It Happened Here
Spotlight on Independent Stores:
Afterwords with Kramer
By Robert M. Hill, WIW Member
Dupont Circle has many attractions but one that stands out is Kramer Books & Afterwords located at 1517 Connecticut Avenue, NW. There is more to Kramer Books than just books. On August 15, 2007, I talked with Kramer Books & Afterwords’ General Manager Scott Abel who has been at the store for 5 years and has a lot to share about the bookstore. In 1976, the store opened at 1825 I Street, NW., and eventually moved to Dupont Circle. Scott believes it is one of the first bookstores to become a café, bar and restaurant, not to mention a jazz concert venue on Friday nights on the upper level of the bookstore.
I interviewed Abel in the reference section of the bookstore, which I thought was interesting, for what better place to find out about the store.
Q: What influenced the move from I Street to Dupont Circle?
The idea occurred to my boss, W. David Tenney, to have a bookstore in Dupont Circle, and Henry Posner, a friend, wanted to open the restaurant using the legacy of the Kramer name. The corporation, as it stands now, is Kramer Books, Afterwords Café. Kramer Books & Afterwards Café is a full-service bookstore, bar and restaurant.
Q: What is the relationship between the store and the authors who have their books here?
After speaking with several of the authors, they consider it to be a milestone. Authors consider Kramers an important store to have their books in. We no longer hold events because of the push for extra space and seating needed for the restaurant and the bar. Our intentions are to sell the books and feed the people; unfortunately, that meant author events would no longer be held. But we try to do our best with every local author who is book worthy. For example, local authors such as Edward Jones and George Pelacanos, who are fiction writers and politicians, have tried to get their books into our store—obviously this is the center of the American political scene.
Q: Just about every publisher that has made their name in American publishing is carried: Random House, Simon and Schuster, PGW (Publishers Group West), Seven Story Press, University of Chicago Press, Yale Books, Pamphlet Style Books and even some of the smaller start-up presses. Kramer doesn’t carry romance novels, but it does have a small section on plays. What type of plays do you carry?
You can rely on us to carry Shakespeare, yes, but something more modern or obscure probably not. We carry great fiction, great history, great science section and travel books.
Q: The best-seller section is packed not just with books but readers who circle the box shaped display to get a look at what is new from authors such as Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Bob Woodward and Jeremy Scahill. What do readers have to say about the store outside of its good selection?
Customers compliment us on carrying hard to find books. The books we carry, they cannot find them elsewhere. Normally they say we are a great little hip place to hang out, pick each other up and have a good time.
Q: With such a diverse age group, what do your customers like to read?
New political books. On the weekend, our travel section gets a lot of readership because of the tourist season. We carry books that will resonate with the community and with the people that come to our store. In larger bookstores, you can find our books but you also find 20 shelves of books that are crap as well. We don’t use filler books just to fill our shelves; we carry the best, the cream of the crop, and no outdated books. We talk to our customers and order books that our customers want to read.
Q: What do you want your members and prospective customers to know about your bookstore?
We don’t pay attention to the best seller lists of the New York Times or the Los Angeles Times. We pay attention to our own best seller list. If you are a DC writer, whether you are Hillary Clinton or an author writing about life in southern Shaw, there is a place for your book here; if a book does well, we will keep it around. The Wal-Marts of the world sell books now, and the quality is questionable; you can count on us to carry quality books.”
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Abel runs a tight ship, and one visit to the bookstore will speak for it. From academia to politics or just for something in their fiction section to take you away, Kramer Books and Afterwords is in a class all by itself.