Self-Help Bookstore Reaches Out for Help

by Kevin Howell, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 4/17/2006

KAfter 16 years of serving the spiritual growth and recovery community of Chicago, Transitions Bookplace & Café owners Howard Mandel and Gayle Seminara-Mandel are letting their customers know that they need help to stay in business. A recent e-mail from Gayle to the store’s customers stated, “I am writing to you today because Transitions needs your help. We need more people coming through our doors. We need you to come to our store and buy a book, two books, or even better, a stack of books! Please come and rediscover Transitions Bookplace before the end of this month or we will not be able to continue serving the “transitions” needs of the Chicago community for very much longer.”

Over the years, the bookstore has outgrown two locations, beginning in 1989 in a 400 sq.-ft former one-car garage. Eight years ago, they moved to their third location, a 6,000 sq.-ft bookstore and café with 25 employees. The strip mall’s anchor stores are Best Buy and Whole Foods. The store carries 3,000 titles and sidelines such as candles, Eastern religion statutes, jewelry, videos, CDs, DVDs, etc. The bookstore hosts a lecture series that brings authors in three-to-four times a week. More than 3,500 customers are paid members of the store’s book club, which offers discounts on books. The couple also holds workshop meetings in a building they own a few blocks from the store.

The Mandels weren’t available for comment at press time. On their Web site, they note the idea for a recovery bookstore began with a trip to New York City in 1989 when they were impressed with a 200 sq.-ft. bookstore devoted to recovery titles. A week later, “a drunk driver crossed four lanes of highway traffic, careened out of control and hit us head on,” said Gayle Seminara-Mandel. “Our car was completely demolished. As the paramedics were wheeling me into the ambulance, Howard said it was at that moment that he vowed to give up commodity trading and open our own bookstore.”