Help Bring Goldberry Books to Concord, NC
Donation protected
There’s a famous quote from Neil Gaimon that you see all over the place on bookstore websites and posters and the like. It goes, “a town isn’t a town without a bookstore.” That’s probably an exaggeration, but we do believe that a good bookstore offers some essential services (a term we’ve all grown accustomed to in 2020) to a place. There are the economic ones, certainly: for example, a few years ago The Institute for Local Self Reliance claimed that for every $1 million in sales, local bookstores create 4.7 jobs (as opposed to Amazon which generates 1.9 jobs for the same amount of revenue) and data shows that restaurants do better in downtowns that feature independent booksellers (presumably because a bookstore is the kind of place where people linger). But a bookstore does more than help generate economic stability. Bookstores curate conversations, steward culture, and help people discover stories that enable us to understand who we are (collectively and as individuals).
Here at Goldberry Books we hope to be these things for our hometown. Please join us!
Some incredible friends launched a virtual opening for our bookshop.org page and, in only a day or two, generated enough funds to cover the materials for our main shelving! And so many friends have been helping us paint, clean, and improve the space. We so appreciate the generosity and the shared enthusiasm of our friends and family near and far.
So we are well on our way to opening day--the shop is looking better each day and we have most of our necessary funding--but we need your help to clear the final hurdle.
Your contribution will help us to . . .
- Invest in some of our initial inventory
- Cover the additional cost of shelf-installation
- Up-fit the shop with furnishings and a comfortable space to read
- Improve the bathrooms that are currently in the building
- Create an inviting children’s room
- Prepare the space for visitors during the age of Covid-19
- Help provide a haven of culture and creativity for our community
- Partner with other local businesses
- Launch from a place of stability even in the midst of a global health crisis (we hope to form a reserve fund for 3 months of rent)
- Provide an oasis for book-lovers of all ages
- Pour our time and money into the community we love
- Curate stacks of books that never get old
Down the line we hope to add events like children’s story times, poetry nights, author signings, writing and literacy programs, and other literary-themed gatherings. We want to form a Young Artists Guild for kids that would include a weekly art prompt to encourage children to create with the guidance of beautiful art and literature. We even want to feature the art work in our display windows!
Our hope is that the doors to Goldberry Books will open on November 11, just in time for the holiday season (which means, of course, just in time to help you solve your Christmas shopping needs for all the book-lovers in your life!). We are especially fond of Union St. this time of year and can’t wait to add to the brightness, even during this strangest of years.
As Ross Gay wrote, “A good little bookstore . . . is a laboratory for our coming together.”
This has been our dream for more than a decade and we can’t wait to be a part of the community for as long as you’ll have us.
We are truly thankful for any amount you can give, and we can’t wait to see you in the shop soon!
Who Are We?
We’re David and Bethany Kern, a husband & wife team. In 2011, fresh out of college (David with a BA in English lit and Bethany in studio arts), we moved to the downtown Concord area. It's been a wonderful little corner of the world to raise our four kids.
What’s the Name About?
Goldberry is a character from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. She’s called “the River-daughter . . . as ancient as spring, like the song of a glad water flowing down into the night from a bright morning in the hills." Her husband, Tom Bombadil, is "Master of wood, water and hill—the earthly Master who is entirely free of the desire to dominate, and hence cannot be dominated” by the ring.
These characters didn’t make it into Peter Jackson’s movies, but we know a good place to (soon) find a copy of the book!
The rich metaphors of Tolkien’s work, and far beyond, inspired our logo design.
Here at Goldberry Books we hope to be these things for our hometown. Please join us!
Some incredible friends launched a virtual opening for our bookshop.org page and, in only a day or two, generated enough funds to cover the materials for our main shelving! And so many friends have been helping us paint, clean, and improve the space. We so appreciate the generosity and the shared enthusiasm of our friends and family near and far.
So we are well on our way to opening day--the shop is looking better each day and we have most of our necessary funding--but we need your help to clear the final hurdle.
Your contribution will help us to . . .
- Invest in some of our initial inventory
- Cover the additional cost of shelf-installation
- Up-fit the shop with furnishings and a comfortable space to read
- Improve the bathrooms that are currently in the building
- Create an inviting children’s room
- Prepare the space for visitors during the age of Covid-19
- Help provide a haven of culture and creativity for our community
- Partner with other local businesses
- Launch from a place of stability even in the midst of a global health crisis (we hope to form a reserve fund for 3 months of rent)
- Provide an oasis for book-lovers of all ages
- Pour our time and money into the community we love
- Curate stacks of books that never get old
Down the line we hope to add events like children’s story times, poetry nights, author signings, writing and literacy programs, and other literary-themed gatherings. We want to form a Young Artists Guild for kids that would include a weekly art prompt to encourage children to create with the guidance of beautiful art and literature. We even want to feature the art work in our display windows!
Our hope is that the doors to Goldberry Books will open on November 11, just in time for the holiday season (which means, of course, just in time to help you solve your Christmas shopping needs for all the book-lovers in your life!). We are especially fond of Union St. this time of year and can’t wait to add to the brightness, even during this strangest of years.
As Ross Gay wrote, “A good little bookstore . . . is a laboratory for our coming together.”
This has been our dream for more than a decade and we can’t wait to be a part of the community for as long as you’ll have us.
We are truly thankful for any amount you can give, and we can’t wait to see you in the shop soon!
Who Are We?
We’re David and Bethany Kern, a husband & wife team. In 2011, fresh out of college (David with a BA in English lit and Bethany in studio arts), we moved to the downtown Concord area. It's been a wonderful little corner of the world to raise our four kids.
What’s the Name About?
Goldberry is a character from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. She’s called “the River-daughter . . . as ancient as spring, like the song of a glad water flowing down into the night from a bright morning in the hills." Her husband, Tom Bombadil, is "Master of wood, water and hill—the earthly Master who is entirely free of the desire to dominate, and hence cannot be dominated” by the ring.
These characters didn’t make it into Peter Jackson’s movies, but we know a good place to (soon) find a copy of the book!
The rich metaphors of Tolkien’s work, and far beyond, inspired our logo design.
Organizer
David Kern
Organizer
Concord, NC