Yesterday was the 38th anniversary of the opening of our bookstore, Hearts & Minds, here in Dallastown, PA.

As I’ve often said, the very first book we sold that very first day we opened was a paperback of Les Miserable by Victor Hugo. (This was in 1982, by the way, before the powerful musical made “Les Mis” and Victor Hugo a household name.) A deeply Christian classic novel, so different then most of the so-called “Christian fiction” of the 1980s, we were delighted for that to be our first sale and took it somehow as a sign from above: God smiled upon our youthful hopes to create a bookstore that was a bit different than the typical religious shops of the day.

We have written before about our desire to be a bit more thoughtful and ecumenical as a bookstore than some evangelical stores, offering more meaty books than are often found, without being an academic bookstore. We carry gifts and crafts, cards and music, and a fair share of inspirational bric-a-back, but wanted to stand out as a bookstore. When we opened, most religious shops still called themselves bookstores and in our lifetimes many switched to calling themselves “Christian stores” which meant teeshirts and Jesus junk; they’ve even got “Christian toothbrushes.” You know our story of trying to carry books from a Christian perspective across the whole range of life and career areas, titles about engineering and politics and psychology and art and business. You’ve heard me tell stories of folks who have entered our store and, seeing books on ecological studies, have asked, confused, where the Christian bookstore in Dallastown is. Because we carry books on science and film, they can’t imagine that we are that Christian bookstore. And so, it’s been a wild ride these years…

We wouldn’t have been able to open 234 East Main if it weren’t for tons of friends who pitched in (many from Pittsburgh) and our very generous and helpful families, who volunteered, cooked, did accounting paperwork, worked in the shop, cared for our children, and delivered packages (and, let’s admit it, threw good money after bad) for years and years. Of course, we are thankful for many who volunteered and covered for us, for early employees and staff, and for our current team of the last decade, all who love books and care for our customers in ways that humble and honor us.

If you’ve ever worked here — even for a while — I trust you’ll forgive us for not living up to our ideals of doing things a bit differently, with good cheer and a sense of community that promotes theological care for an open-minded, ecumenical book selection, always putting people above profits. We’ve dropped the ball more times than we can say, but we cling to the goodness of God who seems to have guided and sustained us as we’ve tried to be a space for many different kinds of folks to learn about many different kinds of books. What a blast that has been; we hope our corner of the world is a bit better because of the ideas launched through these books we’ve researched, studied, curated, ordered, stocked, shown, and sometimes sold. We thank those who showed up and worked hard for us, seeing this more as ministry than lucrative wage earning.

We’ve been encouraged and blessed by many in our industry — authors whose names you may know, publishing leaders whose names you most likely don’t, and bunches of faithful sales reps, order takers, supply chain workers, (USPS carriers, UPS and FedEx drivers), publishers and editors, book cover designers, publicity and PR teams, and others who make this whole industry work as well as it does. We are thankful to play a small part in a bigger industry that has changed much over the decades and is facing very hard times now. On this weekend of commemoration, I won’t rant about the industry, the dangers of Amazon, and the vexation of moving forward during Covid. But it worries us a lot. We trust God and forge ahead, I guess, recalling what Francis Schaeffer wrote in True Spirituality so many decades ago: the world is abnormal. Or, as Cornelius Plantinga put it in a beautiful book on sin, swiping a line from the movie “Grand Canyon”, things are “not the way it’s supposed to be.” Got it.

But, of course, it is to our customers (many who have become friends) to whom we owe the biggest debt of gratitude. Truly. This weekend of thanksgiving we are deeply grateful for those who have trusted us with their hard questions, who have asked for book advice, who have put us to work finding titles they need, who have browsed our shelves and found surprising treasures (and who had the candor to tell us when they found stinkers and titles that caused trouble.) We thank those who have shelled out their hard- earned money. We thank you for that.

Beth and I are tired from the long hours of these long years, willing to admit that it’s been harder than we expected, but we are cheered when we think of many fine conversations with many fine folks about books and ideas, authors and writing, words and wisdom. Nearly every day we are reminded about the impact we make by getting books to readers. “Read for the Kingdom!” I used to shout, sometimes, at evangelical gatherings; “Books can help transform your vision and move us to work for change,” I might say to others. Or, perhaps a blessing of sorts, to some: “May these titles touch your heart and shape your soul in healthy, good ways.” In any case, our customers know that books matter, that reading is a spiritual discipline that can change us from the inside out, and that the very willingness to learn from others — through fiction, nonfiction, poetry or prose — is an essential virtue that makes us better people and this world a better place. Today, especially, we thank our customers who have kept us going, in more ways than one.

