Samantha Mori
Lab 1
Story 7
Nov. 26, 2013
Word Count: 1,251
Ding, Dong. Ding, Dong.
The silver door chimes, dream catchers hang and pots sit on the gray
concrete floor of the shop.
Gypsy Snark Used Books and Bric-a-Brac at 1110 Main St. is a hidden
treasure for Stillwater book lovers.
Susan Thomas opened the shop seven years ago after she retired from a
career of computer programming.
“The shop is pretty low-tech,” Susan said. “I spent my whole career with
technology and computers, so I like it this way.”
She sits behind the display case every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from
about 9 a.m. to about 5 p.m. running her online bookshop, playing solitaire and
chatting with customers. She works only three days a week to help her daughter,
who works the rest of the time. Susan said the shop brings in enough money to pay
her daughter a nice salary. Her gray braids are a familiar site for regulars who come
in for low prices and a large selection. Susan is not the type to dress up for work
either, her uniform consists of glasses, blue jeans, worn sneakers and t-shirts.
Gypsy Snark is not an ordinary used bookstore, and Susan is not an ordinary
bookstore owner. Susan grew up in Stillwater, where her parents were OSU
professors. Her mom taught library sciences and it seemed natural for Susan to open
the shop because books run in the family.
“Remember Caravan Books,” she said. “That was my brother’s bookstore.
Mother had a used bookstore down on campus. So it seemed like a good thing to do.”
Susan laughs, her glasses rise and her face pulls into a smile when people ask
how the shop got its name. She tells them that is the question everybody asks.
“When I was with the forest service, I was on a Gypsy Moth project, and
before the days of the Internet we had a local area network,” she said. “The name of
my computer was always Gypsy Snark because I love Lewis Carol’s, ‘The Hunting of
the Snark.’”
Susan’s shop sits on the edge of downtown Stillwater, in a building that was
once a service station. Inside, eclectic rugs cover the gray cement and books sit floor
to ceiling along the walls in the two-room shop. Susan estimates that the shop and
its attached storage garage contain over a million books and that number grows
every week. Counter space is taken over by handmade jewelry, pottery and garage
sale treasures.
“Most of the inventory comes from garage sales,” Susan said. “My daughter
[Lara] and I go out and find books and bric-a-brac to sell in the shop.”
Lara Udovich, Susan’s daughter, moved to Stillwater to help her mom run the
shop and covers Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
Udovich said her mom tries to help those who are in need by buying odds
and ends from garage sales even when she knows all she will do is throw the things
away.
“When she can see that someone is in need, she makes an effort to buy
something, even if there is nothing worth anything, because she wants to help
them,” Udovich said.
Susan’s focus in opening the bookshop was not to become rich, but to share
her and her family’s love of books.
“Twice a year we have our 10-cent sale,” she said. “We have tables around
the front of the store and all the books are 10 cents, or 12 for a dollar. I think it’s
good because people who may be hesitant to try a new author will be more willing
when the book only costs 10 cents.”
Susan’s focus is her customers and the experiences they have with books and
reading. She goes out of her way to help them, which sets her and her shop apart
from other bookstores. Susan enjoys her low-tech lifestyle, but when customers who
do not have Internet come into the shop and have special requests, she will track
down the books and order them from Amazon.
Susan also takes people’s names and phone numbers to call them when a
book they were interested in comes through the shop.
“Recently we had something on reserve from five years ago and we got it in,”
Udovich said. “We called the guy and he was just so excited and couldn’t believe that
she had kept his name and number for so long.”
Not only does Susan order books on special request but also, she sends them.
“My mom got involved with a program that sends books to prisons,” Udovich
said. “It’s a lot easier for businesses to send things to a prison than an individual
person, so she will send things for people through the business.”
Susan’s shop focuses on low prices, so there are times when a book is worth
more and she can’t sell it in the shop. For times like these, she sells online with
Amazon. She said the most expensive book she has sold was posted online for $500,
a legal record of Indian Territory, and a lawyer from Norman came to the shop to
look at it.
“I’m here in the store one morning and this guy walks in,” she said.” He says ‘I
want to see that book.’ I called Lara and told her, ‘Here is where this book is, I want
you to get it and bring it down here.’ And he bought it.”
Gypsy Snark is famous in the teaching community for its organization and
selection. The shop has sections for children’s books, classics, mystery, science
fiction, young adult, historic fiction, lifestyle, religion and more, and each section is
alphabetical, which is not common in a used bookshop. Teachers, such as Jennifer
White, an English teacher at Stillwater High School, come in to find cheap books for
their classes.
White uses the shop as a resource for her class to find additional
instructional materials, such as out of print essays or poems. White also finds
personal enjoyment from the shop. When White moved to Stillwater, she went
driving to learn to the city and the title of the store enticed her. Inside, she found a
place of solace among books.
“What I like best about [Susan] is that she leaves you alone,” White said. “I
can literally pull 10 or 12 books off the shelf that I want to consider, set them down
beside me and sit in the chair. She doesn’t come by and interrupt or anything. If I
want to sit there and read for an hour, she lets me.”
Susan knows her customers because she is not completely hands off. She
knows when her customers are up for friendly conversation. Candice Marchetta, an
OSU student, likes Gypsy Snark for its mystical atmosphere.
“I went in and we had a conversation about her favorite show, Ghost Minds,”
Marchetta said. “I love stuff like that, paranormal activity and ghosts, so we bonded
over that. I think that correlates to her personality and the type of person she is,
especially when you see her shop.”
Similar to Marchetta, Nicole Elledge, an OSU student, bonded with Susan over
similar taste in books. Elledge found the shop through the downtown Stillwater
website. She said she likes books and Hastings was expensive, so she goes to Gypsy
Snark to get good books for cheap.
“[Susan] is always so welcoming when I come in,” Elledge said. “One time we
had a 45 minute conversation after I asked her for a recommendation on what to
read. We discovered that we like similar authors and fantasy books.”
Source Sheet
Susan Thomas, Gypsy Snark Owner
gypsySnarkBooks@suddenlink.net
Lara Udovich, Susan’s Daughter
405-377-7754
Candice Marchetta, OSU Student
candice.marchetta@okstate.edu
Jennifer White, Stillwater High School English Teacher
jwhite@stillwaterschools.com
Nicole Elledge, OSU Student
nicole.elledge@okstate.edu