Kevin Short, a book buyer at Grassroots Books, said that, while the store offers new books as well as DVDs and CDs, “we are primarily a used bookstore. We go through lots and lots of used books every day, and we sell lots of used books.”
Short has seen an increasing popularity in reading, due in part to the influence of TikTok. “BookTok has been really big in marketing books, and so we try to keep on top of having everything that people are looking for.”
Short added, “We want to be as wide-ranging as possible, so we believe there's no such thing as a book person. Everybody is a book person. You just need to find the right book, and we're very serious about people finding the books that they want to read, particularly children, because it's been shown that kids don't want to read if they're not reading the things that they want to read.”
Almost all of the used books that are sold by Grassroots Books, according to Short, come from the community. “It's remarkable how many books are in the community, and then, of course, you get some cycling, a little secret … We want people to read the books and then very quickly bring them back to us so that we can sell them again. Of course, “there are some books that you just want to keep on your shelf forever.”
Grassroots Books is located at 660 East Grove Street in Reno. grassrootsbooks.com for more.
This is the third in a series of features on independent bookstores in the greater Reno area.
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Support for 'Arts on the Airwaves' comes from The Nevada Arts Council… a state agency that provides public funding and support to artists and organizations, that benefit Nevadans in cities and rural communities statewide. More at NVArtsCouncil.org.
