Bent Pages

A little more than two decades ago, because they both have a lifelong love of reading, Molly Bolden and Kay Levine decided to open a bookstore in Houma, Louisiana. In hindsight, it was a terrible time for them to make that sort of business decision.

Chain booksellers were dominating the market at the end of the twentieth century. Barnes & Noble had more than 480 stores across the United States, Borders had 250 stores, Books-A-Million had 150, and Hastings had 130. While the box stores thrived, a new Seattle-based company called Amazon was introducing people to something called Internet shopping.

Meanwhile, locally-owned, brick-and-mortar bookstores, with their small staffs and tight inventories, were struggling to compete. The number of independent bookstores in the United States dropped more than 40 percent between 1995 and 2000, according to the American Booksellers Association.

Despite that ominous horizon, Bolden, a homemaker originally from Florida, and Levine, a critical care nurse originally from Indiana, moved forward with their plan to open a bookstore. They found an abandoned old building Bethlehem Steel had built in the 1920s, not far from downtown Houma, and filled it with 50,000 or so different titles. Coming up with a name was easy—Bolden had carried a potential bookstore moniker with her for years: “Bent Pages.”

[If all the reading builds up your appetite, swing by ABear's]

The doors opened for the first time on Halloween 1997. When Books-A-Million opened a Houma location the following year, Levine and Bolden took notice, but what can you do?

Twenty years later, Bent Pages is still in business—the only independent bookstore in Terrebonne Parish. It helps that Bolden and Levine are the store’s only employees, meaning one or both of them are behind the desk every time the store opens. They can come across as cranky or blunt, but this is only a veneer. Both are knowledgeable readers ready to assist shoppers. “I’ve been doing this for thirty years,” said Bolden, who worked at a long-gone Houma bookstore prior to opening Bent Pages.

“If a customer comes in and they’re having difficulty picking out new authors or books they haven’t read already, we can help find the best book for them,” Levine told the Houma Courier in December 2016.

Another key to Bent Pages’ success is its eclectic inventory. The bookstore does not specialize in any specific genre or topic. Instead, it carries them all: historical fiction, westerns, classics, thrillers, romance, science fiction, cookbooks, contemporary novels, children’s books, and just about everything else. In all, there are more than two million different titles.

Roughly ninety percent of the inventory consists of used books, which means you never know what you might find. The new titles Bent Pages carry often have a local angle—if a book involves south Louisiana, there is a good chance it’ll be on the store’s shelves.

The store also offers trade-in credit on used books which customers routinely take advantage of; it is not uncommon for someone to bring in more than one hundred books at a time. Bent Pages welcomes them all. Bolden said they have some customers sitting on more than $1,000 worth of credit.

...the root of Bent Pages’ charm is the sense of the unknown that descends on visitors each time they walk through the door.

At first glance, the amount of books in Bent Pages can overwhelm. They are spread everywhere across the store’s 5,000 square feet: piled on tables, stacked in boxes, across crowded shelves, and up and down aisles hardly wide enough for two people to pass down. While it appears that there is no rhyme or reason, Bolden and Levine can tell you every title they have and where each book is located thanks to meticulous computer records. All you have to know is the title or author. And sometimes, you don’t even have to tell them that.

Bolden likes to tell the story about the time a lady came into Bent Pages wanting a specific book but could not recall the title or author. The only clue she offered was the scene depicted on the book’s cover—a woman in a red dress against a green background. Bolden thought about the possibilities and said, “Flame of New Orleans,” and the woman left with a copy of the book she came wanting.

[Once you've stocked up on reading material, consider going on one of these Literary Pilgrimages in the South]

The owners may be well informed. The inventory may be expansive. And the books may be cheap. But the root of Bent Pages’ charm is the sense of the unknown that descends on visitors each time they walk through the door.

Anyone who spends time in bookstores knows this allure … you’re browsing up and down aisles, a few things catching your eye but nothing worth reaching for, when you notice something nearby, step closer to check a faded spine, and make a discovery you never could have expected.

If you find yourself in Houma and are interested in visiting Bent Pages, you should be aware that the bookstore can be a little hard to find.

It is located on Barrow Street, along a stretch of road otherwise occupied by bars, come-as-you-are restaurants and places that repair engines, and there is no street sign out front. (Hurricanes have knocked them all down.) Just look for a faded green, barn-like metal building with a gravel parking lot and know that when you find it—1422 Barrow Street is the address—and finally walk through the front door, literally millions of different titles are waiting to be discovered.

For book lovers, it is love at first sight.

bentpagesbookstore.com

This article originally appeared in our June 2018 issue. Subscribe to our print magazine today.