Leaning gently against a handmade blue shelf a few feet inside the door of Liberty Books & Comics stand two spiraling stacks of hardcovers. Atop the first, a copy of McGraw of the Giants, a biography of Hall of Fame baseball manager John McGraw; atop the other, The Terror Conspiracy by Jim Marrs, a book characterizing the government’s pronouncement on 9/11 as a conspiracy. Just below the front counter you can find the Field Guide to Nature in New England about an arm’s length away from Let’s Abolish Government by Lysander Spooner.
Just your typical independent local bookstore. Assuming, of course, you imagine that a typical independent local bookstore contains comic books, origami, wind chimes, Snickers bars and jerky, something called the Disappearing Civil Liberties Mug and what owner Jim Dodson refers to as “probably the finest selection of books on freedom you are going to find east of Brave New Books in Austin, Texas.”
But the store is about as anonymous as it is eclectic, thanks in part to its nondescript location on Allison Street, just off Broadway in the South End. It’s home to perhaps Concord’s largest selection of comic books to purchase, as well as a handful of literary classics and shelves packed with books tackling the topic of freedom, and yet even your GPS may not have heard of it.
“A lot of people are surprised when they discover us,” Dodson said. “They say, ‘Wow, I didn’t know you were here.’ You’ve got to really go out of your way to find us here.”
To that end, Dodson tries to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. He stocks classic and modern comics – including all the Marvel hits like Spiderman, X-Men and Iron Man – and has an extensive collection of Walking Dead items, from comics and trade paperbacks (collections of six comic book issues) to puzzles, T-shirts and games. He also features a selection of Dover Thrift editions of literary classics and other popular works of fiction.
What he doesn’t have, he’ll order. “Anything you can see in another store, we can get,” Dodson said, noting that typically items arrive in about a week.
What makes Liberty Books unique, though, is its distinctive style – a set of wind chimes hangs in the middle of the store, candy bars and jerky are sold and other items for purchase include origami kits – and, most notably, the vast selection of books dealing with freedom, a topic that is of “personal interest, but something I think is critically important,” Dodson said. (There’s also the Disappearing Civil Liberties Mug, which allows you to watch your rights disappear as hot liquid is poured in).
Dodson relocated from Maryland, where he spent his entire life and ran a book store for the last 24 years, in part because he preferred the lifestyle outlined on New Hampshire’s license plates.
“Freedom – it’s a no-brainer, isn’t it? People think the opposite of libertarian is a lot of things, but the opposite of libertarian is authoritarian. That’s a very bad thing,” Dodson said. “You shouldn’t strive to be the opposite of libertarian. To do that is to put one’s head in a noose. And to willingly do it? How can someone do that?”
Dodson believes there is too much fear injected into daily life, both from government officials and from the mainstream media. Much of the literature he sells advocates for a different approach, including The Law of the Somalis, a book by Michael Van Notten that outlines a Somalian justice system that punishes criminals not by imprisoning them but rather by making them forever indebted to the people they wronged.
“There’s a lot of fear, and one of the sad things is seeing so many fear-inspiring moments,” Dodson said. “When you’re in a state of terror, it’s hard to even think. There seems to be an acceptance that what we’re getting is fact, but what we’re getting is smoke.”
Not everything on the shelves is aligned with Dodson’s beliefs, and that’s entirely intentional. A handful of the books available at Liberty come at things from the opposite viewpoint, and Dodson reads them just as voraciously as he would anything else. He also applies the same even-tempered approach to his dealings with people in everyday life.
“It’s important for me to respect everyone else’s rights, to view them as equals. I think that’s important to do,” Dodson said. “Politics should play very little or almost no importance in the value that you place on other people. We should try to strive to be able to deal with each other as fairly as we possibly can.”
Liberty Books is entirely Dodson’s creation, down to the wooden shelves he built himself, helping to give the store what he likes to call a “rustic charm.” And though foot traffic hasn’t been as consistent as he’d like, he says keeping storefronts like his open to the public remains important as more and more people turn to digital outlets for their information. The closing of Borders, for instance, was no reason to celebrate as an independent book store owner – while it may provide a small boost to his business in the short term, it’s indicative of a troubling trend over the long haul, Dodson said.
“In this changing world, the paper book is a little bit of an endangered thing,” Dodson said. “People are finding other ways to get the same information.”
The transition has even trickled into Dodson’s business, as he admits he does a fair amount of selling on sites like Amazon and eBay.
The doors remain open at Liberty Books, though, for anyone looking for a literary conversation or something new to read. Dodson got into the business to be his own boss and not have to work “within the structures of an institution,” but he wouldn’t mind seeing his humble venture become something of an institution in its own neighborhood.
“We’re really a little niche place. Every time we get a new customer, it’s cause for celebration,” Dodson said. “We always love to have someone come find our store. We’ll go to the trouble for them.”
