Mr. B’s Bookery, soon to be the Kingston Bookery

Thanks to one very devoted and enthusiastic customer, a used bookstore in Washington will be able to keep its doors open. Megan Stephenson writes in the Kingston Community News that Mr. B’s Bookery in Kingston, WA was going to shut down due in part to owner Bill Wiley’s declining health, but a loyal customer, Danya Simkus, has stepped in to revitalize the store and keep it open.

When she found out that the Bookery was on the rocks, Simkus approached Wiley to ask if there was anything she could do to help—and after a few meetings with members of the community, she became a proud co-owner of the store, along with her fiancé Rik Scott and Jeff Wiley, Bill’s son. Despite never having owned a business before, Simkus found herself thriving in the new role, saying, ““Rather than worry, [I said to myself] what can I do this week and this day, and before I knew it the rock was rolling down the hill. And it was great. I found out I was really good at it.”

The new team is taking steps to revamp the store, including scaling back from the two storefronts it currently occupies to the one it originally used when Wiley opened it fifteen years ago, in order to make it more manageable. They’re remodeling the bookshelves, putting in new flooring, and revamping the children’s section, as well as changing the name to the Kingston Bookery. Scott is also working on a website, something that Wiley hadn’t been able to due to health problems.

The Bookery is located on Highway 104 in Kingston; there isn’t a set date for the reopening, but the store will continue to allow customers to trade their used books for store credit.