In Rehoboth Beach, 40 years of browsing about
It was supposed to be what he called the retirement plan for his father. As a teacher in northern Delaware, Steve Crane knew he could not take care of his parents financially if something happened to them.
So he and his wife, Barbara, along with his parents, Harold and Hattie, started a bookstore called Browseabout Books at the current home of Five Guys on Rehoboth Avenue in 1975.
Forty years, a few locations, some expansions, a gift shop and a toy store later, Browseabout is still going strong in downtown Rehoboth Beach. It's one of the few businesses that have lasted the past 40 years in the resort town.
It has provided him and his family more than he ever anticipated.
"He had a swimming pool when he died," he said of his father. "To him, that was like, 'wow, I've made it.'"
Beginnings and conquering foes
Retail was in Crane's blood. His father and grandfather had, combined, more than 50 years of retail experience working at Woolworth's.
Barbara Crane's dream was to live at the beach and to say she likes books may be putting it mildly.
"Nobody loves books more than my wife," he said. "Nobody likes to read or just touch books, smell them and feel them, look at pictures, everything."
So combining his passion for selling and her's for books, the idea was born to create a bookstore. The plan was to teach during the school year, open up shop in the summer, then head back north when it ended. Once the store was sustainable enough, Crane would stop teaching.
"I didn't care what we were selling, as long as we were selling something," he said.
As Browseabout marched on, challenges came and went. There was Waldenbooks and B. Dalton Bookseller. Then Borders and Barnes and Noble emerged. So did Costco, Wal-Mart and Amazon. Now the e-reader. Through it all, Browseabout stood strong.
"It just seems like when one foe went down another one came up," he said.
Crane argues that books have more sociability to them. They can be collected, given as gifts or used as decorations.
"It's something that's real that you touch and you hold," he said. "The newspaper has shrunk, the magazines have shrunk, television programming has gotten different. Everything has changed, but what we try to do in this store is be consistent, like our customers and give them a unique place to shop."
A hub for locals
When Nancy Sakaduski started her Lewes-based publishing company, Cat & Mouse Press in 2012, Browseabout Books was willing to sell her first two books.
The following year, Sakaduski started the Rehoboth Beach Reads Short Story Contest, where the top entries were featured in a compilation book. The idea was for local writers to have the opportunity to get published. The store sponsored a cash first prize.
The first compilation, "The Beach House," was the best-selling book at Browseabout in 2014. The contest continues in 2015 for its third year.
"I'm told it outsold everything except Legos," Sakaduski said.
Crane is proud his store has become the hub for local readers and writers. When he started Browseabout, there were just three local reads. Now, there are several shelves of books on local topics by local authors.
"It's just kind of fun when people think they can start somewhere and it makes me feel good," he said. "It just starts with a creative spark and maybe some kid saw that their aunt wrote a book and now they'll turn out to be the best thing. You never know."
With no major airport in the area, many of the authors and celebrities who have stopped by for signings or appearances have ties to the local community, according to 10-year store manager Susan Kehoe. Over the years, Browseabout Books has hosted appearances for countless local writers, along with celebrities such as Vice President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, Tim Gunn, Hota Kotb and Bam Margera.
Kehoe said it is important for Browseabout to support local writers.
"We feel very strongly that that's an important part of being a community center," she said. "A lot of the books aren't going to be bestsellers but we do still feel like it's a representation of our community."
9 questions with Browseabout Books' Steve Crane
The venue was the home of the Rehoboth Beach Writers Guild for a time, until the group outgrew the store, according to member Thomas Hoyer, who called Browseabout "the intellectual pulse of Rehoboth" and said it has a respect for reading and writing that isn't found in the average store.
"You always hope when you move some place that the institutions that drew you there last," he said. "I'm pleased this one has lasted."
'I'm complete'
At 68 years old and fresh off a three-month cruise with his wife, Steve Crane has thought about his next moves and the future of Browseabout Books.
He knows he can't go on forever.
Retirement is on his mind.
"It's fulfilled all my dreams," he said about the store. "I'm complete. I don't know what else I could do."
But what to do with the store?
The plan is not set in stone, just yet, but he wants Browseabout Books to be in the hands of some of the people who have cared the most about and for it — his staff.
The store's managerial team has a combined 35 years at the store, according to Crane. He knows they will keep Browseabout thriving. Plans are already in motion for next year.
"We don't celebrate complacency. We're just going to be better every day," he said. "That's what they're going to do, and Browseabout will get better and better and better and better.
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BROWSEABOUT BEST SELLERS
1975: "Jaws," "Looking for Mr. Goodbar," "Ragtime," "The Bermuda Triangle"
1976: "Trinity," "The Other Side of Midnight," "The Final Days""
1977: "Thornbirds," "The World According to Garp," "Roots," "Complete Book of Running"
1978: "Scruples," "Eye of the Needle," "Chesapeake"
1979: "Matarese Circle," "Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet," "Sophie's Choice"
1980: "Kane and Abel," "A Confederacy of Dunces"
1981: "Cujo," "A Light in the Attic," "Noble House"
1982: "North and South," "Jane Fonda's Workout"
1983: "In Search of Excellence," "Cold Sassy Tree"
1984: "Passages," "Hunt for Red October"
1985: "Clan of the Cave Bear," "Lonseome Dove," "Handmaid's Tale"
1986: "Last of the Breed," "It," "Forrest Gump"
1987: "Presumed Innocent," "Bonfire of the Vanities," "Shell Seekers"
1988: "Price of Tides," "A Brief History of Time," "Mysteries of Pittsburgh"
1989: "Satanic Verses," "Pillars of the Earth," "Power of One"
1990: "Jurassic Park," "Trump," "Oh, the Places You'll Go"
1991: "Firm," "Outlander," "Scarlett"
1992: "She's Come Undone," "All the Pretty Horses," "Along Came a Spider"
1993: "Cruel and Unusual," "Bridges of Madison County"
1994: "One for the Money," "Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil"
1995: "Wicked," "Dewey," "Horse Whisperer"
1996: "Notebook," "Angela's Ashes," "Into the Wild"
1997: "Cold Mountain," "Tuesdays with Morrie," "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone"
1998: "The Pact," "Poisonwood Bible," "Who Moved My Cheese"
1999: "Angels and Demons," "Girl with a Pearl Earring"
2000: "O'Reilly Factor," "Hannibal"
2001: "Fast Food Nation," "Life of Pi," "Seabiscuit"
2002: "Lovely Bones," "Secret Life of Bees"
2003: "The Da Vinci Code," "Kite Runner"
2004: "The Notebook"
2005: "1776," "Mermaid Chair"
2006: "Marly and Me," "The Glass Castle," "Memory Keeper's Daughter"
2007: "Water for Elephants," "The Secret," "A Thousand Splendid Suns"
2008: "The Last Lecture," "Host"
2009: "Shack," "The Girl Who Played with Fire"
2010: "The Help," "Hoda"
2011: "The Hunger Games," "The Paris Wife," "Steve Jobs," "Unbroken"
2012: "Calico Joe," "50 Shades of Grey"
2013: "How to Tie a Scarf: 33 Styles," "Inferno," "Gone Girl," "And then the Mountains Echoed," "Ten Years Later: Six People who Faced Adversity and Transformed their Lives"