Needham has been without a bookstore since 2007, when the Waldenbooks on Great Plain Avenue closed. Now two new independent bookstores are headed for town — and for the same street.
The Book Shop of Needham plans to open in early February at 283 Chestnut St.
Chapters on Chestnut anticipates opening next fall at 7 Chestnut St., at the corner of Great Plain Avenue.
Neither knew about the other until very recently, but now the owners hope their literary ventures will be both a plus for local readers and a draw for the town.
“I am excited for the town of Needham to be getting not one, but two bookstores after having none for so long,” said Hayley Stokes, co-owner with her husband, Daniel Stokes, of The Book Shop of Needham. “We’ll be known as the book district of Needham!”
“The more bookstores a town has the better,” said Nicole Connolly, owner of Chapters on Chestnut. “I think it will be great for Needham and maybe help us become a literary hub of sorts where authors are coming to Needham because there’s so many people interested in reading.”
Stokes and Connolly each said they’ve long had a dream of someday owning a bookstore.
The Book Shop of Needham
“It’s a passion project for me,” said Stokes. She and her husband have three children and lived in Wellesley for many years, where they were fans of Wellesley Books. “I’m a huge, enthusiastic reader. My kids are huge readers; we couldn’t keep enough books in their hands.” When they later moved to Dover, she said she started spending a lot of time in Needham. “I was so disappointed there was no bookstore in Needham. And so I’d still be trekking back to Wellesley. And for a couple years I thought, I should just open a shop in Needham.”
She said her travels brought her almost daily along Chestnut Street. “I always drove by that location, 283 Chestnut St. (the former Vintage Finds antique store), and when it went up for rent this summer I kind of jumped on it. I’m like, OK, this is the right time, the right place. So it all came together.”
The Book Shop of Needham will offer a large inventory with something for everyone, Stokes said. “We’ll have every genre across the board: general fiction, mystery-thriller, romance, sci-fi, fantasy, classics of course … action, new releases, biographies, memoirs. And a huge children’s section in the back for all ages — middle-school readers, first-chapter readers, pre-school books,” she said. “We’ll have new voices, beloved classics and community picks. We’ll also have some bookish gifts.”
Stokes is doing only minor renovations to the 1,450-square-foot space, which she found had built-in character. “It has a lot of cute alcoves, little turns and corners, which a bookstore should,” she said, in addition to large windows and natural light. She plans a central seating area and other spots to pause with a book. “There will be a few window seats as well and different types of seating throughout in cozy nooks and corners,” she said. “It will be a welcoming space where stories bring people together.”
She also looks forward to bringing people together with a variety of community events. “We plan to host author signings and readings, and we’ll have book club meetings and story time for children.” Her husband is a chef by trade, and she said he will run community cookbook gatherings with special dishes.
The Book Shop of Needham is an affiliate of Bookshop.org, a nonprofit that supports independent bookstores across the country. The organization will handle Stokes’ online sales through her website, which will launch closer to her opening the first week of February.
Stokes acknowledges the many digital sources available for reading or listening to books, but said, “I think in this age of technology people are kind of coming back to original print books just to center themselves and their whole world isn’t on a screen.”
“Whether you’re in your 20s or if you’re 70, as soon as you start talking about a book you find common ground, and you can talk about a lot of things. It just opens the conversation.”
Chapters on Chestnut
Nicole Connolly said her dream of opening a bookstore stems from the love of reading that her parents instilled in her as a child. She remembers them bringing her to bookstores, including the Waldenbooks in Needham. Her husband grew up in town, and they now live here with their four children.
For years, she said, she thought she would be a writer but instead followed a path into business and spent 27 years in the field of investing. She said she had a front-row seat to the explosive growth of social media and device companies and was concerned about the resulting declines in attention and social isolation. That prompted her to pursue her bookstore dream to have a local impact.
“I really feel that bookstores are one of the last great antidotes to loneliness and isolation and disconnection,” Connolly said. “I’ve always thought of books as like empathy portals. They help us understand what it’s like to be in somebody else’s shoes. They maybe help us see that we’re not alone in the experiences we’re having.”
She began looking for a location three years ago and feels lucky that the space in the center of town at the corner of Great Plain and Chestnut (the former 2Mix Interiors) became available. “The cool thing about the space is that 100 years ago it was the Moseley Building and that housed the library and the post office and a general store, and it really seemed like a place where people were gathering,” Connolly said. “So we’re excited to continue that tradition of community.”
The address of that location was 1016 Great Plain Ave., but Connolly sought a change to match the name of the store. “I had my heart set on Chapters on Chestnut, speaking to, personally, a next chapter for me, a new literary chapter for Needham. And I wanted also a nod to the history and geography of Needham with Chestnut Street.”
In the 2,000-square-foot space, Connolly plans to carry a wide variety of titles. “I’m a big literary fiction person, but we are planning to have fantasy, nonfiction, poetry, a section on inspiration, nature, history … so really every genre. Kids, obviously, so many families live in Needham.” She would also like to create a young adult hangout section to promote more reading with that generation.
The store will also host author events, book clubs and possibly game nights. “Another thing that’s been big with bookstores is silent reading nights, where you leave your phone at the door and you read a book for maybe a half-hour and then you discuss what you’ve been reading,” Connolly said. “So really trying to be a place where people can come and connect is the goal.”
Connolly said she is working with the town of Needham to get food and beverage permitting to be able to offer coffee and light pastries in the store. She is also working on floor plans and lining up a construction partner.
Neither Connolly nor Stokes did formal surveys before launching their plans, but both spoke with other bookstore owners and with many people in town who strongly encouraged them.
“More spaces to have connection was something that we’re hearing from the community,” Connolly said. “More gathering space.” She said her mission is “to help people find connection and their next great chapter through books, or through a meaningful conversation that sparks a new friendship, or through maybe a moment of belonging.”
Stokes said opening her shop is about community. “A huge part of an independent bookstore is the community. So as much as this is a business, for me it’s almost more important that I just do this for the community and for myself and for anyone who wants to use the shop as a place to kind of explore and kind of see what speaks to them.”
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