Sunday, December 31, 2000
Bookstore owner keeping her
books marked
By Bill Whitaker
Reporter-News Staff Writer
Those who love haunting bookstores may want
to pay one final, presumably sentimental visit to Classic Books
on Pine, which owner Jill Bailey will close at the end of the
day Tuesday.
But while the doors may close, Bailey insists
she’ll remain connected with the book business, continuing
to assist patrons in Internet searches for rare and offbeat books
as well as execute assessments of book collections for estates.
Ironically, the Dec. 23 announcement in
the Reporter-News that Classic Books on Pine would close
after almost four years downtown seemed to bring out the book-lovers
that very day — so much so that Bailey regretted not calling
in extra help to run the store.
The bookstore is remarkable in that, besides
mainstream offerings, it has maintained a solid collection of
literary classics, rare books and books by regional authors. The
latter range from the mid-1980s biography of Texas wheeler-dealer
Billie Sol Estes penned by his daughter Pam (and dropped off at
the store by Estes himself) to a 2001 calendar inspired by local
author Glenn Dromgoole’s popular book What Dogs Teach
Us.
Although Bailey says the store did enough
business that she felt it was a success, she has chosen to close
it to further her education in either law or economics. When I
asked if an institution of higher learning was more attractive
than the book business, she laughed.
“It’s not any more attractive,”
she quipped, “but it is more secure.”
Fair enough.
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Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps. Publications
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