Meet The Former Chemist at the Center of Boston’s Largest Used Book Shop
Tucked along a side street steps from Downtown Crossing sits a vacant lot. Or so it seems.
You can tell which pedestrians passing by do so regularly depending on whether or not they stop for a peek at the curious space, framed by a mural of famous authors sitting idle above enormous book spines painted on the lot’s walls. A massive pencil and book above the adjoining store’s entrance offer an explanation.
The Brattle Book Shop is not your average bookstore, and Ken Gloss is not your average bookseller. Boston’s oldest and largest antiquarian book store is a book-lover’s three-floor paradise, with a sale lot that holds thousands of titles when the weather allows. The shop has as much character as the owner says his father had when he bought it in the 1940s.
“My father was a bit of a character, and a showman,’’ Ken told Boston.com in the days leading up to the nation’s first Independent Bookstore Day. “He would give away all the sale books left over outside, and he gave away about 250,000 books that way.’’ Gloss says his father loved the outdoor sales, and The Brattle still has them today in the lot next door. He also admits this wasn’t his first career path.
Brattle’s sale lot during store hours.
“If my father had been 10 years younger and a bit healthier I would have been a chemist.’’
Gloss, 64, began working for his father, George, in The Brattle Book Shop’s former location when he was five. Gloss holds an undergraduate degree from UMass Amherst in Industrial Chemistry, and now runs the store with his wife, Joyce. He was on his way to graduate school at the University of Wisconsin in 1973 when fate stepped in.
George’s health began to decline, and, after making the drive to Wisconsin, Ken headed back home to help out at The Brattle. He eventually took over the store.
“By far the hardest thing I ever did was work for my father,’’ Gloss said. “But I always liked the bookstore and when he lost his health he had no choice but to let me do things.’’
The original bookstore was founded in 1825 in the former Scollay Square’s historic Sears Crescent Building. Now known as Government Center, Boston’s Cornhill neighborhood hosted the shop on what was once Brattle Street. Gloss says his father bought the shop from the Burnham family in 1949, and organized a campaign that saved the now historic building from being demolished in 1962. Burnham books became The Brattle Book Shop with new ownership, and has stayed that way 65 years and three store locations later.
Gloss has now been running The Brattle’s current West Street store for 42 years. The three-story building became The Brattle’s home after its former space, a building that once stood in that empty lot next door, burned to the ground in February 1980. He says it’s the only winter he can remember that was worse than this year’s past snowy one.
“It was a wooden building, full of books. There was nothing left of it,’’ Gloss said. “But the main thing was to keep going… We didn’t have time to think about it and, probably, that was a really good thing.’’
Ken and his Father, George, in 1958.
Although the cause of the fire was never determined, Ken says teenagers had been breaking into the wooden bookstore and burning books for light. Then-Mayor Kevin White called for the community to rally around the long-beloved store after the incident. Thousands in donations came flooding in. The Glosses were able to rent a space nearby and stay in business until moving into the current storefront in 1980.
The Sears Crescent Building (left) in 1974.
Nowadays, Gloss’s work begins at 6 a.m. each morning when he heads into the store, and typically gooes until closing time. “My wife says I work half the day… 12 hours,’’ he said.
But Gloss isn’t sitting at the store counter all day. He’s a well known figure in the literary community: a former President of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America’s New England Chapter, a current member of the Associate Board of the Boston Public Library, and an appraiser on WGBH’s Antiques Roadshow. Gloss follows the PBS program around the country.
“Why else would I go to Bismark or Omaha?’’ Gloss said. “It’s very social and you meet a lot of different people.’’
Gloss has many “appointments’’ during the day, mostly at estate sales to appraise new batches of old books, but also with friends or former employees of his father from all over the country who reach out when they’re in town. Incoming books are often bought by the thousands, whether or not they’re valuable.
“If we didn’t have the outside lot the store would explode,’’ he said. “We’re lucky we have it and people love it out there.’’
Books take up most of Brattle’s storage basement.
After it burned down, the former Brattle space became the new shop’s sale lot. It’s home to thousands of cheap used titles and murals painted by the store’s staff. Gloss says many of his employees are artists, including musicians and actors, who work at the store doing the day and have other careers at night.
“We used to have a dog. That’s actually life-size,’’ Ken said, pointing out the former pet painted on the lot’s back wall. “He liked to eat bagels.’’
The dog’s head is attached to a dream cloud filled with cream-cheese smothered bagels.
It’s character like this that sets the store apart and keeps customers coming back, some searching for the same obscure title or edition. Gloss says The Brattle takes on thousands of titles at a time, and doesn’t keep them long. The store sells everything from rare, expensive items to cheap leisure titles and decorative leather and cloth-bound novels. Movie set designers and interior decorators buy and rent books from The Brattle by the shelf-full.
The rare book room on the top floor has been home to items worth up to $100,000, Gloss says. Some of the store’s newest material includes 19th-century books inscribed by arctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, vintage pamphlets dating back to the 1700s, and thousands of cookbooks. The store’s basement is packed wall to wall with books and boxes of unpacked titles, waiting to be cycled to the main floors or the carts toted out to the sale lot at 9 a.m. every morning. The Brattle is one of the only places in Boston you can find an outdoor book sale any time of year, as long as the weather isn’t wet.
The Brattle won’t be formally taking part in this year’s Independent Bookstore Day since all participants receive new, limited edition books to sell. But that doesn’t mean it’s not possible for the holiday to be adjusted to accommodate them in the future.
Ken Gloss in Brattle Book Shop’s basement.
“If there was a means or mechanism I’d have no problem with it,’’ Gloss said. In the meantime the store will continue its sale of vintage and used titles to its faithful customers.
“We have one customer who calls in sick, when they’re not coming in,’’ Gloss said. He’s confident the store’s success is owed in large part to the community, and that he’ll continue to start work at 6 a.m. as long as they’re looking for long-awaited titles.
“I describe it as being Jim Hawkins on Treasure Island, every day,’’ he said. “I enjoy it, and as long as I want to do this I think I’ll be fine.’’
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