Local Ann Arbor bookstore Booksweet opened a new chapter this past summer as the owners since 2021, Shaun Manning and Truly Render, handed the store over to a new team, consisting of Darcy Rhoden, her husband Casey Thacker, Rhoden’s sibling Louis and Rhoden’s dad Del.
Manning and Render bought Booksweet, then known as Bookbound, in the middle of the pandemic, which came with a series of challenges. But they were able to use the unique opportunities Covid presented to create a space that reflected their own personal values.
“We’re really, really proud of what we were able to build, in terms of creating a welcoming and affirming space where people could not only find the books that they were looking for, but also discover things that they might not have known about,” Manning said.
On April 30 of this year, Manning and Render posted a notice saying they were looking for new owners, and they had their first request for a meeting within 15 minutes.
“We took a couple bad calls,” Manning said. “I took a call from one company that basically wanted to absorb it into this regional chain. After talking for about five minutes, it was not something that either of us were interested in.”
That’s where the Rhoden/Thacker family came in.
“Booksweet was my local bookstore,” Darcy Rhoden said. “The former owners sent an email out, and the title of the email was, ‘Are you Booksweet’s new owners?’ I called my dad in a panic because I thought my local bookstore was closing, and I was really sad that an independent bookstore was going out of business, potentially. My dad, who, like me, also doesn’t have any bookstore experience, said we should take a meeting and see what happens.”
Manning and Render came out of their first meeting with the Rhoden/Thacker family with an overwhelmingly favorable impression.
“We came out of that meeting and really hoped that the next owners would be them, that they would make an offer,” Manning said. “They were personable, they were energetic, they had some business experience. And they talked to us about books, which not everyone did.”
The Rhoden/Thacker family’s perspective on that meeting was also extremely positive.
“We really, really got along with Shaun and Truly, and we were really inspired by their vision for the bookstore,” Darcy Rhoden said. “We just really loved what they wanted the bookstore to continue to be after they moved on, and so we put in an offer. And luckily, they vibed with us, too.”
Moving on from the bookstore was bittersweet for Manning and Render.
“It was sad because we built this thing,” Manning said. “I still feel very close to it and personally invested in it. But as far as working with the Rhoden/Thacker family and sorting out logistics, it was very smooth. It was very comfortable. It was heartening and encouraging to see their enthusiasm for it and their approach to things.”
The Rhoden/Thacker family has seen a very welcoming response from the community since they took over on July 1.
“We are really lucky that we’ve had support, not only from Shaun and Truly, but this community has been so great,” Darcy Rhoden said. “When you’re taking over a business, and you’ve never done this before, you don’t know a lot of things, and the community around us has been awesome. Book people are just the nicest people.”
Darcy Rhoden said that the atmosphere of Booksweet is something that she and her family really loved from the beginning.
“When you walk in, you can see that they focus on being really inclusive from a gender perspective, from a race perspective, they honor the indigenous tribe that was here before Ann Arbor was established,” she said. “And I just think it’s really important that those voices are heard in the publishing community in particular.”
The Rhoden/Thacker family is working to cultivate that energy in this new phase of Booksweet’s life.
“We came in really just wanting to keep a local bookstore in Ann Arbor, because we are residents of Ann Arbor,” Darcy Rhoden said, “and it has been a pretty grand adventure so far.”