We thank, also, those institutions that have partnered with us; schools and libraries and social change organizations and, of course, many local churches; we thank you. We’ve loved selling books with and for ministries such as our beloved CCO (Coalition for Christian Outreach.) I’m sure some tire of us talking about their Jubilee conference, but it has been more than an annual big gig for us, but the center of our liturgical calendar and a touchstone for why we do what we do. We’ll be somehow selling books on line there this year at Jubilee 2021.

On this Hearts & Minds anniversary we think back to the old days setting up book displays for the York Council of Churches (does anybody remember the local Faith Is Alive Christian Ed conferences?), the epic Pennsylvania State Council of Churches events in Harrisburg — where for the first time I heard Walt Brueggemann and Jürgen Moltmann, the same day) and conferences by groups like the C.S.Lewis Institute, Ivy Jungle, Redeemer’s Center for Faith & Work in NYC, Q, CIVA, OneLife, Northeast APCE, Wee Kirk, CLS, Fresh Expressions, CLAC, ESA, CPJ, BFW, The Jonathan Edwards Institute, and the Mercersburg Society, not to mention several regular denominational gatherings, from UCC to Episcopalian, from Presbyterian to Lutheran.

We’ve set up at Catholic retreat centers and Christian rock festivals (Purple Door!), at camps and revivals and protest marches and once at the National Press Club. I’ve lectured on books in countless venues; we’ve set up in rec rooms of college student dorms at the beach and in fancy halls at Ivy League colleges and fine (and not so fine) hotels. We’ve sold books and spoken at events in New York and New Orleans, in Dallas and Denver. We’ve set up books in urban justice centers and at rural nonprofits. And of course we delivered book displays to more church basements than we can remember. We love the church basements.

We’ve worked with authors as distinguished as Os Guinness and Barbara Brown Taylor and William Willimon and Tim Keller (loading out, once, from a very fancy, marbled museum in Pittsburgh) and with edgy activists like Shane Claiborne,Lisa Sharon Harper, Nadia Bolz-Weber. I’ve spoken (like a bookish warm-up act) before Brennan Manning and Fleming Rutledge and John Piper and Rich Mullins and Eugene Peterson; Phyllis Tickle once quipped that Hearts & Minds is the very center of the universe. I’ve had the remarkable fortune to interview authors I love such as Michael Card, Lauren Winner, Andy Crouch, Ruth Haley Barton, Jamie Smith. I think the first event we ever did in the store was with Jim Wallis; or maybe Brian Walsh; both were before we expanded the store in the mid 1990s. The most recent, on Zoom, was with Gina Delfonzo and Karen Swallow Prior as we talked about Charles Dickens. Our two largest Dallastown events were with N.T. Wright and another with Amish novelist Beverly Lewis.

These days, with Covid on the rise and the store still closed, we have quick conversations through people’s car windows or standing in the breeze out back. If it weren’t a sign of our grim times, it would be sort of fun, this backyard customer service and curbside delivery.

Most of our customers these days, and I suspect most reading this, are mail-order friends — on-line shoppers and those who read BookNotes and send us orders and, often, encouraging notes. (Or cancel their subscription and send us hate mail, but I digress.) We opened before there was a thing called “Small Business Saturday” or “Cyber-Monday” and we continue on, eyes on the prize, glad for those who support independent and family-owned businesses and who appreciate our odd effort to be a bookstore unlike most, with an unusual blend of passions and the books to prove it. We’re so thankful for those who subscribe to BookNotes, who read (and share) our book reviews, who send us orders, who spread the word. We appreciate you all more than words can say.

I’ve shared this lively video before, but if you want to hear me ramble on about the power of books, the need to read widely, the pleasure and importance of the printed page, this talk I gave at an evening gathering last year at Grove City College is an example of the sorts of notions that often run through our heads as we talk about our work and the Christian perspective that we think shapes us. I was so glad to be with friends out in Western Pennsylvania again and appreciated their trust in allowing me to talk about reading and books to their students and friends.  Even though it was presented for collegiates, I think many will enjoy hearing me enthusiastically preaching about books and what they can do for us. Enjoy!

 https://livestream.com/accounts/13431056/events/8792551/videos/197856283

BOOKS ABOUT BOOKS

Of course, it wouldn’t be a real BookNotes if I didn’t highlight some books, so here are three. Happy reading.  ALL BOOKS ARE 20% OFF.  Think of it as an anniversary sale.

