Grounds For Thought - Selling books

For the Wicks family, which owns Grounds For Thought at 174 S. Main, atmosphere is very important in building a "user-friendly" store and encouraging a love or reading.
The name reflects the fact that the store doubles as a coffee and pastry shop, with comfortable wooden tables near the front window. Patrons are encouraged to wander through the shelves of used paperbacks, find a likely looking volume and settle down to read with a cup of espresso, cappuccino, flavored tea or coffee.
A display case holds an array of baked goods made by local resident Cindy Peslikis. The goodies include gems like nut brownies, crumbly turnovers and carrot cake.
"We have about 28,000 books now with shelf room for 40,000," says Sandy Wicks who started the business six months ago with her husband, Jerry; son, Kelly and daughter Bridget.
Grounds For Thought is an atypical bookstore in other ways. The store is open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week.

"We're starting to get a nice regular trade. Different groups come in the morning and evening," Mrs. Wicks noted. "We're trying not to exclude anyone. We even have a bookcase just for children's books." It's common to see a child come in with a parent, pluck a book off the case and settle down on the carpeted floor to read it on the spot.
There are also games and chessboards, which patrons can play at the tables.
Once a month an evening poetry reading is held, featuring local poets. There is also a changing display of local art on one wall.

Building the inventory has been fun for the Wicks family. "Two sisters in Bowling Green sold their collection of 10,000 books. We probably bought half of them." The family, all avid readers themselves, make it a point to visit bookstores all over the country in their travels.
"From what we're seeing, people still enjoy getting books and reading. When you have people coming in and getting 15 to 30 books and they come back in a week, they're reading. "Or someone calls and say 'I'm selling my entire collection of 40,000 books and starting over' "We bought 3,500 books from one lady in the country. She'd read them all and it was hard for her to part with them." And what categories sell best? At Grounds For Thought, mysteries, science-fiction and westerns don't stay on the shelf long.