Biblion has carved out  a niche in downtown Lewes

Jen Mason is a relatively new owner of a shop she calls Biblion in downtown Lewes. “It means ‘little book’ in Greek,” she said. “I wanted a classical name for the shop.”

“People told me I was nuts to open a used book store here [among all the high powered shops and restaurants],” she said. She opened for business in February, 2011 and is proving the naysayers wrong.

“Having local people support the shop has made all the difference,” she said. “We have people who stop in almost every day to see what’s new.” She calls her customers “guests” and considers that people who browse her shop and buy her books and literary items are “adopting” them.

A spiritual person, Mason says that she had the idea to open such a shop in the summer of 2010 while she was meditating one day. “I followed that dream and everything fell into place,” she said.

A member of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church on Second Street across from the shop, Mason ran their popular Fourth of July art show for five years and knows many people in the community. Now with a background of writing and editing, Mason had some retail experience during college in Oklahoma where she was an English major. She has been a lifelong reader and frequent visitor of libraries and book stores. She also has good computer skills.

Mason thought that finding a space on busy Second Street might be hard. She lucked out when the Thistles art gallery owners located near King’s Ice Cream at the corner of Second Street and Market Street decided to close up and try other things. She now rents that space from Ted Becker and Joe Stewart. Once she had her space, she began designing her book store with shelves all over the walls and space for free-standing displays.

Mason started going to estate and library sales to get her initial supply of books. She also began searching the web looking for items such as greeting cards that she could include besides books. “I wanted to encourage people to browse,” she said.

“When people bring their used books here, I give them credit towards other books,” Mason said. “I have to have some cash flow.” She also handles books by consignment. There is a broad cross section of books in the shop. “Everyone can find something here,” she said.

Mason figures she has 2,500 books at any given time. “We carry fiction, history and politics, health and sexuality, sports and leisure, food and how to cook it, bios and memoirs.” She has no electronic list of the books. “We know what we have,” she said.

Four sales people including a high school student and a college student, help Mason with sales and other duties.

Mason’s cards are separated into racks of color and those of black and white cards. They are very creative, not the kind of cards you’ll find in the usual card shops. She keeps the cards in the $4 range or below.

The walls of the shop are filled with shelves of books. In the interior of the shop, Mason features mugs, clever lists to send to people with things like “I really, really like you” (checking off why you like the person), pads of stickers to use in mailing notes to people, party napkins, games, paperbacks, magnets and other things that are fun to browse and buy.

High above the books on the wall on one side of the shop is a colorful quilt by local artist Sarah Pavlik. Shop neighbor Josephine Keir has provided rugs from her shop of home décor and art.

Right now, the shop is open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. (closing at 4 p.m., Sundays if they aren’t busy.) “In the summer, we are open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.,” Mason said. “Often, we are open when some of the other stores aren’t open and we attract people who are browsing.”

In the future, Mason would like to handle rare books, maybe even do a catalog. “People would make appointments to see the books,” she said.

One recent guest came for the first time to the shop, looking for classic American writer Zane Grey books. “Her brother was battling cancer and he had mentioned a fondness for the books,” Mason said. “What was amazing was the fact that the day before, someone had dropped off two shopping bags of pristine Zane Grey books in their original tissue wrappers. The sales person showed them to the shopper and she bought one bag of four books.”

The same shopper returned after awhile and bought the second bag of books. but then brought them back to the shop, saying, unfortunately, that her brother had died. The books had never been sent to him. The shop gave the customer credit to buy something else. “It’s things like this that help us to have a clientele that continues to shop here,” Mason said.

Biblion can be reached at 302-644-2210 or go to biblionbooks.com.