Dog Star Books…
for the Sirius Reader
by Laurie Ulrich Fuller
Seriously, Dog Star Books is a bookstore for people who love to read. And it was a love of reading--spawned in a childhood spent moving many times and being “the new kid” in school--that led Brian Frailey to what’s become his life’s work: scouting for, buying, and selling books. Complementing his successful online venture (www.dogstarbooks.com), the store at the corner of Pine and Chestnut Streets in Lancaster City is filled, floor to ceiling, with used books of all kinds, from children’s books to scholarly works to classic fiction in hard and paperback. Art books also abound, as do books on spiritual topics, history, science, and travel. Just about any topic or genre is represented, and even if you’re just a casual reader, you’re sure to find something you’d like to read or that would delight a reader on your holiday gift list.
Dog Star Books opened its doors in October of 2006, on the first floor of a building Frailey owns. He has a tenant on the upper floors, and is also restoring a house on Orange Street for himself and his family. He and his wife, Lahow, have a four-year old son, Orion, and are expecting their second child soon. Brian and Lahow met in Thailand, where he was teaching Burmese refugees for several years. A love of travel in general and of Asia in particular landed him there, and he put his education in Literature and his political leanings to good use helping the survivors of the 1988 revolution learn English and pursue funding for their own political futures.
Returning to Lancaster in 2001, Frailey married Lahow on U.S. soil (he’d also married her in Thailand, but post-9/11 Homeland Security makes that sort of thing quite complicated), and began selling books online through his website. The decision to open a physical bookstore stemmed from his desire to be a “part of the flow of the community, and to get back into the world” – something that can be difficult if your only connection to your customers is via computer. In truth, however, Frailey has been buying and selling books for decades, finding them at flea markets, library sales, and antique stores. He’s been collecting books since he was a young child, single-handedly keeping the Scholastic program in business when it visited his school, and then becoming a young “book scout” at the tender age of 13. Having enviably found his true calling, Brian Frailey is likely to be finding good books and selling them to avid readers for the rest of his life.
His store’s contribution to the flow of the community takes forms other than simply being a supplier of good books. You’ll find poetry readings, music, and art shows within Dog Star Books, and as First Friday activity makes its natural and long-overdue spread from Gallery Row and the stores in the immediate downtown area, Frailey hopes to see fans of books, music, and art venture through his doors on Friday evenings. Perhaps they’ll be even more motivated to do so after the Chestnut Hill Café finally opens, just across the street.
So how do all the used books end up at Dog Star Books? Many of them are brought in by people who are thinning their home inventory of books, and many come from estate sales. Still a book scout (though with less time to be one), Frailey will pay for books that are in good condition and likely to sell, and offers people what their books are honestly worth. There are unscrupulous booksellers out there, people who’ll try to get the lowest price possible; sometimes paying just a few dollars for something they know can be resold for hundreds. Brian Frailey doesn’t indulge in that sort of deception, however, because he loves books and respects the people who own them.
Dog Star Books recently hosted Don Devine, author of Jane: A Flight to Freedom, and frequently host signings and readings with authors of current fiction and non-fiction works. Starting December 7, come by to see collages and other images by artist Katherine Streeter, whose art will be accompanied by DJ Amos Funk, on First Friday. For more information, just tune to the Dog Star Books website (www.dogstarbooks.com).