Anastasia Hope's words are iced with sugary defiance. Smiling sweetly behind a desk heaped with used paperbacks and hard-cover books, she doesn't need any provocation to emphasize that she isn't in the business of irony. Within moments of walking into her cozy shop on my journey down 63rd Street, she hits me with a preemptive strike.
"Everybody thinks people in Raytown don't read, that Raytown is full of rednecks," she says.
Reality is quite the opposite.
Anastasia's Books is surviving -- thriving, even.
It doesn't look like much. At 30 miles per hour, the weathered sign could be mistaken for some variety of psychic. A porcelain cat and dead house plants peak out of the front window. The white paint and blue trim on the low slung house are dull. From the outside, it looks like another modest, family residence on a neighborhood stretch.
Inside, it feels like one, too.
Hope and her husband, Michael Tathum, built all the wooden book shelves. The glass-sided antique desk, where a shopper has stacked a small mountain of potential purchases, came from Hope's mother. Off to the side, there's a green leather chair, tossed with blankets. That, Hope says, is "the husband chair" -- where the men can sit while their wives shop. "It was part of my grandfather's estate," Tathum chimes in.
The shop could be considered a senior citizen in this difficult business. Anastasia's Books celebrated its 11th anniversary on July 4th and every year their competitors grow more and more scarce. Hope pulls out a green bookmark that lists a number of used and rare book sellers in the region. Since it was printed, eight of the 19 businesses have gone under. How has Anastasia's stayed afloat?
"Stupidity," Tatham says dryly. "Stubbornness."
Not that Hope and Tathum intended to make money selling dusty paperbacks. It all started because Tathum's interest in historical research had overrun their living space. "All I know is we had an attic full of books," Hope says. Even after they scored a cheap price on the little white house and got into retail, they didn't give up their day jobs. Or, at least, not both of them at the same time. For years, Hope worked as an industrial engineer at Honeywell, while Tathum minded shop. When Hope retired in 2007, Tathum got a part-time position at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art.
"We don't rely on it for our living," Hope says.
But they don't lack for donations. Paperbacks and hardcovers sprout out of Bud Light and Dole banana boxes that bloom from the carpet every few feet. Hope says the store has regular customers who drive in from Lawrence, Kearney and Harrisonville. Former Raytown residents, back to visit family members, make a point to stop by and poke through Hope's treasures. On this drizzly morning, a woman in a gray T-shirt is browsing while Aerosmith's Steven Tyler croons "Dream On" through an aging stereo.
"Add that to my pile," the customers says, handing Hope a pair of paperbacks.
"You know why I like that pile?" Hope responds with a grin. "Because it's putting holes in my shelves!"
Not that Hope doesn't make some holes herself. Right now, she's reading a biography of the Russian royal family. "It came in; it looked interesting," she says with a shrug.
"I'm a book-aholic," she adds with a chuckle, "and there's no 12-step program."
As if for emphasis, she plunges her hand into a Bud Light box, digging through her newest arrivals.
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