Full video

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I chose the name the last bookstore

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because at the time Porter's was going

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out of business and a lot of other

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little bookstores were going out of

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business and it was just in the news a

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lot

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there's press about books going away and

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you know ebooks taking over but people

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just don't like to lose something that

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they've loved for centuries I think that

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the digital age has made print books

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more popular in a weird way it just made

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everyone come out of the woodwork who

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really wants to see books survived and

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it's created quite a bit of loyalty I

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think among people who really love books

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some people prefer physical tactile

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objects and some people prefer clicking

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a button and having something

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instantaneously there's room for both I

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think I hope

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[Music]

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all right I'm gonna put my shoes on

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my name is Josh Spencer I own the last

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bookstore and I'm a father and a husband

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and a paraplegic before my injury I was

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really active you know I served and

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lifted weights and played volleyball and

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hiked and you know I was very outdoorsy

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I was riding a moped and got hit by a

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car and I was in the hospital for like

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three months they did spinal surgery so

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we can't really move after that and I

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had broken pelvis and collapsed lung and

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broken shoulder and skin ripped off my

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my whole hand

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so yeah there was definitely years of

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struggling with that and trying that out

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and trying to figure out how can i still

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be a man when I'm half paralyzed and how

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can I succeed in this world and how can

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I have a family if I want that I just

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coming to terms with all these things it

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took quite a few years I went through

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depression just everything was a

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challenge everything is difficult you

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know I had to I had to really learn how

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to readjust my mind and change my

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perception so that things that would

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seem difficult wasn't necessarily harder

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it's just different so it took a decade

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I guess for me to to readjust we have

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one daughter named Eden she's a handful

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it's just super smart she's already

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super creative and making a mess so I

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think she's just showing off how much

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she can eat

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she loves reading books you know she's

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still at the board book pop-up book

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stage but Heidi reads to her every night

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hopefully we can instill a love reading

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in her as she gets older I'm a

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bookseller people expect our child to be

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more literate I don't really care what

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other people think so I'm not gonna try

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to make her a bookworm she doesn't want

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to be

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[Music]

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at the warehouse we sort everything that

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comes in through big buys that we do or

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donations people selling books through

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the store we get a lot of inventory that

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way people's personal libraries and when

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they pass away or when they move when

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they're just downsizing for whatever

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reason it seems like people are always

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selling books and always donating books

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so keeps us pretty busy la earthquake

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source book to be useful one day so

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right now I'm sorting books into various

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categories things that would go directly

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to the store things that were just gonna

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box up but I first started there wasn't

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any technology you know you didn't have

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smartphones there wasn't databases you

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could download with information so I had

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to know all this stuff kind of just by

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feeling my heart I've been doing this

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for so long like I can tell in a split

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second if something's too damaged for

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anybody to buy we'll keep a lot of books

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on hand just to send to hospitals and

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schools and whatnot it's kind of a fancy

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job for anybody that's really in love

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with all different kinds of books and

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loves finding buried treasure I found

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five hundred bucks one time weird love

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letters a pressed pot leaf and A Song of

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Solomon book one time and I don't know

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if with use but like toilet paper and

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you know I hate it when people use

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toilet paper from bookmark it's the

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worst somebody's got a photocopied cover

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of Harry Potter it's like their own

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custom-made Kinkos dust jacket it's not

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even on that book it's on the the

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miracle cosmetic plastic surgery so they

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wanted somebody to think they were

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reading Harry Potter that weird you see

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all kinds of weird stuff like that

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yeah like who are these people that you

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know do that yeah it's cool and you

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never know what to expect it's a

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treasure hunt

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not just the books themselves but what's

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inside yeah this guy works here we found

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this in a box actually this is headshot

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we got a donation of books and this

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picture was in a box and he works here

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yeah and he wasn't here that day we

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opened up the box and that was sitting

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right on top and we were like oh my god

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what's the chances of that

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my name is email and I'm the warehouse

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Foreman here

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you look at a stack of books like this

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that's almost 200 boxes of books and you

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figure there's 20 books in each box you

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do the math is hundreds of thousands of

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books in here

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no the stacks never get smaller it just

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keeps growing and growing and growing in

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here it's unbelievable like to organize

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this place it's it's it's a lot of work

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so you want to go back around go through

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this way yeah it's like a maze I used to

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work at Book Soup for 40 years before I

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came here it was a good place to work

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when I first started there they got

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bought by another company called bromans

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in Pasadena and it became a little more

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corporate all these like independent

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stores started they just started going

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down even the the big you know

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conglomerate started going down as well

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so for Josh to like start a bookstore in

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this day and age it took a lot of guts

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you know what I mean and he started from

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the ground up and you know made a good

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place for people to work and I mean I

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couldn't ask for anything more I'm like

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really happy here so that's a good

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experience a good job

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I just love dealing with books you know

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why wouldn't you want to work with

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something that you love if I didn't make

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any money at all I'd want to do this

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it's sort of a hobby that turned into a

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business and became a little bit of an

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obsession and I just enjoy it so it

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doesn't feel like work to me and that's

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that's always the best kind of job right

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when you just feel like you're having

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fun and it's like what you would do as a

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hobby anyways

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I moved to Los Angeles in 2002 I think

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shortly after my parents divorced and a

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girlfriend broke up with me I had torn

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my bicep like the year before and I had

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like an Internet magazine covering film

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and music and that sort of tanked I

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tried to get a job a few places but

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nobody would really hire me and so I

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just I lived on welfare and food stamps

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and I had sort of an early like midlife

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crisis where I was just like man I'm a

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loser

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I'm not doing anything with my life I

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gotta get serious about this it's gonna

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find something that that I can really

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focus on and really love and really get

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behind you know I've always been a

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writer and a reader and said I thought

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well try books

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[Music]

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eBay was just getting started so I had

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learned how to use that so I started

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doing that just from my apartment this

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tiny little studio apartment but this

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one guy that that I knew his friend of

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mine he kept hassling me to open up a

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store for a couple of years really

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until finally I relented and was like

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all right just there's a space open up

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across the street from where I live and

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it was busy from the first day we opened

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our doors

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I created this place as as somewhere

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that I would want to hang out all the

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time you know I was like a huge living

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room for me so it seems to have worked

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for a lot of other people too so they

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they kind of see it as their their home

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away from home too you know I definitely

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thing the bookstore has changed other

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people's lives it's definitely become a

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refuge for a lot of people regardless of

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whether they like books or not it's a

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place they come and hang out some of

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them are huge book lovers so it's sort

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of rejuvenated they're there

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ability to access books easily people

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who love books and love to read and love

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to ord books and love to collect books

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and definitely I think changed their

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lives because they come here every

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single day so whatever they were doing

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before every single day they're not

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doing that anymore

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[Music]

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we've tried to add a real human element

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we want it to be an authentic real

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experience versus something that's cold

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and calculated

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I think that's the difference I think

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that's one reason why we've been able to

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do well in other bookstores perhaps are

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struggling

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in the beginning I really did this think

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okay I'm gonna do this sort of art

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project bookstore in my last two or

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three years and then it's gonna fail

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because the book cos is gonna be done

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and that'll be it but after my injury my

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life perspective definitely changed in

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terms of just learning to look at

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everything as a challenge not be afraid

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of failure

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I've lost things in my life much more

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traumatic than a business there's not

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much that could compete with that

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Harrison you know I can deal with that I

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could certainly deal with a business

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failing no big deal so

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yeah no fair

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[Music]