Annie's Bookstop in Sharon a Serious Case of Serendipity

Merry Cutler said she never really thought about buying a bookstore, but then one day it just kind of happened.

“We bought this store in 1989,” she said. “It was a failing proposition at the time. The lady who owned it had an MBA and thought all you had to do was hire a dozen high school kids and collect money, and it just doesn’t work that way.”

Cutler said one of those high school kids happened to be her daughter, who is now the director of the Plainville Library.

“One time, she was really sick and had pneumonia,” she said. “We couldn’t get a hold of the owner, so we came over here and she taught me how to run the register and her dad took her to the emergency room. The owner showed up and said this place is for sale. Nine months later here we are.”

Cutler said she was doing temp work before they bought the book store because she wanted to be around for kids as much as possible.

Cutler said the most important thing for a local bookstore to maintain is a good personal presence.

“You have to have someone here who knows books,” she said. “I have people come in and say, "oh good you’re here, I’ve just read all this author’s books now what do I read?" I go out and pick more books for them.”

Cutler said she and her son, Paul, pretty much know enough to get anyone properly situated in their favorite genres.

She added they often order books for people, and a lot of times they end she said she has ordered their entire body of work.

“It’s gratifying to help people to expand their horizons,” she said. “Sometimes I can’t help, mostly because the book has been out of print for 20 years. Nowadays with the Internet, I have a better change of finding something though.”

Sometimes though, the online dealers can be a bit excessive. Cutler said at one time a customer came in and asked for a book in a particular series of a children’s genre and the online dealer wanted $500 for it.

“I said that can’t be right,” she said. “There are a couple of online dealers who think everything they put online is worth $500 or more. My favorite story is someone wanted a nursing textbook and someone was advertising it for $1 million. One of my customers said for that price, it had better come with a whole nurse!”

Cutler said they have also expanded into the online market by posting and selling rare editions and books.

Cutler said recently she’s been able to get in textbooks and summer reading lists for the students of the area, but she said at one point it was really difficult to not only get the reading list, but also the books.

“I work with the school and I try to carry the reading list for the local teachers,” she said. “Every teacher I meet I ask if they would give me the schools’ list before it’s published and I’ll let you know what’s available. One time the national warehouse had three copies of a reading list book. Do you know how many kids are in a particular grade?”

She added once she went directly to the administrators and asked them for the list.

“They debated for 40 minutes on whether or not I should be allowed to see the list,” she said. “Now I have the schools send me their lists in the mail which is nice. I also troll the as well to see if they load the lists.”

Annie’s Book Stop in Sharon is located at 362 South Main St. and is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day but Sunday.