Independent Bookstores #1 in Ranking in Consumer Reports
Consumer Reports magazine, perhaps the country's most influential buyers' guide, notes in its January 2002 issue that 88 percent of the readers responding to a survey said they were either completely satisfied or very satisfied with their shopping experiences at independent bookstores. The magazine noted that such high approval for independents "puts those stores on a par with the highest-rated stores from any Consumer Reports survey in recent years."
There was cause for celebration in Arkansas this September as That Bookstore in Blytheville at once reached a milestone and gained a colleague: That Bookstore has become those bookstores. The day owner Mary Gay Shipley held a party to mark That Bookstore in Blytheville's 25th anniversary, her protégé MaryAlice Hurst, new owner of That Bookstore at Mountebanq Place, opened for business in Conway, Arkansas.