Turning the page: After almost 50 years in business, Menaul Book Exchange is shutting its doors

Dorothy Scrivner doesn’t remember a time when she was not surrounded by books.

She grew up in her family’s Cousins Brothers Trading Post, 30 miles south of Gallup, but even there, a place most people would consider remote, her home was filled with books.

“All my family are voracious readers, so we had lots and lots and lots of books,” Scrivner said. “I read everything — kids’ books, Westerns, whatever I had. My mom told me, ‘You read so much that if you read something you shouldn’t have, I’m not going to worry about it. It’s not going to hurt you.’”

What her mother, and Scrivner herself, could not know back then is that books would become a major part of Scrivner’s professional, as well as private, life. For more than 40 years, Scrivner has been an employee or owner of the Menaul Book Exchange, a used-book store at 9409 Menaul Blvd. NE.

“I’m happiest when I’m playing in the books,” she said on a recent morning in the store.

But times are bittersweet now. After 48 years in business, Menaul Book Exchange, is closing. The building in which the store is located is being sold, and, although there have been discussions about a portion of the building being retained for the bookstore’s use, Scrivner, 73, decided it’s time to turn the page.

“I’ve been here 42 years, but it’s time to move on to what comes next,” she said.

To move its stock of 200,000 books, mostly paperbacks, the store is selling books for $5 a bag. The target closing date is Sept. 8, unless the store runs out of books before then. Scrivner said the store sold 244 bags of books from Aug. 8, the day news of the closing was posted on the store’s website, through Aug. 12. And business continues to be brisk.

“It’s been so crazy, I haven’t a clue how many books we have sold,” she said. “We have a lot less than 200,000 now.”

That may be true, but it’s difficult to tell. Scrivner is still surrounded by books.

Hardback headachesJuanita and Gerald McCoach opened the store on Eubank, just north of Constitution, in 1975. That makes the business one of the oldest bookstores in Albuquerque. Don’s Paperback Books, now at 1013 San Mateo Blvd. SE, started up in an East Central Avenue location in 1971.

In a relatively short time, Juanita and Gerald moved their store from Eubank to its present location on Menaul.

Scrivner moved to Albuquerque to study nursing at the University of New Mexico and became a registered nurse. Ever a booklover, she was a frequent visitor to the paperback store when it was on Eubank, and after it moved to Menaul. One day in 1981, Juanita asked Scrivner if she wanted a job for a couple of days a week.

Except for an eight-month period in which she devoted herself to nursing, she has been with Menaul Book Exchange ever since. She worked at both the store and nursing for many years.

Juanita and Gerald sold the store to Rosalie and Irving Uffer in the late ’80s, and Scrivner bought the store from the Uffers in 1998.

Besides the pure joy that comes from being close to books, Scrivner said the best thing about the Menaul Book Exchange is the customers.

“You meet a lot of nice people in the book business,” she said. “Customers become friends. I had customers who started going to the store when it was on Eubank and continued coming here into the 2000s. We talk about books and families and lots of things.”

She’s seen changes in the book trade since she became part of it. The rising cost of books, the arrival of Amazon and e-books as players in the game.

People are buying bags of books at the store now because bags are going for $5 each. But she remembers when they bought bags of books even when they were not on sale. Because the cost of books have gone up, people who had once bought bags of books would come in and just buy a few, she said.

Scrivner tried different things to sell books. She would have Hardback Saturdays, during which used hardbacks that usually sold for $3.98 would go for $2.50.

“My customers don’t really like hardbacks,” she said. “They are heavy, and they take up more room. And a lot of my customers fall asleep while reading in bed and don’t want to drop a hardback on their heads.”

She said her clientele didn’t take to book signings either.

“I had signings for romance writers, mystery writers, science fiction writers, nonfiction writers, poetry and even a French cookbook,” she said. “But the only thing that sold (at a signing) was a book about the Navajo Freight Lines (a trucking company). My customers are on a mission. They know what they want when they come in and don’t want authors trying to sell them books. I had customers that stayed away on days we had signings.”

‘When it’s time’

Just about every genre imaginable has been available at Menaul Book Exchange over the years. A short way inside the front door, to the left, there are shelves of Westerns. Walk the length of a store to a sharp right turn and go as far as you can in that direction, and you’ll reach a room containing mystery and adventure.

In between, there’s true experience, true crime, biography, science fiction, horror, books for children and young adults, books about American presidents, humor, exercise, sports, photography, poetry, short stories, Christian nonfiction, Christian fiction, self-help, parenting, historical fiction and romance.

“My original customers read romances. Women and men, too,” Scrivner said. “That kept my doors open. More recently, it has been mysteries. Science fiction and Westerns are popular, too.”

Scrivner said she will read anything except science fiction and fantasy. She lists her favorite authors as Roberta Gellis, known for books of historical fiction and historical romance; detective novelist Michael Connelly; and David Baldacci, who writes suspense novels and legal thrillers.

“Dorothy has every author you can think of,” said Jean Faas, 68, who has been shopping at the Menaul Book Exchange for at least 10 years. Faas favors mysteries by J.D. Robb, a pseudonym used by romance novelist Nora Roberts. But Scrivner is the major reason Faas has been driving from her Rio Rancho home across Albuquerque to Menaul Book Exchange for the past decade or so.

“Dorothy is so pleasant,” Faas said. “If you are looking for something, you can call her, and she will put it aside for you. During COVID, you could drive up, and she would hand you books through the store’s side window.”

Brenda Bates, who is in her 70s, is into historical fiction, particularly Christian historical fiction. She likes biographies, mysteries and the classics. She has lived in Albuquerque since the late ’60s, but only discovered the Menaul Book Exchange five or six years ago. She wishes she had found it sooner.

“I love Dorothy,” Bates said. “She treats people so respectfully. She is knowledgeable and kind. And her store is neat and clean.”

Faas took a couple of bags of books to the checkout counter.

“I’m going to miss you,” she told Scrivner. “But you know when it’s time.”

Got books

“I was 31 when I started working here,” Scrivner said. “You know what they say about the old gray mare. I ain’t what I used to be. But my retirement was my own idea. I’m going to take a vacation. I haven’t had one since 1994.”

She still has property between Gallup and Zuni, and that’s where she’s going.

“It’s beautiful over there — red rocks and piñon and cedar,” she said. “My relatives live across the road.”

And you can bet there will be lots of books around.

“I must have run out of books in a former life,” she said. “But I’m not going to run out of them in this one.”

Book store closing after 50 years