Local News

One book every two days

EAST LIVERPOOL -- Every two days, James P. Godfrey leaves his apartment in the Oddfellows Building and walks with his cane down the alley to the Second Chance Book Nook, where he purchases one book.

He generally pays with exact change: 50 cents plus sales tax for a paperback.

Godfrey began making his regular appearances at the used book store not long after it opened last November. The volunteer clerks who staff the store soon were telling each other about this nice older man who came in every other day and never bought more than one book, usually science fiction.

Thinking he didn't have money for more than one, customers several times tried to pay for him, but he gently declined the offers, saying that he could pay for it, and he only wanted the one. Finally someone asked why.

"I live right around the corner," he said. "I have to pace myself, and this gets me out of the house."

An eight-year Army veteran, serving with the 107th Armored Cavalry, Godfrey, 56, said, "I was in the Gulf war, the first one. My older son was in the second one. He was a Marine. I can't work no more. I need two hips and two knees. Too many times jumping out of a helicopter."

He said he loves the book store and enjoys his visits, talking to the staff and other customers. "People in the store are awesome, nice and always helpful." Godrey isn't the only one delighted to discover the Second Chance Book Nook. Customers have been telling the staff their own stories, saying how much nicer it is than they expected, and how much they love this store.

Operated by The Way Station, a charitable faith-based nonprofit, the book store is located in downtown East Liverpool at 135 W. Fifth St., adjacent to the donation center and thrift store. All books are used ones which have been donated to The Way Station.

Fifteen-year-old Kaleigh Dickey of Lisbon came in the book store while her grandmother shopped in the thrift. She had heard about it through a friend involved in GLOW, a Christian girls organization.

She left the store with a tote bag of hardback books including a mystery, a romance and some fantasy selections: total cost about $6.

A young man named Shreve Weaver hadn't planned on buying a book when he accompanied his mother to the store, but he left with a layman's introduction to chemistry text. Cost: $1, like all hardbacks.

The store recently expanded its hours and days of operation: Saturdays from 2-5 p.m. and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Thursdays. Hours are 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. the Second Chance Book Nook is closed Fridays and Sundays. Children's books are 25 cents. Every child who comes in on Saturday may choose a free book.

James Godfrey was born and raised in the Geauga Lake area near Aurora, Ohio. He came to East Liverpool to do plastering work some years ago and stayed.

Asked how he came to be a book reader, he said with a laugh that "I read when I was young because the nuns beat it into me." It became a lifelong habit. In the Army, he always kept a book to read "in down times."

He said it's a shame that too many people, especially young people, don't read books.

"When you get into a book, you go to a different place," Godfrey said.

He has only one complaint about the Book Nook: "They need a wider selection of westerns. My roommate likes them. But people get a Louis L'Amour and they won't let it go."

One of Godfrey favorite sci-fi writers is David Eddings. He will read most types of books, and has a soft spot for love stories by Nora Roberts.

About the only books he won't read, he said, are those about war. He had enough of that in real life.