This February, Point Pleasant Beach’s Little Point Bookshop celebrated a significant milestone, especially in the life of a small, independent business — five years of operation.
The Little Point Bookshop has become something of a hub for readers in northern Ocean County, noted for its events and its location on Arnold Avenue. Night & Day recently sat down for interviews with several booksellers — the Little Point Bookshop in Point Beach as well as Spring Lake’s Thunder Road Books and Manasquan’s BookTowne — to learn more about how they manage to not just remain operational, but rather flourish in their own local settings.
Kelly Coyle Crivelli, the owner of Little Point Bookshop who works in publishing by trade, began by explaining how she came to own the Little Point Bookshop in the first place.
“I have a big family; my mom is retired. I had three kids at the time who were going to college … and I said, ‘I need to do a little something else,’” she said. Ms. Coyle, who is from Freehold originally, said that she was initially seeking out a spot in her hometown. “I wanted to figure out something to keep my mom busy — something we could do together … So, we decided to open a little bookstore.”
“There was a spot there I wanted to open the store in originally,” she said, pointing just across the street from the Little Point Bookshop’s current location. “My sister and I were walking past that little store across the street…[we said] ‘let’s just try it; if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. But then it just kept working.”
She told Night & Day that the bookshop faced a big hurdle immediately after its opening, due to the COVID pandemic. However, she explained, the business managed to adapt to the new status quo by setting up a successful book delivery service to remain plugged-in to the community.
“What happened was … we got more dedicated customers, because we were able to connect closer,” she said. “People that usually went back to their regular houses — not their shore houses — during COVID just stayed …we got more of a loyal following during COVID. We were here, we were open, we did as many events outdoors as possible … we stayed connected.”
Kate Czyzewski, the general manager of Thunder Road Books, told Night & Day that there had been a bookstore, Fireside Books, in Spring Lake before Thunder Road’s founding by film producer and New Jersey native Basil Iwanyk. However, she said that it was quite some time since that store was operational, according to her customers.
“When we talked about opening in May of 2021, the [Spring Lake] families were already super excited when we were under construction because there hadn’t been a bookstore there in so long,” she said, “and obviously the downtown of Spring Lake is such a thriving downtown, so it made sense that a bookstore would be here.”
Downtown areas and bookstores tend to go together frequently, as observers might notice on a stroll down a given main street. Local downtowns are bolstered by having such independent, unique perspectives and bespoke experiences, say the booksellers.
Peter Albertelli, owner of Manasquan’s local bookstore BookTowne, said that many of his customers have expressed to him just how grateful they are to have such an institution as BookTowne right around the corner.
“I have customers coming in all the time that … feel like it’s a necessity to have a community bookstore,” he said, noting that “… a bookstore is passion, creativity and a community that supports you — those are the three main keys, I think, of an independent bookstore.”
He also said that one of the biggest advantages, for customers, in going to an independent bookstore as opposed to a large chain is the personalized aspect of having a local vendor — and fellow literature fan — give recommendations. His position was echoed by Ms. Coyle.
“I think we keep it personal,” said Ms. Coyle. “We don’t have a ton of everything; we have a very curated list of books … it’s not as overwhelming. People enjoy that; some people come in and they don’t even look. They just come in and ask you, ‘OK, what am I reading next?’ You get to know what people like.”
For some booksellers, the gig was not their first. For example, prior to owning BookTowne, which he has for five years, Mr. Albertelli worked in the music industry. However, he did say that his life and many of his experiences have somewhat centered around words and their sheer power.
“It’s not a long story … The effect of words on me has been a part of my entire life,” said Mr. Albertelli, who studied theater at New York University. “The playwright’s words in a script have affected me; I worked in the music industry for 27 years, so the lyrics from the songwriter have affected me; now, I own a bookstore here and the words on the page affect me.”
Mr. Albertelli had worked as a music programmer on MTV and music marketer for his own promotion company, working with such pop icons as Lady Gaga. He began working part-time at BookTowne after leaving his nearly three-decade career in the music industry. Eventually, he took the keys to the store from previous owner Rita Maggio.
“Words are magic,” he said. “I feel like putting words together in a certain way totally affects me.”
Ms. Czyzewski told Night & Day that she met Mr. Iwanyk, owner and founder of Thunder Road Books, following an author event in town. She had attended the event as part of her hobby as a “bookstagrammer” — a term for someone who blogs on Instagram about literature. The owner of Whimsicality, the interior design shop where the event was held, took Ms. Czyzewski’s number, calling her a year-and-a-half later with an offer from Mr. Iwanyk to help run his store.
“Basil grew up in New Jersey, moved out to [Los Angeles], struck it big with the film industry, and … during COVID, he and his three young boys decided to come back to Spring Lake and ride out the pandemic. In Spring Lake it was a little less chaotic than out in L.A. for the boys, and they fell in love with being year-rounders in Spring Lake.”
She said that, like many patrons of indie bookstores, Mr. Iwanyk would seek out local bookstores on his down time when he was traveling, sparking him to try his hand at the trade.
“What he loved very much when he was traveling to film for his film company was that he always found bookstores in his travels,” she said. Mr. Iwanyk is known in the film industry for having produced movies like “Sicario” as well as the John Wick series of films. “During the hustle and the bustle of filming and all of those projects that took him around the world, it was a relaxing thing for him to always find the neighborhood bookstore wherever he was filming. And he felt that Spring Lake needed that.”
Ms. Coyle told Night & Day that they held a big party for the store’s actual birthday, which was Feb. 3. While the milestone feels important, she said, the staff of Little Point Bookshop aims to simply keep that strong bond between the store and the community as healthy as possible through their events and thoughtful curation.
“People have maybe become more passionate about their small towns since COVID, and remembered how important they are,” said Ms. Coyle.
While it isn’t easy to be an independent bookseller by any means, these small businesses act as social pillars for the community, and their popularity and staying-power paint a hopeful picture of the future. With Little Point Bookshop’s triumphal fifth birthday in the rearview, as well as other indie bookstores in Monmouth and Ocean thriving in their own downtowns, it will be little wonder when more birthdays are celebrated in the years to come.