The Montana Book Trail offers a cultural passport to 26 of the Treasure State’s many unique bookstores.
Like most other businesses, independent bookstores have had some interesting ups and downs lately, most notably, a chaotic economy and Covid. We thought it might be a good time to check in with some of these community gems.
We picked up a Bookstores Under the Big Sky Montana Bookstore Trail passport, and so far, we’ve dropped in on Elk River Bookstore, and Conley’s Music and Books in Livingston, and Beartooth Books in Red Lodge. This House of Books in Billings is up today.
This House of Books is not a nonprofit organization; it is a for-profit cooperative bookstore that is collectively owned by its members. As a cooperative, it is a business owned by the people who use its products and services, not a charitable or non-profit organization.
This House of Books is deeply invested in its commitment to the community. General Manager Gustavo Belotta started his bookstore career at the now-defunct Hasting’s chain. A serendipitous series of events led him to This House of Books, and eventually the position of General Manager. Belotta gives us a short history of This House of Books, explaining its original intent.
“A small western-themed bookstore where the authors could have signings for their books.
One of the original board members was an author who one of the things she wanted was to have a bookstore to have her events.”
Belotta adds that the store quickly grew to reflect its community’s wants. The store added events that celebrated a variety of niche interests that demonstrate how a cooperative builds its inventory, including holidays and issue-driven topics, theatre readings, and children’s items.
“If the Art House is doing a movie and there’s a book involved, we’ll order that book, and if the theatre’s doing ‘The Phantom Tollbooth’, we’ll order in every copy of ‘The Phantom Tollbooth’ we can get in and we can use that to advertise that the theatre’s doing “The Phantom Tollbooth” and while you’re here, you can buy ‘The Phantom Tollbooth’.”
The Friday that we visited This House of Books, an event company was prepping for 300 check-ins to a weekend event in downtown Billings. The event was themed around the dark romance genre. This House of Books carries several copies of the genre’s choice decorated books.
Belotta also discussed censorship and banned books, as cultural shifts alter the larger community.
Julie Schultz grew up in Montana and left for 20 years and a career in the canyons of Wall Street. Disgruntled with the “human irrationality in action on a daily basis”, she came back to Montana, just as THOB was opening. Schultz succinctly sums up the dominant THOB mantra:
“People are looking for the third space - other places to gather and find community. Building that around books and literature just seems to make sense. I wasn’t around for the founding of the bookstore, but the founders were very much thinking about community.”
Schultz plans most of THOB’s events, and she says the interactive events where the audience can engage a panel in Q&A, and activity events for kids are especially strong draws for the community. Surprises often pop up when theming events. In October, two authors featured books on Cryptids and Yeti. It turned out that October 20th was National Sasquatch Awareness Day.
As for giving back to the community, the bookstore’s patrons fervently support various community drives. On our visit, displays were up for a holiday toy drive, a book drive and a food collection to benefit SNAP recipients interrupted by the government shutdown.
Schultz also acknowledges that the business has done well with a relocation to its current prominent spot at 116 N 29th Street in Billings. She adds that downtown Billings events, like the Farmers Market and Pride Day celebrations, are tremendous draws.
In closing, we’ll give the air space to THOB from a customer who visits frequently: patron Tom Roberts shares his thoughts about books and bookstores.
“Why do I buy books? I buy books because if people don’t keep buying books, we’re not going to have bookstores.”
”And why are bookstores important?
“Because they sell books.”
