{"id":182426,"date":"2025-08-28T12:40:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T12:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/182426\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T12:40:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T12:40:11","slug":"denver-bookstore-west-side-books-faces-challenges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/182426\/","title":{"rendered":"Denver bookstore West Side Books faces challenges"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first thing you notice walking into West Side Books is the smell. It\u2019s a good smell. It\u2019s the smell of older books, stirring up memories of entering a small-town library where the head librarian knew your name and what you liked to read.<\/p>\n

Customers of West Side Books in Denver\u2019s Highland neighborhood know that feeling. Longtime visitors to the store at 3434 W. 32nd Ave. talk about owner Lois Harvey and the staff as friends who are ready to recommend new titles and guide them through the overflowing shelves of new and old books that one person likened to a treasure hunt. The store also sells rare books.<\/p>\n

The yellow arrows on the floor pointing the way to the exit are handy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI look around and I go, \u2018Oh, there\u2019s a book I didn\u2019t realize that I needed,\u2019 \u201d said Michael Hester, who lives one block west of the store.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been my home bookstore for years,\u201d said Jody Georgeson, who lives farther north. \u201cLois is always more than happy to talk about what we\u2019ve been reading and what we like and what we didn\u2019t. It feels like home.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the future is uncertain for the bookstore that has been a mainstay in a neighborhood that has changed significantly in recent years.<\/a> Harvey, 72, plans to retire on Jan. 1. She started working in bookstores in Denver in the late 1970s and opened Capitol Hill Books on Colfax Avenue in January 1980. She sold it in 1995.<\/p>\n

Matt Aragon-Shafi, the manager, wants to carry on Harvey\u2019s work. The 36-year-old\u00a0has been a fan of West Side Books since browsing its shelves when he attended nearby North High School. He has worked at the store for eight years.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s the heir. He gets to take it and run,\u201d Harvey said as she and Aragon-Shafi sat in a little nook at the front of the store. \u201cMatt showed interest, enthusiasm, ability, intelligence and the ability to work hard. He\u2019s very strong. He has a supportive husband.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harvey and her staff built up the online services to keep going during the height of the coronavirus pandemic when people stayed out of most stores. Customers can now roam through the narrow aisles to look for books or order them online. Aragon-Shafi has helped boost the store\u2019s social media presence.<\/p>\n

Harvey, however, acknowledged that keeping the doors open will likely mean downsizing and might require selling off parts of the business, such as the used-book collection. West Side Books\u2019 rent recently more than doubled.<\/p>\n

\u201cLandlords can get Cherry Creek rents now, or property taxes are such that landlords have to push those limits because of what their costs are,\u201d Harvey said. \u201cIf it weren\u2019t for an anonymous donor, we wouldn\u2019t even be able to say we could be here through the end of the year. That\u2019s big. If you\u2019re in retail and you don\u2019t have those last four months of the year, you\u2019ve just lost a lot of money.\u201d<\/p>\n

The building\u2019s owners have said they want West Side Books to stay, but also have plans to develop the property, Harvey said. What portion of the current 3,200-square-foot space would be available for the store is unclear. A restaurant sits on part of the property.<\/p>\n

Harvey said Aragon-Shafi faces the challenge of figuring out \u201chow to keep it together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s smart, he\u2019s good. He will figure it out,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Is Aragon-Shafi ready for the challenge? \u201cI\u2019m as ready as I can be,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"WestWest Side Books in Denver on Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025. (Photo by Hyoung Chang\/The Denver Post)
\nA neighborhood mainstay<\/p>\n

Aragon-Shafi, who started in retail when he was 18, said he\u2019s learned a lot about the book business from Harvey. He has learned to be more reflective, to think before acting and to reach out when he needs something.<\/p>\n

And he\u2019s learned about relating to customers in what is often a more close relationship than in other retail businesses. He\u2019s optimistic about being able to stay in the store\u2019s longtime home.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe may have to downsize, curtail our inventory, see what the neighborhood wants of us,\u201d Aragon-Shafi said.<\/p>\n

West Side Books first opened in 1997 in a different spot on West 32nd Avenue. Harvey and her brother, Jim Harvey, ran West Side Books & Curios together until moving to the current location in 1999. Her brother, who became a silent partner, owned the building, once a vehicle transmission shop, until 2022.<\/p>\n

The store, with its purple, salmon and yellow exterior, has been an anchor \u201cfor our little commercial area here,\u201d Hester said. \u201cLois brings in authors to speak about their books. She has occasional meetings of community groups there. She hosts various events that really bring people in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hester has volunteered to help with the sound system for some of the events. He also contributes to the inside decor that includes posters, pictures and sculptures. He donated an acoustic guitar that was hung in the music section.<\/p>\n

The area has changed dramatically since Hester moved to Highland in 1989. He recalled hearing gunfire at times. There was a meth lab operating in the neighborhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, of course, it\u2019s totally gentrified. The house next door to me sold two years ago for $1.2 million,\u201d Hester said.<\/p>\n

\"OwnerOwner Lois Harvey sorts books at West Side Books in Denver on Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2025. (Photo by Hyoung Chang\/The Denver Post)<\/p>\n

Losing West Side Books is one change that Georgeson doesn\u2019t want to see in the area. \u201cOf course that\u2019s always a concern. I think that they have enough support that maybe the neighborhood won\u2019t let that happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Georgeson said that having independent book stores is a key to maintaining an educated public.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you get the big monopolies, all you get are the best sellers. You don\u2019t get a well-rounded body of things to browse through and consider,\u201d Georgeson said. \u201cI think it\u2019s also important as a gathering place for a neighborhood, a place people go to feel that sense of a community.\u201d<\/p>\n

When she retires, Harvey said she\u2019ll still try to help Aragon-Shafi with whatever he needs. She also plans to spend time with her husband\u2019s grandchildren and her daughter and her daughter\u2019s cats.<\/p>\n

Harvey, who grew up in New Mexico, figured she would pursue a medical career. Her mother was a nurse and her best friend was going to medical school. Then she got the bug for the book business. She started dating a man who had a small book and comics store on Colfax Avenue.<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved the books. I loved the variety. I loved having a chance to exercise my curiosity and to help people find things to exercise their curiosity,\u201d Harvey said. \u201cI think curiosity is really one of our best features as human beings.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first thing you notice walking into West Side Books is the smell. It\u2019s a good smell. It\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":182427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[1022,64,9559,102734,102735,102736,4439,7824,8605,102737,171,4440,56953,1370,50,6215,6270,67,132,68,102738],"class_list":{"0":"post-182426","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-capitol-hill","11":"tag-capitol-hill-books","12":"tag-cherry-creek","13":"tag-colfax","14":"tag-colorado","15":"tag-coronavirus","16":"tag-denver","17":"tag-denver-north-high-school","18":"tag-entertainment","19":"tag-front-range","20":"tag-highland","21":"tag-latest-headlines","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-reading","24":"tag-retail","25":"tag-united-states","26":"tag-unitedstates","27":"tag-us","28":"tag-west-side-books"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115106442383267489","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182426","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=182426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}