As the folks over at the Wyoming Arts blog recently noted, a few weeks ago Publisher’s Weekly featured Torrie Rice’s Wheatland Mercantile Book Nook in Claire Kirch’s article, ”Wild West Bookseller.” Kirch writes:
“According to Rice—a self-professed ‘bookaholic’—Wheatland, a primarily agricultural community adjacent to a desolate stretch of I-25, halfway between Cheyenne and Casper, had always lacked a bookstore. The local library ‘didn’t have much,’ either, for the town’s 3,500 residents.”
So in 2003, Rice started a bookstore, but that’s not all she sells:
“This being Wyoming, where a Wild West mentality still thrives, Rice sells the 4,000 titles in her inventory alongside products made and sold by her husband, Jef Rice: custom-built handguns and rifles.
At the store’s website they have a link to an author’s website. Notice that the author’s website has a certain theme to it. What do you see on every book cover?
Guns and Books
Wasn’t this in an episode of ‘King of the Hill’?
I think….
I think it was a convenience store named Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
I agree it should be a department store and not a government agency.
Oh boy…
Another 1911 gunsmith. How exciting. I only wish my sarcasm was obvious in print.
Combination bookstore and gunshop
The first bookstore I ever visited was the S&D Bookstore, a combination used bookstore and gunshop located near the edge of campus of (then) Indiana State College in Indiana, Pennsylvania. That was in 1962. The bookseller was a Mr. Duerr (or some spelling close to that). Adjacent to the shelves of used paperback and hardcover books were war surplus rifles, barrels of bullets, and army helmets, bazookas, and dummy aerial bombs more commonly seen in military surplus stores. The owner told me that the helmets, bombs, and bazookas didn’t sell very often. They came as part of package deals with the bullets and rifles which did move. As time went on, the store was often closed so that the proprietor could attend gun shows. It was at the S&D Bookstore that I acquired a serious used book buying habit. However, I have never purchased any guns or ammo or helmets other than bicycle helmets. The S&D Bookstore was gone when I last visited Indiana, more than ten years ago.
author’s website
I visited the author’s website as per your suggestion and noticed the ‘common theme’ in each of his books. I don’t understand why he doesn’t list his own store as a place to buy his titles; he posts links to B&N and Amazon.
works for me
Pretty cool. There’s a gun store in Houston, Texas that has a sizable selection of books for sale, mostly military history books and firearms topics. Lots of antique as well as modern guns. I used to go there on my lunch breaks to thumb through the books, lift up assorted rifles (usually milsurp weapons…M-1 Garand, AK variants, SKSes, AR-15s, etc.) out of the racks and point them at the ceiling or the taxidermy samples high up on the walls. I never told my co-workers I went there, lest they think I was some kind of nut. They had old uniforms, helmets, swords, etc, on display as well. I miss the place…don’t know of any place like that anywhere near where I live now.