From Behind The Mask: My Socially Distant Interview with Independent Bookstore Owner Bob Topp
The year was 2010. While meandering around Denver’s Cherry Creek District I stumbled upon a bookstore at the cross-section of 2nd and Fillmore.
“The Hermitage Antiquarian Bookstore,” the sign read.
Being the voracious reader I am, my first thought was to mosey on in and check the place out. But there was something about the word “antiquarian” that felt unappealing.
My mind conjured up a mental picture of a rustic space filled with stacks of musty smelling books that had seen better times. So I decided to pass.
This became a frequent routine -- pass by the bookstore and never stop in. But one day, I decided to trot down a set of stairs to the store entrance telling myself, “I’ll just take a peek.” When I opened the squeaky door, it was then that I realized that my prevailing thoughts had been off the mark.
The place to my amazement was a hidden treasure of books, all neatly adorned on the most beautiful array of wooden shelves. I was hooked and have returned many times since.
Established in 1973, the store’s primary specialization is rare books -- some of which are valued in the thousands of dollars. But as the store owner Bob Topp is quick to point out, “we have books for everyone and every sort of reading interest.”
Let’s in fact talk about Bob who is the subject of this feature article. For an intellectual like me, I find him damn interesting. Erudite and obviously well-read, he is the ultimate conversationalist.
He loves talking about his community of clients worldwide who flock to the Hermitage online portal in search of rare books. Ask him about his favorite pastime though and with a beam in his eye, he’ll begin telling you about his weekly visits to local Denver area schools to read to groups of kids.
Personally, my fondest memories about The Hermitage are the summer and fall sidewalk sales where scores of discounted nooks are placed outside for reading fanatics like me to froth over. And there is nothing like the sight of a family with kids in tow, navigating a red wagon around the book tables to gather their haul.
My Latest Chat With Bob, At A Distance
It was 8:30 in the morning and I just arrived to interview Bob at his bookstore for this feature article. In making my way down the stairs to the entrance, I noticed that the inside of the store was dimly lit. Admittedly for a second, I thought Bob may have forgotten our appointment. So I knocked hesitantly on the door.
Seconds later heard Bob’s voice:
Come on in, Michael
Upon proceeding in, there was Bob to greet me. It was an awkward moment as both of us were cognizant of the fact that standard handshake greetings were off-limits during the COVID health crisis.
I could see Bob’s signature twinkle in his eye though behind the mask he was wearing. Always one to get right down to business, he proceeded to ask me how we were going to do this interview while maintaining social distancing.
“Not a problem Bob,” I retorted. “Let’s just set up some chairs here in the foyer. You sit there and I’ll sit feet across from ya.”
So we proceeded to arrange our own makeshift recording studio, replete with a chair for my iPad to set on and capture the conversation.
Using my Rev Recorder app, I hit the record button and proceeded with asking my first question.
First of all, can you share a little bit of historical context about the store?
With no hesitation Bob launches into this beautiful soliloquy that is both poetic and detailed at the same time:
“We’ve been in business for 47 years. Opened in May of 1973 on 15th street in downtown Denver. The bookshop was originally called “All Books,” which was operated by an older gentleman by the name of David Waller. It was a cool two-story story building with mahogany ladders that ran back and forth across the walls. One day he indicated that the store was for sale so a fellow employee and myself decided to buy it.”
Topp says that he and his business partner ran it together for about a year and a half before the latter decided to move on to other things. That’s where the story picks up.
“So I moved the store up to Colfax and Grant in Denver and bought a second small used bookshop and started to grow from there. I then started getting rid of the lesser materials and began buying better materials. In 1980 I moved over to the Cherry Creek District here in Denver. In 1990 I moved one block down from that location and doubled my space. We’ve been in this spot ever since.
Bob says that the Cherry Creek community has been a nice place to be all of these years with other like-minded merchants seeking to do business with the local customer base. He was quick to note though that his customer base was not in any way restricted to Cherry Creek.