If you have heard me speak at any length about what books can do for us and the value of reading, you may have heard me read out loud from the first few pages of this marvelous anthology of black writers. In the opening, Marita Golden offers vignettes of her own reading life — as a youth (reading Oliver Twist and Vanity Fair), as a teen coming into her own as a young, black woman, as a person coping with the hard stuff of life (she’s tells about reading Tony Morrison’s Beloved) and as a wife contemplating her bad marriage, reading Madam Bovary. I read it early in my talk at Grove City College that I linked to above, if you saw that. Often, after offering presentations when I use this resource, folks want to know what book it was that I read from. Highly recommended.

Reading for the Common Good: How Books Help Our Churches and Neighborhoods Flourish C. Christopher Smith (IVP) $16.00 ||        OUR SALE PRICE = $12.80

You can read my longer review here, but know that this is one book I esteem almost more than any other, because it names so much of what and why we do what we do. I adore this book.

I wish more would know this content, talk about this stuff, share this book, explore it in groups. It is important and good and we so admire the work Chris has done with his team at Englewood Review of Books.

As missional scholar Alan Roxburgh notes in one review, “Reading isn’t a technique. It’s about cultivating the practice of discernment through dialogue with others.” It is, especially in our polarized culture, as Tim Soerens notes, in his rave review, “subversive.” Slowing down and listening? That’s a habit we get from reading, and especially from reading together. This is much of what Chris is exploring here (and which was developed further in his recent book about conversation, How the Body of Christ Talks.)

Here is how the publisher has described Reading for the Common Good:

We have been created to live and work in community. But all too often we see ourselves primarily as individuals and run the risk of working at cross-purposes with the organizations we serve. Living faithfully in a neighborhood involves two interwoven threads: learning and action. In this book C. Christopher Smith, coauthor of Slow Church, looks at the local church as an organization in which both learning and action lie at the heart of its identity. He explores the practice of reading and, in his words, “how we can read together in ways that drive us deeper into action.” Smith continues, “Church can no longer simply be an experience to be passively consumed; rather, we are called into the participatory life of a community. Reading is a vital practice for helping our churches navigate this shift.” Discover how books can help your churches and neighborhoods bring flourishing to the world.

Listen to memoirist and essayist Scott Russell Saunders:

In this hectic age, with its flood of electronic scraps aimed at five-second attention spans, how refreshing it is to meet a champion of slow, sustained and meditative reading of books. And not just any books, but ones that nurture compassion and community. Chris Smith illustrates in his own work and in his account of the work of his church what it means to love one’s neighbor. It means more than kindly feelings. It means kindly actions. It means caring for others, beginning with those who share the place where we live, and above all those who are most in need. The wealth Smith celebrates is not to be found in stock markets or bank accounts, but between the covers of books, between person and person, and in the loving heart.

A Book for Hearts & Minds: What You Should Read & Why (A Festschrift Honoring the Work of Hearts & Minds Bookstore) edited by Ned Bustard (Square Halo Books) $18.99  ||              OUR SALE PRICE = $15.19

When our store turned 30 our friends at Square Halo showed up with cases of this book on hand, a book they had put together in our honor, a great gift we are to this day stunned. They got authors as rare as Calvin Seerveld and as famous as N.T. Wright and as eloquent Steve Garber as teacherly as Karen Swallow Prior, guiding us to the best books they recommend in their respective fields. In sort of an homage to BookNotes, 20 or so experts weigh in with great chapters about books — from Andi Ashworth on books about cooking to Gregory Wolfe on books of creative nonfiction, from Mike Schutt on books about law to Denis Haack on film, it’s a great, great collection. There is an opening chapter which is a transcribed talk form a cassette tape recording of some off the cuff remarks I made at a gathering once, which is pretty good (despite one glaring error regarding Abraham Kuyper and C.S. Lewis. You know how I get when I get fired up preaching about every square inch of Narnia.)