Downtown store Erin Mavis branching out by hosting book pop-up shop, launching book club on July 27
A pop-up bookstore is coming to Cloverdale next week. Erin Mavis is hosting All Things Book in the back paseo of the Silverwood Building on July 27. The store, which usually carries clothing with a splash of accessories and homewares, is branching out to include books.
For the past few weeks, store patrons have been able to purchase a small handful of titles from Erin Mavis, but this pop-up marks a more formal introduction to an increased literary presence.
“I’ve just always been passionate about books, and wanted books to be part of the store,” said Erin Turko, owner of Erin Mavis. “I just wanted to have a space where, if you like the clothes, you’re going to like the books. So then I brought in a few other titles and they’ve been doing well too.”
When Turko co-owned Ethical Clothing in Petaluma, it didn’t make sense to carry books — the store was down the street from Copperfield’s Books. Venturing out on her own has enabled her to accomplish her goal of selling books in the store, while also trying to fill a void in Cloverdale’s downtown, which doesn’t have a formal bookshop.
She began selling some titles a few weeks ago to test the waters. First up was a personal favorite, “Your Second Life Begins When You Realize You Only Have One” by Raphaëlle Giordano.
“It sounds like a self help book, but it’s totally not,” Turko said. “It’s just a sweet little novel that was originally released in France in French. I read it about two years ago and just fell in love with it. It changed my life. I’ve been selling that here like crazy.”
After the success of selling that one book, she added some more to the store’s repertoire. Pretty soon, she wanted to make it a constant in the store.
The pop-up on July 27 will help inform the books that will hold shelf space at Erin Mavis in the coming months. As part of her partnership with All Things Book, a Santa Rosa-based company that works with different businesses to put together pop-up bookshops, Turko will have four to five titles showcased in her store every month.
“What we’re going to do here is not going to be curated in any way,” she said, explaining the one-day pop-up. “It’s going to be all different genres, all different titles, just a little bit of every publisher they work with. They’re going to be set up in the back paseo under tents, and they’ll talk with the customer base that shows up for the pop-up and then they’ll get an idea of what genres people here are interested in.”
From there, some of the interests expressed may work their way into deciding what titles get showcased.
Of the four or five at the store, one will be set aside as the book club pick for the upcoming Erin Mavis Book Club. The club will meet once a month to discuss one of the titles.
Though the club pick will be sold in-store, Turko said that there isn’t any pressure to join.
“There’s no membership, no pressure,” she said. “If you want to say, ‘I want to read the book for the August club,’ then come … at the pop-up we’ll have available the first book club book. The first meeting won’t be until September.”
The first book has yet to be chosen, but will ultimately be decided by Turko.
“I just want to choose in the beginning to get the feel of what we’re doing, but anything that anyone has in mind that they want to do that they think we should be reading, selling, using for the book club, we’re all for it,” Turko said, adding that she wants the club to be community minded.
The pop-up book shop will be held in the back paseo of the Silverwood Building on First Street from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on July 27.
