{"id":135609,"date":"2025-08-11T00:13:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T00:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/135609\/"},"modified":"2025-08-11T00:13:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T00:13:12","slug":"the-magic-of-the-space-calls-to-people-deseret-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/135609\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The magic of the space calls to people\u2019 \u2013 Deseret News"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re curious what kind of person \u2014 in this day and age of online shopping, e-book reading, tablet watching and Amazon dominating that tend to render Gutenberg practically obsolete \u2014 would want to run an independent bookstore, a brick-and-mortar place that sells actual books printed on actual printing presses, well, let\u2019s meet Anne Holman and Calvin Crosby.<\/p>\n

Anne and Calvin are owners of The King\u2019s English Bookshop, an east-side institution that has been in the same location \u2014 1500 East and 1500 South \u2014 since its founding 48 years ago.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re not the original owners \u2014 Anne bought her share in 2014 and Calvin his in 2021 \u2014 which only reinforces the perception that these must be the kind of people who either like to run away from popular conventional trends, or at least ignore them.<\/p>\n

\"\"Customers shop at The King’s English Bookshop in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, July 22, 2025. | Kristin Murphy, Deseret News <\/p>\n

But as with so many things in life, the reality is so much different, and so much better. Sit down for 15 minutes with Anne and Calvin and you\u2019re liable to start musing about owning a bookstore, too.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re not in it because they love being different (or broke). They\u2019re in it because they love books.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a love each can trace back to childhood.<\/p>\n

Anne was in preschool when she first discovered how good it made her feel to hold a book in her hand.<\/p>\n

\"\"Madison Miller and Madeline Miller browse books at The King\u2019s English Bookshop in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, July 22, 2025. | Kristin Murphy, Deseret News <\/p>\n

\u201cIn preschool they kicked me out because I wasn\u2019t doing anything else, I was just reading,\u201d she says, laughing. \u201cI wasn\u2019t interesting enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her father was in retail sales \u201cand we moved all the time, all over the West, so for me it was always, move to a new house, find the library, have a book to read, because no matter what, a book is going to be your friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Calvin grew up \u201cbelow the poverty line\u201d in Magna. His grandmother \u201cwould literally give me her last dime to buy a used book at D.I.\u201d Learning to read, he says, \u201cit changed me. It gave me a safe space.<\/p>\n

\u201cI discovered there\u2019s so much more out there in the world, there are people I have things in common with that maybe I don\u2019t have in common with in my neighborhood, I became a more curious person, I learned empathy in a way I wouldn\u2019t have without reading.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Pins are pictured at The King\u2019s English Bookshop in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, July 22, 2025. | Kristin Murphy, Deseret News <\/p>\n

Both Anne and Calvin were introduced to The King\u2019s English long before they became owners.<\/p>\n

Anne started working at the store in 2000 when she moved to Salt Lake City and her children reached school-age. At first she was a bookseller, then she managed special events, then she managed the store, and in 2014, when then co-owner Barbara Hoagland wanted to retire, she bought her share.<\/p>\n

Calvin\u2019s history with The King\u2019s English goes back to when he got his driver\u2019s license in 1986. By now an unabashed bookophile, for years he\u2019d heard people talk about this amazing book store on the east side, but until he turned 16, he had no way of getting there.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like walking into Narnia,\u201d he reminisces. \u201cI went through that small little door and the world opened up for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Cole Utley reads at The King\u2019s English Bookshop in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, July 22, 2025. | Kristin Murphy, Deseret News <\/p>\n

It should come as no surprise that Calvin chose the book business for his career. After two-plus decades in the industry, he was executive director of the California Independent Booksellers Alliance in 2021 when he received a phone call from Betsy Burton, the woman who founded The King\u2019s English with Ann Berman in 1978.<\/p>\n

Betsy was ready to retire, she informed Calvin, and given his years of experience and his familiarity with The King\u2019s English, wanted his advice on how to best proceed in selling her share of the store.<\/p>\n

As Calvin remembers it, he hung up, thought about it for a second, then called Betsy back and said, \u201cThere\u2019s just one piece of advice I\u2019ll give you, sell it to me, because I can\u2019t imagine anybody going in and messing up King\u2019s English.\u201d<\/p>\n

He resigned his post in California, moved back to Utah, and has been running the bookshop with Anne ever since.<\/p>\n

\"\"Alexis Powell, bookseller, shelves books in the children\u2019s room at The King\u2019s English Bookshop in Salt Lake City on Tuesday, July 22, 2025. | Kristin Murphy, Deseret News <\/p>\n

The owners admit that it\u2019s a new and ever-shifting business landscape they\u2019ve inherited, one where social media rules the day and the importance of \u201cinfluencers\u201d cannot be overstated. Competing with Amazon and Instagram is a lot different than competing with big box stores like Borders back in the day.<\/p>\n

But people keep coming through the door, many of them familiar faces that have been here before.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe magic of the space calls to people,\u201d says Calvin. \u201cTurnover is not what it means in other places, we never let you go. A former bookseller said it best: \u2018The King\u2019s English is like Hotel California; you can check out but you can never leave.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps nothing helps describe the illusive \u201cmagic\u201d behind The King\u2019s English\u2019s ability to meld the past with the present than when Anne talks about Charles Dickens.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to keep at least five different Charles Dickens titles on the shelf,\u201d she says, \u201cand the only way I can pay for those is to sell a lot of candles, or a lot of gift cards, or extraordinary scarves, but it\u2019s important I think to have good Dickens on the shelf, or E.L. Doctorow, or Toni Morrison.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the kind of place this is. And that\u2019s the kind of people who own it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you\u2019re curious what kind of person \u2014 in this day and age of online shopping, e-book reading,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":135610,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[1022,171,63331,67,132,68,424],"class_list":{"0":"post-135609","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-the-west","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us","14":"tag-utah"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}