Volume One Bookstore to reopen under new name, new management

Home City News Volume One Bookstore to reopen under new name, new management
Volume One Bookstore to reopen under new name, new management

 

Volume 2 shop to open May 4. Nic Rowan | Collegian.

Volume One Bookstore will reopen as Volume 2 Bookstore next week.

Long-time store owner Richard Wunsch retired at 78 years- old and transferred ownership to Daniel Brown, Emily Wunsch, Sedrich Brown, and Tina Sanchez, who formed an LLC.

The new owners are remodeling the store to make it into a community center and bookstore.

“We’re trying to make it a bookstore and an event center, so there will be music and arts — whatever the community really wants,” Daniel Brown said. “We’re trying to give them something to do besides stay home.”

Volume 2 Bookstore will have its grand opening on Friday, May 4 with the theme, “May the 4th be with you.”

“We’re gonna try to celebrate some weird holidays just for fun,” Daniel Brown said.

Volume 2 will have Tarot readings from noon to 4 p.m., face painting from noon to 3 p.m., trivia at 3 p.m., and a raffle at 4 p.m.

The day after the grand opening, Volume 2 Bookstore will hold two bands from Michigan. Ghost in the Attic, a band from Lansing, and Menes Guunah, a Detroit-based band, will perform. Tickets cost $15. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.

Volume 2 will have local artisans, such as soap makers, jewelry makers, painters, and knitters, with whom the public can make art from noon to 5 p.m. on Saturday, May 5th.

The bottom floor of the store will have bookcases lining the walls. By taking out bookshelves in the back of the store, the owners made room for a stage and seating.

“It’s still going to be a bookstore, although we won’t have the complete inventory accessible to the public,” Daniel Brown said. “We’ll try to keep material on the ground floor that people are interested in.”

Sanchez and Sedrich Brown will manage the store. Sanchez said she will focus on arts, classes, and events.

“We’re going to clean up the upstairs and have classrooms available,” Sanchez said. “We’ll have soap making classes, we have artisan friends who make handmade wool socks from sheep that they sheer themselves, and all sorts of stuff like that. We’re hoping to promote local business and artisans.”

The store will also host open mic nights, poetry readings, and musicians.

Wunsch retired after owning the store for about 30 years, according to Daniel Brown.

“He started Volume 2 in the basement of the Keifer House,” he said. “It moved from the basement of the Keifer house out toward the curve at W. Carleton Road and Lewis Street. Then he moved over to the old church that is now the parking lot on the other side of the post office.”

From there, he moved the bookstore into the building where Papa’s Treasure currently operates. In 2006, he moved to the store’s current location.

“He loves books, and he’s always been selling books,” Daniel Brown said. “Before this, he had a bookstore in Ann Arbor called Wooden Spoon Books.”

Daniel said the store has a good manager in Sedrich.

“He’s been doing retail for a long time,” Daniel Brown said. “He could count back change and run a register by the time he was 9.”