Odyssey Begins New Chapter
By Judith Rosen -- Publishers Weekly, 9/3/2001
Chalk one up for independent booksellers!" enthused Joan Grenier, co-owner of the Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley, Mass., in an e-mail to colleagues and friends announcing the store's winning bid for Mount Holyoke College's textbook business starting this fall. Just hours after she finished typing the note, co-owner Neil Novik, who oversees textbook sales, posted a job listing for an associate textbook manager to help handle the extra business that the two expect as a result of beating out both Follett's, which currently operates the school's on-campus bookstore, and Barnes & Noble's College Division.
"We've done some textbook business with professors," Novik told PW, "but this is the first time in an official capacity. We are literally right across the street, so many faculty and students come in the store." Novik plans to sell the textbooks directly from the 38-year-old Odyssey. Follett's, which won a separate sidelines bid, will continue to operate a store on campus.
The Odyssey, which started in Grenier's father's drugstore, has had almost as many lives as a cat—it burned down twice in the late '80s. Although it stopped carrying aspirin and other drugstore staples long ago, it continues to mix both new books and used, which it shelves side by side. It also carries antiquarian titles and recently established a First Edition Club for customers who want to collect newly published first editions.
