At first glance, Village Books seems to be doing a little too much. When I first moved to Bellingham, Village Books was one of the first places I discovered, and it immediately felt like something special. Set on a busy corner in Fairhaven, the city’s historic sister district, it feels less like a single storefront and more like the center of a small literary village.
The store anchors a lively corner of Fairhaven, with Paper Dreams next door, its companion shop of gifts, crafts, and small curiosities, and the Colophon Café downstairs, a longtime partner just steps away. Behind the building, a wide-open village green unfolds, hosting summer film nights, craft fairs, and community gatherings that feel, in practice, like part of the bookstore itself. A statue of Mark Twain stands just outside, as if keeping watch over it all.
The bookstore itself spreads across multiple floors: an event space downstairs with rows of chairs and a lectern; the large, open Next Chapter Café upstairs, nestled beside the Writers Corner and balcony; an open path into the adjoining gifts and crafts shop. There’s also dedicated space highlighting book clubs, writing groups, a publishing program, and partnerships with local nonprofits and schools.
Most bookstores would see this kind of expansion as dilution. Village Books sees it as the point.
When I spoke with co-owner Sarah Hutton, one principle surfaced again and again. “The mission, from the beginning, has been building community,” Sarah said. “It becomes less of a transaction and more of building, strengthening that.”
Community is not a branding or a programming choice, but infrastructure for Village Books. And once you notice it, you start to see it everywhere in the store. The café invites people to stay longer than a typical retail space might encourage. Square footage that could easily hold more books instead holds chairs, tables, and room to gather. When I bring my family, I often get lost in the shelves, chasing down staff picks, while my daughter slips into Paper Dreams to find treasures of her own. It can be hard to tell where one space ends and the next begins.
Community isn’t singular for the store either. Village Books talks about many communities, layered together. “Our staff is our community. Our customers are our community,” the team explained. Beyond that are the neighborhoods the store serves—Fairhaven and Lynden—as well as schools, libraries, nonprofits, and other local businesses.
Staff aren’t just employees here; they are the primary stewards of the store’s culture, shaping what’s on the shelves, how people are welcomed, and the feel of the space. That long view becomes especially clear over time. Village Books has been operating for forty-five years, long enough to watch entire generations of readers pass through, “The kid who was rummaging around in board books is now looking at grown-up books,” said Sarah. “Watching that is so nourishing.”
Writers are part of that cycle too. Village Books hosts an extensive network of book clubs and writing groups, runs a small publishing program, and supports emerging authors through initiatives like Chanticleer Reviews. The path from reader to writer is not abstract here—it’s visible, local, and ongoing. “Those are the future authors who are going to stand at this lectern,” said Sarah.
None of this is particularly efficient in the traditional retail sense. Event spaces sit empty between readings. New writers don’t always sell out rooms. Partnerships take time. But Village Books treats those choices as investments rather than inefficiencies. The effect is recursive. Each group feeds the others, reinforcing a system that’s larger than any single part.
The bookstore’s longevity suggests the strategy works. After forty-five years, Village Books hasn’t survived by optimizing transactions. It has survived by cultivating relationships between readers, writers, staff, and the wider community that gathers around it. In the end, that’s the store’s quiet secret: Village Books isn’t a bookstore with a community. It’s a community that happens to sell books.
Scott Lambridis is a novelist based in Bellingham, Washington. A former indie press founder, performance series organizer, olive farmer, and progressive rocker, he studied neurobiology at the University of Virginia, earned an MFA from San Francisco State University, and read a book from every country in the world. His debut novel, St. Ulphia’s Dead, is forthcoming from Regal House Publishing on July 7, 2026. Learn more at scottlambridis.com
