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Edit: You can view a recording of this event here:

 

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The Brown Bag Lunch Series, presented by the ABAA Gender Equity Initiative, is a series of short virtual talks covering various topics, from crash courses in areas of expertise to best business practices.

Please join the Gender Equity Initiative on Zoom on November 8th, 2023, at 2 PM ET for a Brown Bag Lunch Series with Joyce Kosofsky from Brattle Book Shop.


November 8th @ 2pm
Joyce Kosofsky - Brattle Book Shop
"How to keep a used bookstore running—It’s a business."

People always say that they'd love to run a bookstore. Joyce has been doing that (along with her husband, Ken Gloss) since 1978. There's not a lot of sitting around and reading (if any). It's a lot of work. Physical and mental. There's stocking stock (books are heavy), dealing with customers and other dealers, and poop in the lot. There's the physical aspect of the building's upkeep and the emotional toll when it all burns down (literally) and starts all over from scratch.

What Joyce would like to share is a brief timeline of the past 45 years of running a used bookshop with all its faults.
 
Joyce Kosofsky grew up in Boston and attended UMass/Amherst, graduating with a BA in Journalism. She worked as a cub reporter for a local daily newspaper, then at an advertising trade journal, and then at the Boston Phoenix newspaper. Joyce decided she did not like journalism, so she took a break. Ken (her husband) asked her to help out at the bookshop. That was in 1978, and she's been at the Brattle ever since.
 
 

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