Skylark Bookshop is opening in downtown Columbia, Mo., likely in early August. The store is owned by novelist Alex George, who also founded the Unbound Book Festival in Columbia; he'd earlier planned to call Skylark Bookshop Unbound Books. The store manager is Carrie Koepke, and the store dog is Theo.
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| Skylark Books in progress | |
The 3,000-square-foot Skylark Bookshop aims to become "a community resource, a place where people can engage with like-minded folks in discussions about literature," George and Koepke wrote on the store's website. "We'll be bringing acclaimed authors into town for readings and signings, hosting book clubs, and lots of other good stuff."
They called Columbia "a fabulously bookish town. We are a city of super-smart readers, home to three universities, a freakishly large collection of talented writers and poets, and the Unbound Book Festival, a free-to-the-public literary festival that takes place every April. We look forward to becoming part of this exciting literary landscape."
Recently, they described the store as looking like "a bit of a war zone. There are half-built shelves all over the place. There are wires peeking playfully out from behind screens. (Where do they go? Nobody knows.) There are light fittings we can't wait to replace. And there's half a Harry Potter novel plastered to the front window to protect our modesty from curious eyes."