Our local customers come all the way from Wheat Ridge to Littleton, and from Boulder all the way down to Colorado Springs. We also have a big online presence which attracts customers both nationally and internationally. On an average day, we probably send 10-15 books out of state with maybe two of those international. So it’s really a nice position to be in.
Asked about the decision to mint the word “Antiquarian” in the name of the bookstore years ago, Bob just shakes his head in remorse.
“People do indeed have a perception when they see that word. It conjures up the notion of rare books that are stuffy and old. It has plagued my industry for years.”
He says that people who have never visited the store perceive that the books are going to be old, arcane, and of no interest to them along with being extremely expensive and unaffordable.
Laments Topp:
“I’ve been to so many parties where someone has come up to me and said, “oh, we have always wanted to come to visit your bookstore but we can’t afford it.”
The misperceptions, he says, around stores like his being filled with dusty, arcane, beat up, and expensive books simply aren’t true.
“Ultimately, I think we’re just a great bookstore. Our selection which ranges from older books to those published in 2020 are all in excellent condition.”
He estimates that approximately 15% of his inventory is considered collectible, meaning that the price of the book can range from as little as $30.00 into the thousands. 85% of his stock, he notes are good used books in excellent condition.
In terms of the advantage of a shop like his over a bookstore focusing on exclusively newer books, Topp offers this:
“A new bookshop is limited to what’s in print and what they can order from the publisher. We have no limitations. We can buy books from anywhere. So even if it’s a classic piece of scholarship on the Civil War that’s now out of print, you could potentially find it here.”
Bob then offered a wry grin when I inquired about how the store reflects his own personal values and idiosyncrasies.
“In my industry, whether it’s a new bookstore or a used one, they all have a certain personality, one that often reflects the owner’s taste. This may be reflected in how they display books in their store. Or in how they assess the condition of a book.”
He says that his tendency has always been to maintain a smaller store with a very focused inventory of only the best material.
“We tend to focus a lot on the best historians, the best literary figures…” And it has always been important to me to be a bookseller and not an administrator.”
Continues Topp:
“I love my customers, that’s what I enjoy the most. I have no interest in being a boss. I hire people who are self-motivated, which is how I like to run it. We’ve avoided adding t-shirts, bags, gift cards, and all that kinda stuff. We’re pure books here. That’s what I like.
A Bookstore and Surviving The Pandemic
Throughout the interview, I couldn’t help but think about the fact that we’re in the middle of a pandemic, one that could change the trajectory of our lives forever.
There Bob and I sat chatting while adorning our masks, doing our part to prevent the spread. There were times he had trouble hearing me and I had to repeat the question. I found myself paranoid that his muffled responses might not get picked up clearly by my recording app. There were times when I awkwardly reached across to push the recorder toward him all the while trying to make sure that I was maintaining an acceptable distance.
Curious, I asked Bob what his first reaction was as a business owner when the reality of COVID began to hit home. He offers this:
“Well, like many people, I felt it didn’t apply to me. I’ve been in business for 47 years and we’ve never been closed for any significant period of time. But we did end up shutting down early on with the Governor’s stay at home order request.”
He recalls how very peculiar it was to not go into work, sad that he wasn’t going to be seeing his regular customers. “How odd,” he thought that they couldn’t just come in and buy books every day.
“Michael, as time went on and the reality began to sink in, I began to ponder more and more about what is the future of books might look like,” he recounts. I even started asking myself, is this going to mean permanent closure?”
Bob credits the strong online presence and sales of the Hermitage with keeping the store alive during this unsettling time.
“Our online sales actually went up, almost doubled. And so I was able to keep all three of my employees at full salary. Their job was to come in on their assigned day by themselves and fulfill online orders. Because they were there working alone with no in-store customers, there were no social distancing concerns”
He says that the PPE business loan they received along with the fact that they were already coming off a very strong Christmas season were additional factors in keeping his bookstore alive.
