Mainely General Bookstore for Searsport

by Judith Rosen -- Publishers Weekly, 8/30/2004

At the beginning of August, the coastal town of Searsport, Maine, population 2,100, will have its first store specializing in new books, Left Bank Books. "It will be a little primitive at first," said co-owner Lindsay McGuire, who is opening the store with Barbara Klanmeyer and Marsha Kaplan, with whom she worked at the Fertile Mind Bookshop in nearby Belfast. "Our built-in bookcases will be here, but not our freestanding ones." She regards the store's size, 700 square feet, "in keeping with the population of Searsport." The building itself, which formerly housed a bank, is quite grand, with 12-f00thigh decorative tin ceilings, a fireplace and an ornate, hand-painted vault, which McGuire plans to keep locked.

The three women enjoyed working together and just wanted to run a store of their own, said Klanmeyer. Initially, they tried to buy Fertile Mind, but were turned down. However, the biggest challenge to the partnership, Klanmeyer said, "was finding a name. We wanted something that was distinguished and gender-free." Among the reasons they chose Left Bank Books, she said: "The bank has left; it gives the store a worldwide feeling; and if you're facing north, the store is on the left bank of the Penobscot Bay." Despite its tiny size, Left Bank Books will be a general bookstore with a large children's selection and dog books. "Our loose theme is books with a sense of place," said Klanmeyer, who plans to keep the store open year-round. In the summer, she hopes to attract the many tourists who pass through Searsport, once a shipbuilding center but now a mecca for antiques.