Clintonville bookseller offers thought-provoking titles from front lawn with Bookspace – The Columbus Dispatch

Bookseller Charlie Pugsley always has tried to meet people where they are including on his front lawn.

And that's precisely howStewart 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 thought-provoking books in the hands of people who want them.

Rafert, an80-year-oldbook lover, couldnt resiststopping totakea peekat the half dozen tables, along witha few book cases, there were full ofmostly newhardback and softback covers in frontof asmall 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 calledPeople and theLand Through Time byEmily W.B.(Russell) Southgatebut promised to be back later in the day when he had more timeto peruseand chat.

Mission accomplished for Pugsley.

Pugsley, 35, who lives in that apartment building on Indianola,createdBookspace 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 asradical to people looking toeducate 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. Its the way I like to connect with the world with people. Ive alwaysfelt 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 arent expected to buy anything.

After a few years of working in restaurants in Nashville after college, Pugsleycame to the conclusion he wanted to become a bookseller in whatever form that might take.

Not able to open an actual storefrontyet, 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 themto 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.Ive learned along the way, and its evolved the entire time.

He's also set up a few temporarybrick-and-mortar operations, including renting a space that he turned into a bookstore once a week for nine months. He alsospent 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 booksneeded for a specific class.

In 2020, he had his first sale outdoor his apartment building.

My neighbors had ayard sale and were like, Hey, you can sell books, he said. I set up a couple of tablesand it went extremely well way better than at any flea market so Irealized, Ok, this is what were doing.

His twice monthly front-yard sales (when the weather is nice) have been so successful, coupled with his burgeoning online store, that hes been able to put food-service work behind him andfocus full-time on the endeavor the past 18months. Hesold 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, thathis apartmentis in a high-traffic areaon Indianola.

EliasRoussos was in the area looking at a townhouse and happened to drive bya Bookspacesale earlier this month. Heinitiallythought 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 26-year-old from Reynoldsburg said. I wasntlooking for books, just a distraction.

In the end, he walked away with five titles, includingHow Europe Underdeveloped Africa, a 1972 book by Walter Rodney, and two novels from theParable series by Octavia Butler.

The books seem curated to suit my interests, Roussossaid. Usually, when I go to bookstores, its a challenge to find things. Not today.

He laughed as he checked out with Pugsley, commenting hed probably be up late reading the next few nights.

The Parable series, youre going to love it, Pugsleytold 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 uprisingsas peoplehad more time to read and manywerelooking for titlesabout 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.

Bookspacesells both nonfiction and fiction books. Some are by local authors, like Hanif Abdurraqib and Elissa Washuta, and Pugsley said he hopes toincrease the number of Ohio writers in his selection. Hes also working on adding and learning more about poetry and graphic novels.

One table at his sale is reserved for childrens books, a favorite category of his since he has a 4-year-old son.

Even withthe hundreds of titles he has available, Pugsley knows that his stores selection and missionwontresonate with everyone and hes OK with that.He said he simply wants to be a resource for people whomight be looking for something to read thats a bit off the beaten path.

I want to provide information that you would not find if you werent looking for it or open to it, Pugsley said. Thats why I exist to make it more the norm for these kinds of books to be in everyday vernacular.

award@dispatch.com

@AllisonAWard

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Clintonville bookseller offers thought-provoking titles from front lawn with Bookspace - The Columbus Dispatch