Pro Libris in Bangor has been selling books since 1980, but after the owner, Eric Furry, died in January, it wasn’t guaranteed that the shop would stay open.
The store had more than 30,000 books, at least one box of cans of Moxie soda and many bumper stickers scattered around the bookshelves, but no one was coming forward to buy it.
The day before the stacks of books were about to be sold to a wholesaler, the shop changed hands.
The new owners, John Dixon and Fox Emm, who moved to Verona Island from South Carolina in 2022, didn’t even know Pro Libris was for sale a week ago.
They heard about a bookstore “in Stephen King country” being for sale on Friday through social media, Emm said. Emm, 36, was in Virginia with their mother and messaged the landlord that night. They heard back the next day about renting it and drove up to see it.
Dixon, 32, visited the shop on Saturday to meet Eric Furry’s wife, Vera Furry, during a 50%-off sale that would have ended with all the remaining being sold to a wholesaler, Emm said.
The pair knew they wanted to own a bookstore at some point in their lives, Emm said, and this opportunity “kind of fell together.”
On Wednesday, Emm, who has a job in cybersecurity, was working the cash register of Pro Libris on their first day as a co-owner.
The process of renting the space and taking over the store had all happened within five chaotic days, but it was worth it to keep the store open, they said.
“If the choice was to have a bookstore close or have a little crazy weekend, I’d rather have a little crazy,” Emm said.
Eric Furry owned the Pro Libris bookstore for 46 years up until his death in January. At the end of last month, Vera Furry was running the store but didn’t want to be in charge of it long term, she said. Her goal was to keep the long-running store open under the same name with a new owner that wanted to carry on her husband’s legacy, she said. But she was planning on selling all of the books when no prospective buyers had reached out.
Within the first two hours of being open on Wednesday, Emm had cashed out more than a dozen customers, with many of them thanking them for taking over the store, they said.
The feedback has reaffirmed Emm and Dixon’s plans for buying the store despite the pair not having “saving a bookstore type money” prepared before taking over, Emm said.
“We know it’s been a pillar of the community, and as locals and lovers of books, we didn’t want to see it close,” Emm said.
Emm and Dixon plan on “doing right by Eric’s legacy” by becoming notaries like Eric Furry was and keeping the fish tank and its black moor goldfish, Bernard, at the front counter, Emm said.
The pair are also trying to grapple with the more than 30,000 books in the store and attempting to understand what books are in stock, something Eric Furry gained over more than four decades there, Emm said.
Emm wrote a computer program that connects to a barcode scanner to try to take inventory of the store electronically, and hopefully help them know where every book is kept, they said.
With the quick adjustment to owning a bookstore without previous experience, Emm said the store will change hours starting next week with the hopes of reverting them back after Emm and Dixon are both available to run the store.
The schedule changes Saturday. The store will be closed Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday through Monday and noon to 6 p.m. on Friday.
Vera Furry said she’s excited for the new owners. The store staying under the same name her husband made popular was important to her and for keeping Eric Furry’s memory in the space, she said.
Similar to Eric Furry who said he had been retired since he opened the store in 1980, Emm sees the bookstore more as an early retirement plan than a job.
“[Owning a bookstore] was my cozy retirement plan. This is just accelerating it a little bit,” Emm said.
