On a recent Sunday, Lauren Groff got out of bed at three in the morning, shaken by a mixture of anxiety and adrenaline.
It was opening day for The Lynx, Groff’s new bookstore in Gainesville, Florida, and her mind was racing with all the things that could go wrong. So she went to the store, where she was reassured by the presence of about 7,000 books, a collection she had helped curate.
“I like being there by myself, because I’m surrounded by all my friends,” Groff, a best-selling novelist and three-time National Book Award finalist, said of the books.
A few hours later, she was no longer alone: By 10 a.m., about 100 people had lined up outside the store to watch Groff cut the ribbon. More than 3,000 people showed up throughout the day for an array of author readings, folk music, live poetry reading and, of course, to buy books.
Groff and her husband, Clay Kalman, had been toying with the idea of opening a bookstore in Gainesville for more than a decade, but the timing was never right. Groff’s writing career was taking off and they had two young sons. But last year, as book bans increased across Florida, they decided their town needed an independent bookstore to prominently display titles removed from libraries and classrooms.
“This store would probably still be a dream if the book bans hadn’t happened,” said Groff, who has lived in Gainesville since 2006. “I want it for myself. I don’t want to live in a place where we stifle free expression.”
Last fall, they found an old building, a 2,300-square-foot former hair salon, on South Main Street in downtown Gainesville. They turned it into a bookstore and event space, with a cozy reading nook in the children’s book section, a small cafe, and large rolling tables that can be removed on wheels to make room for chairs.
For the front of the building, they commissioned a 60-foot mural of a lynx, wild cat native to Floridasitting like a sphinx next to the shop’s motto: “Watch Us Bite Back”.
“We wanted something a little wild,” Groff said.
Banned titles are prominently displayed at The Lynx. A large display near the front of the store features books that are often contested across the United States — Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” among them. “Beloved” by Toni Morrison. “Tricks” by Helen Hopkins. and “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson.
Groff also hopes to make The Lynx a place where people can meet to discuss targeted books. Upcoming picks for the Banned Book Club include “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe and “Flamer” by Mike Curato.
The store’s mission resonates beyond Florida. Since opening The Lynx, it has received approximately $1000 in donations from across the country. Groff plans to use the funds to distribute free copies of banned titles to Florida residents who would otherwise not have access to them.
“At a time when we in Florida need to speak out against banning books and limiting reading, it’s going to have a real impact,” said Mitchell Kaplan, founder of Books & Books, an independent chain in South Florida. , who shared advice with Groff when she was preparing to open the store.
Groff is the latest author to try her hand at selling books, joining Ann Patchett, Louise Erdrich, Judy Blume, Emma Straub, Jenny Lawson, Leah Johnson, Jeff Kinney and others.
This January, Groff attended the Winter Institute, an annual gathering of independent bookstore owners, where she got advice from more seasoned booksellers like Straub and Patchett. Straub said she encouraged Groff to focus not only on the fun parts of running a bookstore, like sharing books with customers, but also on the practicalities, like learning how to manage the point-of-sale system.
“A lot of us writers don’t spend that much time thinking about that part. We think about the books and the community, all that big-picture stuff, and we don’t necessarily think about the nuts and bolts, the retail of it,” Straub said. “Like, by the way, you need a mop.”
With its focus on banned books and Florida-centric literature, The Lynx could help make Gainesville more of a literary destination — a hub for author readings, book club gatherings and workshops.
For some local writers, The Lynx already feels like an oasis.
“This place is not only very welcome, but necessary,” said Amy Hempel, a fantasy writer who lives in Gainesville and gave a reading on the store’s opening day, as did Florida authors David Leavitt, Rebecca Renner, Cynthia Barnett and Kristen Arnett. .
The Lynx not only provides a gathering point for book lovers, Hempel said, but also offers hope to residents discouraged by book bans happening across the state. More than 5,100 books were banned from Florida schools from July 2021 to December 2023 — the highest number in the country, according to PEN America.
“The signal it sends to a community, to the entire state, to the country, in a really hot, difficult time, is so positive,” Hempel said.
Gainesville isn’t exactly a desert of books. It is home to the University of Florida and has a Books-A-Million and a new Barnes & Noble. But it has lost many of its independent stores. One of his favorite bookstores, Goeringswent out of business in 2010, and another independent, The Florida Bookstore, opened by Kallman’s grandfather in 1933closed in 2016.
“Gainesville has great potential for a literary community, but we needed a bookstore,” said Alyssa Eatherly, a Gainesville resident who stopped by The Lynx on a recent night with her friend, Katie Dreffer, to pick up copies of the selected books. . for the store’s romance book club.
“It’s nice to have something that’s not a big chain,” Dreffer added.
As more and more people filed in, Groff greeted customers enthusiastically and asked if they needed recommendations or help finding a book.
“Can I show you where the children’s section is?” asked a little girl who came in with her mother. “What do you like?”
The girl followed Groff into the children’s area and asked for a book on ancient history.
Groff asked another shopper scanning the display boards if she could find what she was looking for. “If you see positions we need to fill, let me know, I’m on it,” he said.
A big plus of The Lynx for many readers and customers, of course, is Groff — an accomplished writer. She has published two collections of short stories and five novels, including her 2023 novel The Vaster Wilds, about a girl who runs away to the woods from a colonial settlement in the 1600s, and The Matrix, her 2021 novel about nuns in medieval England.
Part of the appeal of independent bookstores is their careful curation and the ability of booksellers to recommend titles based on customers’ interests and moods. who better to help you choose your next book than a bestselling author who is also a voracious and wide reader?
Near the entrance, on a shelf filled with bookseller’s recommendations, Groff placed some of her favorite novels with handwritten notes describing them, describing Shirley Hazzard’s The Transit of Venus as “a work of pure genius” and calling “Autobiography of Red” by Anne Carson “legal brilliant”. (Groff’s husband, Kalman, has only one recommended title on the shelf — Groff’s novel, “The Vaster Wilds,” with a note that says, “It kills.”)
Groff admitted that opening the store and meeting the demands of her own writing career was exhausting. But she’s not particularly worried that selling other people’s books will get in the way of writing her own. He often gets up at 5 a.m. to write and is working on three different books.
“I usually have four to five hours of writing, if I’m not opening a bookstore,” he said.
She plans to be closely involved in store operations, which will be overseen by the three booksellers and two store managers.
“I want to learn how to do everything so that I can intervene if necessary,” he said.
At the grand opening on April 28, Groff was sweaty and frustrated, but buoyed by the enthusiasm of the store’s hundreds of visitors. She stood on an outdoor stage and read from a short story titled “Ghosts and Empties” from her 2018 collection, “Florida.”
During the day, the store sold 1,011 books, including 56 copies of Groff’s, which sold out. The toilet got clogged a few times and some customers gave up because the checkout line was so long, but otherwise, the mood was festive.
“None of us were harmed,” Groff said.