The Hatter of Mercer Street - WV Living Magazine

Fall down the rabbit hole and into the magic of a previously loved read at The Hatter’s Bookshop in Princeton.

ON BRIGHT, BUSTLING MERCER STREET in Princeton sits The Hatter’s Bookshop, an oasis for book enthusiasts in southern West Virginia. Its shelves are full of mostly used selections—donated and carefully curated by a volunteer who loves a good book hunt—as well as bookish trinkets, tote bags, bookmarks, and stickers. On any given night inside its cozy walls, you can find live music, an author reading, a trivia competition, or simply your next great read.

The owner of Hatter’s, Rebekah Snow, sees magic in every corner of the place, just as the owner before her did and just as the loyal customers who come in and out every day do, too.

“You know Appalachia,” Snow says. “We’re the kindest people. So the regulars are incredible, and they get the concept of how important it is to have an indie bookstore in your community, compared to shopping on Amazon. They want to support a small business.”

The shop has been open for nearly 10 years. Snow bought the place from former owner Tammy Dotson a few years ago, at a time when Snow was at a crossroads in her own career and looking for a life raft. “At the time, you could say I was a lost soul. I had a great job—it paid well, it was stable, I knew what I was doing,” she says. “But something felt like it was missing.” She wandered into Hatter’s amidst this turmoil and asked Dotson, mostly a stranger to her, how she came to own the bookstore—it seemed like a dream. “And she said, ‘That’s so weird that you asked me that, because I was going to put it up for sale today.’”

Ever since that fateful day, Snow has been building on what Dotson started. “She had already done so much, and she had made a wonderful customer base that was very loyal,” Snow says. “But I did, of course, have aspirations for it, and she appreciated that. She wanted aspirations for the building, because when you’re a small business owner and you don’t have aspirations, you’re going to stay stagnant.”

Snow rearranged the place, tore down a wall, and reorganized while keeping the heart of the store intact. The shop has started carrying a small selection of new books, branching out from its used inventory. Some things stay the same, though—the shop always aims to be eclectic and avoid relying on huge household-name authors, Snow says, and it will always be rooted in previously loved books. “There’s just something special about the life of a book, getting passed down as it goes.”

Owning the store has shown Snow exactly how dedicated readers are and affirmed her disagreement with the common misconception that no one reads anymore. “Don’t get me wrong—the amount of reading has gone down in today’s world,” she says. “But it’s crazy how much people actually read, and how much they appreciate getting a physical book in their hand.”

929 Mercer Street, Princeton, the-hatters-bookshop.square.site, “The Hatter’s Bookshop” on FB