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BANGOR — With bookshelves piled to the ceiling, and every inch of space filled with stacks both meticulous and haphazard, Lippincott Books seems so firmly entrenched in its Central Street, Bangor location that one can’t imagine how it will close its doors this spring.
The store, which has become a cultural landmark and meeting place for local authors, will remain open through the middle of March and perhaps until April, according to owner Bill Lippincott. On Saturday, Feb. 19, poets, science writers, fiction writers and a guitarist gathered amidst the towering stacks of Lippincott Books to bid farewell to the store.
“It was a sort of bittersweet event. I love being downtown and it has been a great location, especially in the past five years,” Lippincott said, referencing new cultural opportunities and renewed interest in the arts in that area.
Lippincott plans to continue his business from his home in Hampden, dealing by appointment and online. He looks forward to devoting more time and research to the most rare and valuable books he has collected over the years.
“I’ve been running a retail shop for over 25 years and I am ready for a change,” Lippincott said.
The thousands of books housed at Lippincott’s Bangor space, his store stock, are available for sale to collectors or potential future bookstore owners. Lippincott said he is in negotiations with one person, but is still entertaining offers. He hopes to find a buyer with an entrepreneurial spirit.
“I still think there is a place for a brick-and-mortar walk-in book shop,” Lippincott said. “There are people who prefer browsing to buying online.”
One such customer, Bruce Pratt, participated in Saturday’s reading. Pratt teaches creative writing courses at the University of Maine.
“I’m really going to miss [Lippincott Books]. I love the smell of old books,” Pratt said. “I’ve never bought a book from Amazon and I never will.”
Lippincott said that bookstores, unlike online retailers, offer customers the opportunity to discover new titles or authors they may not have been searching for.
“Some of the best things I own I bought here and I didn’t know I would find them,” Pratt said.
The store stock includes a variety of items, from recent fiction to books that are 100 years old. It features a variety of Maine history books and a wide selection from Maine authors and poets.
“That’s what I keep in my shop – books that I find fascinating,” Lippincott said. “They’re valuable as interesting books but not to collectors.”
Kathleen Ellis is a friend of Lippincott, a published poet and UMaine English professor. She helped to organize Saturday’s farewell reading, where she launched her newly released fifth book “Narrow River to the North.”
The reading was organized around the theme of the Penobscot watershed, which Ellis said was fitting, given Lippincott Books’ proximity to the Kenduskeag Stream tributary.
“When I was contacting people to get them to come I heard, ‘I love that bookstore more than any other store in Maine,’” Ellis said, echoing the sentiment with her own nostalgia for the store.
“The poetry community of greater Bangor has lost a treasure in [Lippincott Books]. It feels like a kind of turning point in what downtown Bangor stands for,” she said.
Organizing readings and bringing poets to the Bangor community is a passion for Ellis, who is also organizing the ninth annual poetry reading at Bangor Public Library on April 21 at 4:30 p.m. to celebrate National Poetry Month. She is also a supporter of the English department’s New Writers Series and Maine Writers Series that bring talented writers to UMaine.
“I enjoy bringing the community together and even if many of the same writers come, it’s always new,” Ellis said. “It’s exciting to introduce new writers as well.”
She said that much of Lippincott Books’ value was in its use as a meeting place for writers and artists from the greater Bangor area, adding “[Lippincott] has always been really accommodating to writers who want to read there.”
“He supported us and is always such a welcoming person,” Ellis said, referring to the now-discontinued annual Penobscot Poetry Walk, which always stopped at Lippincott’s store.
Lippincott Books’ closing is part of a larger trend, according to Ellis who blames it on both the economy and a cultural shift.
“We are at a critical time in our society when we must ask, ‘Are we going to be readers anymore or not?’” Ellis said.
Lippincott agreed that bookstores are becoming less common as online book sales grow and the economy struggles, but said he continued to do well in his business over the past five years. Last year was the best year, financially, in the history of his store.
The decline of American bookstores appears to be a real phenomenon. Large bookstore chain Borders has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this year and will close at least 200 of its locations as a result.
Ellis expressed her belief that poetry and other art forms will persist, even as the face of American culture changes.
“Maybe this is part of the evolution of communication in the future, but I think poetry is not doomed because it has always had an oral tradition as well as a written tradition,” Ellis said, adding that poetry readings are still well attended.
“Humans need to express their deepest thoughts and emotional outpourings in some way,” she said.
The closing of Lippincott Books represents a loss of opportunity for readings like the one held on Saturday, especially when one considers that only two other independently owned and operated bookstores remain in Bangor — BookMarcs on Harlow Street and Pro Libris on Third Street.
“I live in Bangor’s downtown and [Lippincott Books] is a first stop for me whenever I need a book or just want to browse,” said Catherine Schmitt, a science writer for the Maine Sea Grant College Program at UMaine.
“It added a level of culture to Bangor that I hope can be filled by a new energy and spirit,” Schmitt said.
