Bookseller uses novel way to sell his wares
Front yard provides right space to fulfill man’s mission
Bookseller Charlie Pugsley always has tried to meet people where they are — including on his front lawn.
And that’s precisely how Stewart Rafert’s book shelf unexpectedly got a bit fuller one Sunday morning during his daily walk around his Clintonville neighborhood.
Taking a different route than normal, Rafert happened upon a book sale known as Bookspace — what Pugsley has dubbed his efforts to get thoughtprovoking books in the hands of people who want them.
Rafert, an 80-year-old book lover, couldn’t resist stopping to take a peek at the half dozen tables, along with a few book cases, there were full of mostly new hardback and softback covers in front of a small apartment building on the corner of East Tulane Road and Indianola Avenue.
“Immediately, I noticed this was an
intelligent set of books – remarkably so,” Rafert said.
He walked away with two titles – “The Last Interview: and Other Conversations” by Ursula K. Le Guin and a book on historical ecology called “People and the Land Through Time” by Emily W.B. (Russell) Southgate – but promised to be back later in the day when he had more time to peruse and chat.
Mission accomplished for Pugsley. Pugsley, 35, who lives in that apartment building on Indianola, created Bookspace during the summer of 2015 as a way to get different books – ones not always sold at major retailers or others that might be classified as “radical” – to people looking to educate themselves or become more aware of the world around them.
“I love books,” said Pugsley, a northwest Ohio native who graduated from Denison University in Granville. “It’s the way I like to connect with the world – with people. I’ve always felt comfortable in a bookstore and that was a space I wanted to cultivate.
“Book stores,” he continued, “are community spaces, where children are comfortable to visit and people aren’t expected to buy anything.”
After a few years of working in restaurants in Nashville after college, Pugsley came to the conclusion he wanted to become a bookseller in whatever form that might take.
Not able to open an actual storefront yet, he spent nine months buying up every interesting book he could find at thrift stores. Then, he moved to Columbus with the books – all 5,000 of them – to try and sell them wherever he could.
He started with flea markets and other similar events,
“I set up a table, and people responded to it,” Pugsley said. “No one there was selling books there, and people were really excited about it. I’ve learned along the way, and it’s evolved the entire time.”
He’s also set up a few temporary brick-and-mortar operations, including renting a space that he turned into a bookstore once a week for nine months. He also spent three months selling out of a room in a shared workspace in German Village.
When the pandemic hit, he beefed up his online presence to sell more books that way. And more recently, professors at area colleges have sent their students to him to buy books needed for a specific class.
In 2020, he had his first sale outdoor his apartment building.
“My neighbors had a yard sale and were like, ‘Hey, you can sell books,’” he said. “I set up a couple of tables and it went extremely well – way better than at any flea market – so I realized, ‘Ok, this is what we’re doing.’”
His twice monthly front-yard sales (when the weather is nice) have been so successful, coupled with his burgeoning online store, that he’s been able to put food-service work behind him and focus full-time on the endeavor the past 18 months. He sold upwards of 4,000 books in 2020.
He plans to host his next Bookspace sale Sept. 25.
Now, he focuses on new books and zines, instead of the used varieties that got him started. It helps, he said, that his apartment is in a high-traffic area on Indianola.
Elias Roussos was in the area looking at a townhouse and happened to drive by a Bookspace sale earlier this month. He initially thought it was a yard sale, but, like Rafert, he was pleasantly surprised to find a book sale with an “amazing” selection.
“I want to read all of these,” the 26year-old from Reynoldsburg said. “I wasn’t looking for books, just a distraction.”
In the end, he walked away with five titles, including “How Europe Underdeveloped
Africa,” a 1972 book by Walter Rodney, and two novels from the “Parable” series by Octavia Butler.
“The books seem curated to suit my interests,” Roussos said. “Usually, when I go to bookstores, it’s a challenge to find things. Not today.”
He laughed as he checked out with Pugsley, commenting he’d probably be up late reading the next few nights.
“The ‘Parable’ series, you’re going to love it,” Pugsley told him.
The bookseller, who hopes to one day open a permanent bookstore location, said he loves when repeat customers come back to tell him how much they enjoyed a book or what they learned from it or how it changed them.
He said his business has been bolstered by the events of the past 18 months – both the pandemic and social justice uprisings – as people had more time to read and many were looking for titles about topics that he has sold for years, such as police abolition, critical race theory, gender and trauma.
“I filled a niche that people were now actually looking for,” Pugsley said.
Bookspace sells both nonfiction and fiction books. Some are by local authors, like Hanif Abdurraqib and Elissa Washuta, and Pugsley said he hopes to increase the number of Ohio writers in his selection. He’s also working on adding and learning more about poetry and graphic novels.
One table at his sale is reserved for children’s books, a favorite category of his since he has a 4-year-old son.
Even with the hundreds of titles he has available, Pugsley knows that his store’s selection and mission won’t resonate with everyone – and he’s OK with that. He said he simply wants to be a resource for people who might be looking for something to read that’s a bit off the beaten path.
“I want to provide information that you would not find if you weren’t looking for it or open to it,” Pugsley said. “That’s why I exist – to make it more the norm for these kinds of books to be in everyday vernacular.”