Time seems to stop in Volume One Books, located in downtown Hillsdale. It feels as though everything were held suspended, as though – just maybe – this bookstore were a world unto itself; as though Lady History herself could walk in and feel perfectly at home.
Cross the threshold. The change is palpable, the environment suddenly calm. Perhaps it is the fancied, low hum of hundreds of voices; the murmured words of authors, hanging on the air like cigarette smoke; or perhaps it is the dignified, peaceable decay of thousands of pages.
Richard Wunsch, the owner of Volume One, is seated comfortably at a round, wooden table. His wavy, white hair is the only aspect that might belie a life spent roving. It refuses to be held captive within a knit cap.
Wunsch has been in Hillsdale County for more than 30 years. He graduated from a Grosse Pointe high school in 1958 before beginning college at Princeton University, only to marry and transfer to Wayne State in Detroit.
“I got a degree in Near Eastern history,” he laughs, “which qualified me to drive a cab.”
Drive a cab he did, for 52 years. From Detroit, it was on to teaching in Chicago, until he left in the spring of 1971 to do construction work in Ann Arbor. After Ann Arbor, Wunsch came to Hillsdale. He finally found home on a farm in Hillsdale County and spent 10 years there.
“Civil rights stuff, anti-war stuff, then it was back to the land,” Wunsch said of his life spent in political activism. “But it was when I was on the farm that I finally understood some things about who I was and where I was going. I had a place. I settled in. Spending a decade anchored to one spot does something for you. When I planted trees, raised hogs, it was easier for me to understand the cycle of earth and of life.”
Settling down in Hillsdale was as much a matter of geographical as emotional orientation.
“Part of it is the calmness which comes to you with maturity,” Wunsch said, “which has never totally come to me. But Hillsdale was what I wanted — out on a farm, out on land.”
The establishment of a bookstore is a natural outgrowth of Wunsch’s hopes to anchor the community, engage its inhabitants, and foster connections.
“I enjoy it,” Wunsch said. “And I think it’s really important for a town like Hillsdale – a town with 8 to 9,000 people and a college – to have a bookstore. I think it’s important for a social and political center to exist for people to come together, to talk, do research.”
But not all bookstores are created equal, and Wunsch has something very particular in mind for Volume One. Indeed, Volume One Books is not the bookstore’s only legal title. Its alternative moniker – DBA in legal jargon – is the Book, Art, and Spiritual Center of Hillsdale, or BASCH.
“The only other word I would add is political,” Wunsch said, after a moment’s consideration.
Politics has always been a significant factor in Wunsch’s life. Even in Hillsdale, he continues to seek reform. Volume One Books hosts a weekly political forum, and Wunsch is active in the common law grand jury movement in Hillsdale.
“Every Tuesday night, we have a political meeting,” Wunsch said. “Lately, we have been discussing the common law grand jury movement. We call ourselves the Hillsdale Common Law Assembly.”
Much of Wunsch’s current involvement is on behalf of the men and women of Hillsdale. Whether they are poor, homeless, or unjustly convicted of crime, they will find a sympathetic mind at Volume One. Wunsch has long been an outspoken advocate of public interests, despite social or political opposition.
“My first political activity was against the Joe McCarthy hearings in 1953,” Wunsch said. “I wrote a letter to the editor. It was published, but my father was a Grosse Pointe physician. He told me, ‘You’ve got the same last name as me, boy. You’d better be careful with this political stuff.’”
The bookstore, in keeping with Wunsch’s political philosophy, is ultimately intended to benefit the people who frequent it and the town in which it is embedded. It seeks to welcome all with open arms and affect growth through the ties of community.
“Your continued development as a human being is governed by what you read,” Wunsch said, “as well as by the people you talk to, the people you care for, the people who care for you.”
