Bill’s Books - “the finest books at the lowest prices”

It would be fair to say that this all started circa 1963, when I was 8 years old. My earliest reading memories are sitting in mother's car as she drove all over Memphis working as a real estate agent while I read books, one after the other. Mostly non-fiction, World War II. I didn't discover the joys of fiction until early adolescence, when Robert E. Howard and J.R.R. Tolkien convinced me there are some pretty exciting worlds locked up inside the human brain.

This whole bookselling gig happened July 1, 1998, after I was almost buried in a landslide of books falling out of my closet. There was, literally, no more room for books in the house. Culling those I could live without I opened Bill's Books in the Memphis suburb of Cordova. In 2006, a lost lease required either a change of location or a move to strictly an internet presence. The internet won and here we are.

Someone asked me how many books I have sold in my lifetime. I guessed in excess of 40,000, but actual numbers are hard to pin down. In the end it doesn't really matter.

I'm also something of a writer, having sold to World War II magazine, written two novels (unpublished, so far) and am currently researching a book on a relatively unknown chapter of World War II.

Without books I think a room looks unfinished. I recently went to an open house for a model home where a bunch of books were used as props to stage the house. I spent my time inspecting the books, not looking at the house. I can't imagine life without books; books are my friends. I hope they are yours too.