I mean, I just it's like, yes, this thing, you know, it's not like there's no story times elsewhere or that couldn't exist elsewhere. But it's just the simple thing. It's this group of people and they vary, you know, there's probably 30, 40 different families that we see over the course of a month. And they just come in with their kids. And like, I've been watching, you know, no names here, I guess, but I've been watching this one little girl basically grow up because now we're starting our second year. She started here when she was like maybe six months old. Now she's singing the song, she's running around like a little holy terror half the time. We love it, you know, it's great. And I mean, that that to me is like, you know, it's like we're really kind of becoming a part of the fabric of something. And that for me is so cool.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

I'm gonna tell a little Paula story here. So we had just made our announcement that we were going to be that we were that we were gonna be opening. And I don't believe we were open yet. If we were, we had maybe just opened. And Valley First Credit Union, we who we financed through because we try to do everything as local as possible. They invited us to be their like guest vendor at Domo, the the downtown Modesto First Fridays. And we brought out a bunch of like the the top seller books and that sort of thing. And people came by and and yeah, we'd not been open very long, so it was very much like, oh, Modesto has a book, you're you're selling books, and then after a little bit, oh, Modesto has a bookstore. This is pretty wild. And this guy came up and was looking for a book recommendation, and Paula walked, what kind of books do you like? And they spent like two minutes where he said, Oh, I really like this book, I really like that book. And she gave him like three or four, she gave him like three or four recommendations, and he he thanked her very much and and he ended up buying one one book and he walked off. And Paula turned to me and she goes, I love this shit. And uh and and it was it was very much like, yeah, you we like like it was it was a it was a very cool thing to be able to suggest, you know, something as simple as suggesting. Secret librarian. Yeah, we we all have these favorite books that we're like, oh, I gotta get people reading that book. Like, like there's one book when guys come in and they they're like nonfiction guys and they're looking for a book to read. Every time I am going to suggest The Dreamt Land by Mark Barrax, who is a former LA Times writer, and it's about water rights in California. And you think water rights in California, like how exciting could that be? This is a fascinating book, it really is. And anytime somebody buys that book, I'm like, oh yeah, I kind of love this shit, too.

Rapid Questions And Real Book Talk

Fletch 31:52

All right, so that might be the subtitle of this episode. I love this shit. I think that's a great subtitle, which is interesting that you just shared that because I wanted to get to my rapid questions section where I just asked you guys fast questions, and the benefit is whoever answers first, the other person had a little more time to think of. Okay. So, Will, you already took the first one. Okay. So, Paula, book you recommend most often?

SPEAKER_03 32:19

I've been recommending The Frozen River by Ariel Lahan.

Fletch 32:22

What's a book everyone should read?

SPEAKER_03 32:24

That's a good one. That's a good one. Hold on, there's too many. This is hard. We both love Taylor Jenkins Reed, and we loved Atmosphere, which just came out, and also The Seven Hub Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reed.

SPEAKER_01 32:39

And you know what? I'm gonna say every boy should read the Dungeon Crawler Carl books. They're lit RPG, boys, maybe not just boys, but they're they're they're video game and Dungeons and Dragons coded in a very big way. So a lot of fun.

Fletch 32:55

All right. What's a book that changed your life?

SPEAKER_01 32:58

I'm gonna go with Earth Abides by George Stewart, which is a really wild pandemic book. Paula's like shocked that I said this, but I just loved that book.

SPEAKER_03 33:09

I'm gonna do a wild card too. I'm gonna do a sci-fi Octavia Butler, anything by Octavia Butler is very on point at the moment, but um Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents.

Fletch 33:21

Okay, here's some fun bookstore questions. What's the weirdest book request you've been asked?

SPEAKER_01 33:30

Once somebody asks about vampire zombie smut, and and I think that's I feel like that's way up there. So we had a recommendation for that. We probably had a recommendation for that.