“Between the loan and the online orders, I was just hoping I would be able to pay nearly all of my employee’s salaries. But as luck would have it, we ended up doing better than that. When we reopened, while we’d certainly lost a little ground, we weren’t facing a disaster like scores of other businesses. Having 47 years of customers built up was a blessing in disguise.”
Bob remembers the day well when his store reopened. The thought caused him to break out into a big smile, or at least what I perceived to be one behind his snuggly fitted mask.
“Customers arrived anxious to feed their book fix again. And our business I have to say picked up right where it left off. Outside of some financial downturn during that period, it became obvious to me that we were not going to be a victim of anything. I hate though to think of how many other small businesses haven’t been as fortunate.”
Independent Booksellers Entering Into a New Chapter
Bob and I had a slight pause in our discussion when the store phone rang. It was now 9:15 am so I wanted to be sure to wrap things up so that he has plenty of time to open the store on time.
Without missing a beat Bob sat back down and while repositioning himself in his chair offered some views on what he sees on the horizon for the world of books.
“I’m constantly hearing folks bemoan the end of books, professing that no one reads anymore. Honestly, I just don’t see that. Our fastest-growing demographic as a store, in fact, are young people under 30. And they’re not just coming in and purchasing books by, say, a Stephen King. They’re buying from every section in the store — Ancient history. Architecture. Philosophy. Literature, Travel. Personally I see this as very encouraging.”
He believes that the negative attitude about the decline in reading is a myth. Then there’s the whole conversation around e-books
“In the beginning when e-books came out, some felt that this signaled the end of print books and that everyone would be turning exclusively to digital formats. That simply hasn’t happened. If anything, we’ve hit kind of a nice balance.”
Bob notes that a lot of people take ebooks on trips because that’s the easiest way to read. He gets that. But, he says as soon as they arrive home they’ll often come by to get a hardback copy so they can have it on their shelf.
“One of the things I think people failed to realize when they began flocking to ebooks is they forget how much they enjoyed having a library at home. That it is a big part of one’s living environment, especially if you have kids and want to raise them to be readers. So I think that when people realized that, a shift back from ebooks started to occur.”
In terms of whether the Amazon revolution which promotes digital Kindle readers has had any effect on sales at his bookstore, Bob offered this:
“I would say that there is no difference in my business now than prior to ebooks. There might have been a little dip in walk-ins when it first commenced but we made peace with that reality while continuing to sell a lot of books.”
Bob continued along that same stream of thought by offering a slightly different angle to the question.
“In my view, the biggest problem facing bookstores is not the culture of the public, it’s the culture of landlords. Rents and taxes are going up all the time. And even though I’ve always had a very positive view of the book world, let me say this -- bookstores are not and never will be a highly profitable business.”
I then proceeded to ask Bob about this new world of COVID and its potential impact on independent bookstores around the world. He paused for a moment before crossing his arms and quietly offering his assessment of the landscape ahead.
“First of all, there are so many opinions these days about COVID. You hear some people proclaim that it's here to stay and that we’ll never get out of this phase. Others are confident that this too shall pass, particularly with the prospect of a new vaccine being developed. Personally I’m somewhere in the middle.”
“But back to your question regarding its impact on bookstores, the reality is that people still love to come in and handle books. So I think there’s a certain segment of society that will change while others probably will be stable and even enhanced by it. But at the end of the day I believe that the more people stay at home with work, maybe homeschooling and the like, the more they’ll really want to get out and grab a new book.”
With respect to the impact of COVID on reading habits, Bob this fascinating tidbit:
“I think in a lot of cases reading went up. That’s likely why we saw our online business here at the store go up. Many of my colleagues literally from here to England reported that their online sales went up. The everyday person obviously couldn’t go to movies, so I’m assuming Netflix went up. And I’m assuming things like Amazon Prime went up. And books went up.”
Bob says that the stay-at-home orders in many parts of our world might have been an inducement for people to read given that they couldn’t do things like going out to dinner or attending a ballgame.
“All of this is conjecture of course, but I believe it’s real.”
