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Shakespeare & Co. bookstore up for sale By Sean Wolfe Ashland Daily Tidings Local bookstore Shakespeare & Co. is on the auction block. Its name and collection of some 20,000 volumes are up for sale. And the price tag is reasonable - about $30,000. But buyers for the shop are thin on the ground, and unless someone steps in, the shop is slated to shutter permanently in the next few months. The owner, Jean Chase, along with her husband Gene have been stewards of this bookshop for the past four years. The bookshop itself has existed under one name or another since the late 1980s. Prior to that, it had been the former headquarters of the Ashland Daily Tidings. But in a city with five other used bookstores - including Book Exchange, Bookwagon, Blue Dragon, and Prospero's Fine Books - competition has been stiff. But according to the Chases, health concerns are forcing their hand, not a lack of customers. "I wish someone would buy it. We need to sell by August, so we're hoping maybe something good will turn up. We really can't wait any longer for (Gene)," Jean Chase said. Gene Chase said there have some nibbles on purchasing the store, but no one has signed the dotted line as yet. Chase maintains that's because used bookstores aren't exactly a growth market. "Ashland has too many bookstores, but that's just my opinion. Reading books isn't growing, except perhaps about one percent a year, if it's even that. I don't want to seem mean, but we certainly have enough," Chase said. Chase also cited the store's alley location - adjacent to Ashland's Varsity Theater � as a potential issue for any future owner. "The foot traffic is not what it would be out on the street. On the other hand, the rent is half of what it would be on the street," Chase said. At $1,300 a month for 2,600 square feet, the bookstore is a potential bargain for any business that could survive in an alley location. World travelers know that in just about every charismatic city, one can find an independent bookshop called Shakespeare & Co. The Latin Quarter in Paris has one, just across the river from Notre Dame. That store was first opened by Sylvia Beach in 1951, drawing in a generation of authors. Ernest Hemingway, for one, liked to boast that he was its best customer. Manhattan boasts five such shops - each one an epicenter for literary explorers. Berkeley has one as well. It should be noted, that unlike Barnes & Noble, Borders, Walden Books, and other franchises for the printed word, none of these stores are affiliated. Each is independently owned and managed. According to Chase, former owner Les Jensen purchased what was then billed as Back Alley Books in 1990, when the store first assumed the Shakespeare & Co. name. The store was first started in the late 1980s by Dick Moore. Currently the store is offering all of its books at half price, and that factor, combined with the kick off of Ashland's tourist season, has brought in more book buyers than the store usually sees. "I don't think there are as many tourists this year, and the foot-traffic I see on the street is down, but the last 10 days or so, it's really been up. For us, it's gangbusters now. But then, everybody likes half-off," Chase said. "I decided to do the 50 percent off-thing, rather than play games and screw around with starting the discounts at 20 percent, and then dropping them later. People ask when we're going to go down even more, and I say, we're not. We'll give the books to charity before we do that." Whether Ashland is destined to lose one of its storied bookstores permanently is unknown. But for the Chases, the thrill of the printed word continues to be a time-tested pleasure. "The best part of the job was that it was something to do in early retirement. The other thing is that you have all these books to choose from. I got on a French Revolution kick, and read six or seven until they all started to sound the same. But I was able to feed that appetite," Chase said. LINKS: DAILY TIDINGS: Main | News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Opinion | Columnists | AP News | Subscribe | Archives | Weather | Classifieds | Contact Us | Privacy REVELS: Main | Calendar | Dining | Movies | T.V. OTHER: Road Cams Copyright 2003 Ashland Daily Tidings 541.482.3456. 1661 Siskiyou Blvd., Ashland, OR 97520. Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. - Advertisers -