Fletch 33:40

So this might change, it might be something now, but since you've opened, what's the book you sell the most?

SPEAKER_03 33:47

You know, for a while it was the book, it's actually a planner. It's called I'm Dead Now What? And it's it's an estate planning guide that you can pass along to your family members and children. We personally each bought one, but we haven't finished filling it out.

SPEAKER_02 34:02

Nope.

SPEAKER_03 34:02

We have my mom has one. I mean, I feel like most of the people in our community have one at this point.

Encouragement, Shoutouts, And Where To Find Bookish

Fletch 34:09

So we've been I started off this episode saying sometimes an adventure is a motorcycle ride and sometimes it's opening a bookstore. So a lot of my listeners are on the precipice of some big adventure. I always like to take time to let my guests pitch to them how you would encourage them if they're at that crossroads right now.

SPEAKER_01 34:32

I tell this to people at my work all the time. You never regret doing the things you never do. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't work. At least for a couple years it's worked it it's worked fairly okay. I have very few complaints. But it's work. It's it's also work at the same time. Like you're you're gonna be doing work, but there is nothing on this planet that feels better than doing a lot of work to do something and then seeing other people have enjoyment while you while you're watching them in your, I guess for lack of a different word, creation. It's kind of wild.

SPEAKER_03 35:14

That's a pretty good answer.

Fletch 35:16

You'll you'll keep that one?

SPEAKER_03 35:18

Yeah, we can keep that one.

Fletch 35:19

Okay. And then lastly, before I wrap us up, is there anybody that you think deserves a shout out that you just wanted to take time and say thank you to?

SPEAKER_03 35:30

I mean, we absolutely have to shout out a few people here. So people who helped us greatly along the way behind the scenes, some friends and relatives of ours, Steve and Carrie Kellogg, also on our staff. Our whole staff is amazing. But Kat, our manager, and Sarah, our events coordinator, have been with us since day one. And they might love this place more than we do. And and they're fantastic. And we have a like ongoing text thread with them that is just like, you know, it's they're family at this point.

SPEAKER_01 35:59

Yeah, they really are.

SPEAKER_03 36:01

And I mean, those are my my first shoutouts.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

Believe it or not, the the city of Modesto has been actually fairly helpful. It's it's tough being a small business, being a small business owner, that's for sure. And and we have and we do coffee and we have a liquor license, so we've gone through more red tape than many others, that's for sure. And the city of Modesto has been really good at helping us out.

Fletch 36:27

And lastly, if people want to find you online, what's the I'll put it in the show notes, but how are they gonna find Bookish?

SPEAKER_03 36:35

Yeah, you can check out our website, bookishmodesto.com, all together, and our social media, Instagram and Facebook as well is where we're most active.

Fletch 36:46

Well, Paula and Will DeBoard, I want to thank you for taking the time and being guests on the Mango Times. Yeah, not a problem. Yeah.

Support Your Local Bookstore

Fletch 36:56

All right, huge thanks to Will and Paula for joining me today. So if you're in Modesto, do me a favor and stop by bookish. Independent bookstores only exist when communities support them. Go on in, meet them, meet their staff, buy a book, grab a cup of coffee, and if you're not in the area, go to the independent bookstore in your town and do the same thing. You know, just last Saturday, Kendra and I spent some time up in Sacramento. We found an independent bookstore. We both went in and bought a handful of books that we'd been looking for. It's a way to support not just local business, but those people who are investing in their communities. And if you enjoyed this episode, do me a favor, share it with a friend who loves books, or just someone who believes that community still matters. Again, I'll always take a review over at Apple Podcasts. And don't forget, you can scroll down in the show notes. New feature, you can leave me a text or a voicemail, and I can use your voice on a future episode of the Mango Times Podcast. I think it'd be really fun to have that sort of engagement. And in the meantime, whatever your next adventure is, why don't you hop on board and let's get out there and quietly make some noise. Coffee, pipe, guests. Man, this is right on the money.