Once the stay at home order was lifted, says Bob, people were anxious to get out, not only to get their “book” fix but to get their “bookstore” fix.
“Many commented that they missed the activity of coming into a physical bookstore to browse the sections and see what’s new.”
Unlike a lot of other stores in the industry, the Hermitage according to Bob has always had a reputation for having the type of fresh new material that brings people in more regularly.
“There are people I know who purchase lots of books in certain subjects that wouldn’t miss a week in coming in. They always want to make sure they’re not missing anything.”
He says that people are so emotionally attached to books that he thinks it’s one of those things that they will always want to go out for.
“For folks working from home, that could mean that we’ll find many of them anxious to get out for a break. Who knows, there could be a positive somewhere in there.”
Reading Into Race and Politics
It’s now 9:30 am and Bob and I are now entering the home stretch of our conversation. So we saved some of the more controversial conversation topics for last.
With that, I gently enquired of Bob about what sorts of conversations he’s hearing these days from his customers or otherwise about the racial justice protests as well as the upcoming political election. And as normal, he thoughtfully offered a few views:
“For starters, I would say that most of the people I’ve encountered of late are supportive of Black Lives Matter. We have no doubt seen an increase in calls for books on contemporary black lives in history. All of this was wonderful to see. People seem to be wanting more books on the history of how we got here, something that we kind of specialize in as a store.”
Bob cautions however that he and his staff try to avoid discussions around race and politics, not wanting to disrupt the otherwise pleasant experience of being in a bookstore.
One topic, however, that Bob is willing to be totally transparent about is his work with the Denver Schools reading to kids.
“I read to my kids a lot when they were young. In fact it was a regular occurrence with them until their mid-teens.”
When his older son was in second grade, Bob says that he had been in the middle of reading a series of American biographies for kids, one of which was on Davy Crockett.
“They had been doing a unit in school on frontier America. So I said, hey, you just read this really great book so maybe I could come read a few chapters to the kids at your school. The teacher loved the idea so I came in and read a few chapters. That eventually grew into reading to this class every week. And then when my second son went to the same school I started reading to his class every week.”
After his kids graduated a few of the teachers asked Bob if I would like to continue. His response:
“Sure, I love reading to kids. So now for 27 years I have been reading aloud in the public schools, exclusively at Burgin Elementary where my kids went to school. And that has grown to 13 classes 1st through 5th grade. I only read to any one given class once a week.”
He says that he didn’t have the continuity to do chapter books. So he started specializing in short stories.
“I have now read over 10,000 short stories.”
Then COVID hit. Bob shared with me the pivot he had to make amid the stay-at-home orders.
“Before COVID, I had already begun recording these reading sessions and had gotten more and more proficient in using the recording equipment and programs to create a pretty professional sounding story. So that’s what led to the podcast stories. I have probably put out almost twenty stories in podcast form and every 2-3 weeks I try to add a new story.”
Bob then grew silent for a moment before proceeding to share something that was deeply moving:
“Given that the podcast is a labor of love for me, I have experienced a real sense of sadness at being disconnected from the children. Even though the teachers used my recordings and still had what they call “Mr. Topp '' day, I personally found being away very challenging. I didn’t like that I couldn’t say goodby to say a kid at the end of the year. That was especially true for me with the 5th graders that I had been reading to for five years. And I can only imagine that those same sorts of feelings of isolation have been amplified multiple times over for the teachers. Personally, I’m hoping that this fall the pandemic will be far enough along that we can get back in the classroom safely. That of course is a total unknown at the moment but I certainly hope so. I want to be able to read again to the kids.”
A Final Thought From Michael
If you live in Denver or frequent the city on occasion, be sure to stop by The Hermitage Antiquarian Bookshop and say hello to Bob.
So I just wanted to share this. One of the great touches that Bob and his trope of booksellers deliver to customers is a free service where they individually wrap each book you purchased in the store, adorned with a cool Hermitage Bookstore label.
Here’s a picture of my most recent purchase from his store.
