Three decades of bookselling! Somehow we don’t feel 
that old.
We’ve known many of
you since we opened on Main Street
next to the Factory Point Bank in September,
1976. We were novices, but we knew we had made the right decision when
passersby would drop in to the store – not yet finished – asking for specific titles as we were
opening up cartons of books to put on the shelves. One person asked if “this was going
to be an adult bookstore,” and we assured him that it was for all ages. Another asked if we
were going to carry music – then it was LP’s - and we were quick to sense a demand for
records. Children’s books were always going to be a focus, but soon after we opened – in
1,000 square feet on one floor – we realized that we hadn’t allocated enough space for them,
and so two years later we opened the Children’s Level downstairs.
In 1985, the Northshire Bookstore made a risky, some said foolhardy, decision to purchase
the Colburn House, formerly an established inn and restaurant, and after 1½ years of
redesign and extensive renovation, we moved across the street. Over the years, we were rewarded by a growing clientele,
a wonderful and enthusiastic staff, and an author program that contributed to the cultural
vibrancy of the community. In response to our local customers, as well as visitors, we built
our house of books so that by the end of the 90’s, we started 
dreaming about what would
have been inconceivable when we moved in to the Colburn. We needed a bigger store! And
the planning began.
Around that time, our sons Chris and Andy came back to Vermont, after years of work and
travel elsewhere, and we sensed an opportunity. The newly expanded Northshire
opened in 2003 a week before Christmas. We have what we hope is a more browser-friendly
bookstore – and of course the wonderful Spiral Press Café. We will
keep growing in the sense that we are always open to new ideas and interesting ventures.
We live in a fast changing world, where one of the main constants is change itself. With
your help, we hope to be able to respond.
-Barbara Morrow
