Watchung Booksellers offers the worm a nook for a book.
Evidence suggesting the embrace of the Montclair community was evident during my talk with Watchung Booksellers owner Margot Sage-El.
Encompassed by fiction and non-fiction reads, I was superseded by best sellers, suggested literature and the intelligence from a reliable source. “The guru,” one customer assured as he pointed to Sage-El, and ushered the conversation to continue leaving the shop, book-in-hand.
From then on, it was a necessary obligation to think of more questions to ensure I could properly talk-up this Montclair insatiable reader of new fiction and memoirs.
Watchung Booksellers was founded in 1991, and when it went on sale in 1996, Sage-El decided to keep the shop afloat, marrying her love of the book culture and her online children’s book catalog, Great Owl Books. Sage-El was always in publishing, but as she continues forward through her eighteenth year as owner, she uses her background of sociology to exceed excellent customer service. Sage-El prides her shop for its knowledge of books – but first its fixture to the community.
Among a grand shelf selection, Watchung Booksellers offers author readings, book launch parties, poetry evenings, book groups, workshops and storytimes. The shop provides a person-to-person service with spirited conversation that predatory online stores lack. Throw the positive energy into the mix and Booksellers combats the appeal for all age groups in the literary pronounced community.
Sage-El explained the six-month process for a book among 300,000 published a year to be catalog-selected and arrive on her shelf. “Publishers make books into best sellers, but people also make books into best sellers,” she explains. The customers keep the shop going, but the shop, Watchung Booksellers, plays a prominent role in the book-loving community.
Of the many to choose from, Sage-El suggests Wally Lamb as a bedside read, Jayne Anne Phillips’ curious read Quiet Dell, or two on this month’s hit-list, Donna Tartt’s Goldfinch or the political book with already 10 requests, Double Down by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. Watchung Booksellers has quiet a selection.
Watchung Booksellers offers a membership that comes with a discount of 10 percent and free delivery for the holidays. The shop is open Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. -7 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
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