Virtually all of the shelves at two Tampa Bay area bookstores are lined with titles by African-Americans about African-Americans.
By MARCUS FRANKLIN
Published June 28, 2004
[Times photo: Bill Serne]
At Reader's Choice Books & Gift Expressions in St. Petersburg, owner Tangela Murph reshelves books while Mary Nelson works the front counter. Murph's store and Books for Thought in Tampa are thought to be the only two of their kind in the immediate Tampa Bay area.
The intense buzz last week around former President Bill Clinton's book release eclipsed one noteworthy fact: He selected a single-floor Harlem bookstore owned by four African-American women to help kick off the release of My Life, his highly awaited autobiography.
But Clara Villarosa, one of Hue-Man Bookstore's owners, said she knew the significance right away: "This is a very special opportunity for an African-American specialty bookstore," she said in a telephone interview before thousands swarmed the store. "The launch has put us on the map."
Far from the intensity of New York, and lacking the celebrity draw of a president-turned-author, are bookstore owners who otherwise are much like Villarosa and her partners.
Felecia Wintons and Tangela Murph are two Tampa Bay area women who saw a niche and left corporate jobs to try to fill it. The women opened separate bookstores where, as Wintons' business cards put it: "Every month is black history month."
Wintons, owner of Books for Thought in Tampa, and Murph, owner of Reader's Choice Books & Gift Expressions in St. Petersburg, created spaces where virtually all of the bookshelves are lined with titles by African-Americans about African-Americans. The women say they think the specialty stores are the only two of their kind in the immediate Tampa Bay area.
The two booksellers offer space on the shelf for not only luminaries like Toni Morrison but also lesser-known writers such as Tampa resident Anthony Brinkley and the late J.A. Rogers of St. Petersburg.
There's thought-provoking nonfiction, or "lost information," as Murph put it. Then there are signings for up-and-coming and established authors; ebony-hued figurines, artwork and greeting cards; the popular and hilarious videotapes featuring the work of actor-playwright Tyler Perry; and an extensive knowledge of their stock not likely offered at a big chain.
"It's about more than buying a book," Wintons said.
In July 1992, after wrapping up their Delta Sigma Theta convention in Baltimore, Wintons and some of her sorority sisters drove to Washington, D.C., to visit friends. In addition to the White House and the Delta house, they visited a few black-owned bookstores.
She discovered Octavia Butler, the popular African-American science-fiction writer. Wintons, who often read white romance novels "after a long hard day's work" as a financial analyst, also came upon romance novels with black characters.
"You had African-American romance novelists, but their characters were white," Wintons said. "These books had black characters. That was so fascinating to me. I said people have to know that these characters exist."
Five months later, Wintons, tired of buying books that interested her during trips away from Tampa, opened Books for Thought. The store, nestled between a coin laundry and a Cuban restaurant, devotes an entire bookcase to black romance novels.
Other genres are equally popular and drawing new readers, Wintons and Murph said.
Fiction infused with religion or spirituality began to explode in the past two to three years, Wintons said. "It's probably the fastest growing reading audience," she said. "They're regular stories. They're just centered around people who believe strongly in God."
Another area, one that book review magazine Black Issues describes as "ghetto fiction," is extremely popular, Wintons said. Among the genre's pioneers is Donald Goines, who during the 1970s wrote more than a dozen novels about the underworld of corrupt police, pimps, prostitutes and drug dealers and users. The books attract readers from all walks of life.
"People who have never been book readers are now avid readers because they love the crime-slash-gangster stories," said Wintons, who was featured in O, The Oprah Magazine. "It's created a whole new readership."
While Goines' work in recent years has experienced a resurgence, the gritty stories by newer, younger authors sit alongside his on the shelves: self-published authors like Teri Woods and Carl Weber, and Sister Souljah with Simon & Schuster.
"I'm not advocating this kind of street fiction," said Murph, who writes book reviews for the Weekly Challenger. "However, the books are a vehicle to get them to get a book in their hands. Then maybe I can introduce them to (books by) bell hooks or (Dr.) Ben Carson."
For more serious readers, the stores offer nonfiction not readily found at large chains. Among the popular titles: The Isis Papers: The Keys to the Colors by psychiatrist Frances Cress Welsing, sales of which surged briefly after the John Singleton movie Baby Boy; and The Iceman Inheritance: Prehistoric Sources of Western Man's Racism, Sexism and Aggression by Michael Bradley and John Henrik Clarke.
Nonfiction usually is what prisoners who write to Murph and Wintons request.
Prisoners include money orders with their book lists for their purchases or relatives come in to pay for them, the owners said.
"They're very well-informed as to what's out there," said Murph, who left a job compiling data on TV viewing habits to open her store in 2000.
Nonfiction is also what draws Ken Myers to Books For Thought. Myers, 38, stumbled onto the store the year it opened while visiting his wife at her old job at a nearby hair salon. Never, said the Hillsborough County teacher, had he stepped inside a bookstore in Tampa, his native city, with so many appealing offerings.
"I feel very comfortable when I come here," said the married father of two, who bought a copy of From "Superman" to Man by J.A. Rogers, the late St. Petersburg resident. "The difference between here and Borders is when I come in here, I know I'm going to find something I like. I'm not going to have to search the store. And to be straight up with you, she's an African-American woman, so I want to make sure she gets my business. This is always my first choice."
In recent years, large chains have increased books by or about black Americans, but stock and placement varies. At Barnes & Noble near Tyrone Square Mall, for example, nonfiction by African-American writers is stocked separately on roughly two bookcases while African-American fiction writers are sprinkled throughout general fiction.
Carolyn Brown, a spokeswoman for Barnes & Noble Booksellers, said the chain probably carries most of the books sold at Books for Thought and Reader's Choice, or could special order them. Readers also buy them on the Internet.
"It's been a 180-degree turn," Bentley Morriss, CEO of Holloway House, said of big chains stocking authors of his small Los Angeles publishing company, which includes Goines. "It was minimal, and it's just completely turned around in the last decade." A surge in interest spurred in part by rock and rap prompted the change.
You won't find Tampa resident Anthony Brinkley's new autobiography anywhere in Barnes & Noble or Borders. Brinkley, a 38-year-old who's been in the Air Force for 20 years, is a minister. This month he self-published You Can't Run Away From You: A Young Man's Journey to Himself.
Wintons carries it on a high shelf near the entrance.
"I'd rather sell out of here than Barnes & Noble because this is where my people are," said Brinkley, who is stationed at MacDill. "It's more of an honor to be here than in Barnes & Noble."
Not every book at Books for Thought and Reader's Choice is by an African-American writer nor about black experiences.
For instance, the Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? by Rick Warren, a white author, is a big seller at both stores. Another is Rich Dad, Poor Dad, about personal finance. And, of course, there are Oprah's Book Club selections.
Murph recently featured Clinton's new memoir in her regular advertisement. It has been selling briskly. Customers have been calling Wintons' store asking about it too.
"Just because I'm a specialty store doesn't mean my customers only read books written by African-American authors," said Wintons, who also sells textbooks for courses at her alma mater, the University of South Florida. "He's (Clinton) very popular within the African-American community, and the book has received lots of media attention. Because of that, many African-Americans would like to read his book.
"But my bread and butter are the African-American authors and gift items."
