Today we’d like to introduce you to Kris Nelson
Hi Kris, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
There has been a bookshop in this location since 1967, and Kris Nelson/me is the third person to own the business as a bookstore. Originally all used books and antiques, called “O.T.E.N.T.O BOOKS”, it evolved to have some discounted new books and used books in the 1980s under the name Joseph Tabler Books. The name changed to Bluestocking Books in 1999, adding a book-search service and bringing in (gasp!) a computer to buy and sell online. Currently the shop carries mostly used books – whatever we can shine up and resell, we do! – and also a small variety of brand new books to keep up with great new authors, science, evolving topics, and the wonderful demand for classics. We love providing a space for families and friends to stroll, chat and shop together, continuing to learn, connecting and reading across the centuries and the worlds’ of humanity’s written experience..
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Selling our books online and at our website means the biggest ongoing challenge is inventorying our books. In the used bookshop biz, you don’t just have twenty copies of the current bestsellers, you have single copy after single copy of one gem title after another. It gets purchased by a happy customer and poof! all that effort to describe it in the book inventory is gone. But it is worth it, because we usually have a pretty good idea of what we have here in the shop; it’s updated daily and for sale all over the planet. Our memories are good, but the computer is even better. In 2001 Kris started coming in early every day to enter ALL of the books into the inventory, describing the backstock while keeping up with used books traded in daily, and the entire store inventory went live in 2005. Our books are listed at our website and also at Biblio.com. We wanted to sell as globally as possible – what we didn’t foresee was how many locals would utilize our listings too! A wonderful bonus for our ongoing efforts. If you see something you like, we recommend you order it asap online -OR- call and have us find it and hold it before you trek over.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
We special order any requested titles – new releases, reprints or old, used collectible editions can be waiting here for pick-up or shipped to wherever you or your loved one may be.
We give a trade-credit (think “book dollars”) towards discounts on future purchases for the lovely used books brought in to us. We pick through and take all we can sell.
We have two ongoing book drives to provide books for great causes. We always carry inexpensive volumes appropriate to donate to either cause:
Our Baby Book Drive is for the established group Reach Out and Read, which hooked us up directly with the local UC San Diego Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, whose doctors hand out books to parents of newborn to 5 year olds selected for special observation because of possible brain development issues. Cuddling while reading literally helps babies learn to speak: this program guides parents and baby in the best direction at a critical time.
Our second ongoing collection is for Books Through Bars via SDSU, and we are filling up boxes with paperback dictionaries to provide to incarcerated people. Reference books are the most requested titles by prisoners, and they will be distributed both locally as well as across the countries to prisoners where books are allowed.
Time travel in our store! There may be something from a time older than you have ever seen, like, say, 1984! (And we staff are chuckling, because we remember 1984)! But the real special moments are when someone sees some really beautiful book from over a century ago, maybe with that patina on gilt stamping and edges, and a sweet gift inscription written in fountain pen, and then they’re just speechless as the human who owned it before reaches them through time. A palpable window into history opens up as the book passes into living hands and an open mind.
We also carry greeting cards and some booky puzzles for friendly interactions.
We have new eyeglasses – basic “cheaters” usually in bright colors.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
Me growing up haha – I laugh because I was always kind of serious and quiet. When I was 18 and wandering north to explore more of the world, lovely hippies would call me an “old soul” and I’ve loved old books and old film and music ever so much. (Think old and scratchy recordings in black and white – Yes!). I am 9 years behind my siblings, so I quietly played unattended through the 1970s and 1980s, digging through a huge bookshelf and discovering the later volumes of classics whose starting volumes were long worn out and gone. I read Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator before I ever knew the story of the Golden Ticket and the Chocolate Factory! I’m the last of four kids, so I worked and had adult responsibilities since I was old enough to contribute…i.e way too young. While attending junior colleges, I landed a job in a used and rare bookshop. I wasn’t doing well in school (even though I always did all the reading!) and I was definitely dazzled by the old books I was being exposed to at my job. I went to a teacher I really liked and asked for his advice, almost two years in with bad grades, going in no clear direction to some degree I felt obligated to get, loving this part-time job, what should I do. I will never forget his words “Maybe you should just say fuck it and try doing this thing you really like doing?” And I did. I decided I would spend four years bookselling as my pals got their four year degrees. That was in 1989, aaand here i am, smiling.
Pricing:
- We price books based on a variety of factors, including but not limited to: author, title, illustrator, publisher, edition. Books can run from $1 to $1000, depending on condition and scarcity – most of our prices are quite reasonable in relation to new books and online options.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.bluestockingbooks.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blusoxsd/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BluestockingBooks/
- Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/blusoxsd.bsky.social
- Threads: blusoxsd
