Though Kristin Sollenberger has run a bookstore for 30 years, it wasn’t until studying painting at the Rhode Island School of Design that reading became a fixture in her life.
As she began spending more time with books she enjoyed, the newfound interest grew into a career that mirrored her artistic inclinations, which centered on giving new life to found materials.
At the Paper Nautilus used bookstore, that vision is reflected in “my urge to give books a second life, recycle them in a way that is planet-friendly,” Sollenberger said.
The store’s inventory – which Sollenberger estimates at around 25,000 to 30,000 books – offers an eclectic range, from recent releases and $1 finds to books that are hundreds of years old and cost thousands of dollars.
Sollenberger got her start in the bookselling business at the East Side location of Cellar Stories Bookstore, a formerly long-standing, now-shuttered Providence literary fixture owned by Michael Chandley.
Chandley shut down the East Side storefront in the mid-90s to focus on the bookstore’s downtown shop and sold his remaining inventory to Sollenberger. With that purchase, she opened her own shop, originally called Myopic Books, at 5 South Angell St. in Providence.
In 2017, she moved Paper Nautilus – a name she chose while leafing through one of her warmly regarded biology books – down the street to its current address at 19 South Angell St.
Today, the store, which specializes in rare books and sells a selection of other vintage “oddities,” benefits from a lingering COVID-19 pandemic-era demand for tactile activities, as well as increased support for local businesses.
“Everyone was spending entire days on their screens for work and pleasure,” Sollenberger said of the time. “People craved to have the object again and interact with it and not be doing what they do all day for the most part.”
But it hasn’t always been smooth sailing. Sollenberger changed the store’s name to Paper Nautilus in 2012 after receiving a complaint from a Chicago store that had claimed the business’s original name at an earlier date. And in the early days of e-commerce, as people found that they could purchase almost any book they wanted at low prices, brick-and-mortar stores faced a perilous economy.
But gradually, Sollenberger said, the novelty of online shopping wore off, and people became interested in exploring local shops and spontaneously finding new titles.
Still, she acknowledges, “there have been many times when I’m sure an outside person looking at my books would have said, ‘Why are you doing this? You should cut your losses and go learn a new trade.’ And times when I thought I should cut my losses and go start a new trade.”
But when she thinks of the support she’s received from family and customers over the years, the rough patches feel worth it.
“The community being so supportive and really showing me that they care about the shop and that it meant a lot to them as well kept me going,” Sollenberger said.
She also feels a responsibility to Providence’s used bookstore ecosystem. Chandley closed Cellar Stories in early 2023 after just over 40 years in business, and Sollenberger finds that she’s now one of the limited local options people have to repurpose old books.
Though Sollenberger sometimes finds books at estate sales or thrift stores, she sources much of her inventory from people who call her as they clean out their houses or prepare to move. From there, she curates titles based on condition, subject matter and rarity.
OWNER: Kristin Sollenberger
TYPE OF BUSINESS: Used bookstore
LOCATION: 19 South Angell St., Providence
YEAR FOUNDED: 1996
EMPLOYEES: Four
ANNUAL REVENUE: WND
