SCENE + SEEN
Edgartown Books
Striving to Make It the Best
By Amelia Smith
Halfway down Main Street, you’ll find Edgartown Books in a cozy old house with shelves full of a dazzling variety of books and gifts. The store invites lingering, exploration, and conversation over coffee at small tables upstairs in winter, in the summer people get their coffee at Behind the Bookstore and sit on our front porch. “A thing about independent bookstores is that people can be surprised,” says manager Mathew Tombers.
“They come in looking for one thing and walk out with another.”
“I attempt to do my best to make it the best bookstore for Edgartown,” he says. “If I were running a bookstore in Minneapolis it would be very different.” Mathew makes space for local authors, from first-time self published novelists to Pulitzer prizewinners, and the store hosts dozens of events a year, including author signings on the porch in the summer. He also aims to anticipate what readers will want. “I will buy one or two of books I think are really interesting,” he says, “and someone will come in and want it.” One of these was Empress of the Nile, a book about a French archeologist who saved ancient temples from being flooded when a dam was built. It sat on the shelf for a long time, until one summer day, a harried man walked in with an elderly woman and said, “Please tell me that you have Empress of the Nile.” Mathew replied, “I’ve been waiting for you.”
Mathew came to bookselling after a long and varied career in media, working for radio, television, and production companies in a variety of roles. His old friends, Joyce and Jeffrey Sudikoff, bought Edgartown Books in 2012, and in 2016 they invited him to come help out for a few weeks. Bored with retirement, he returned to the Island for a summer job in 2018 and he’s been here ever since.
“I’m the envy of all the people I know in media because they all dreamed that in retirement they would run a bookstore in a place like Edgartown,” Mathew says. “I have one more act in my life I was not expecting.”
Edgartown Books at 44 Main Street in Edgartown is open daily from 10am to 5pm. 10 - 9pm in the summer, starting around Memorial Day. You can find out about upcoming events and much more at: edgartownbooks.com.