Molly Coogan is store manager and buyer for the Bunch of Grapes Bookstore in Vineyard Haven.
On Monday, following Gov. Charlie Baker’s mandate, the store closed its doors at 2 p.m. for however long is necessary.
Ms Coogan hit the road doing a few last deliveries.
“I took some kids books — Frog and Toad, Ferdinand, some other classics — to a family with little kids, and dropped off the new Emily St. John Mandel novel The Glass Hotel to another customer. It comes out officially tomorrow so she got it early,” she said.
Last week, when the store was still open for browsing, Ms. Coogan said people were mostly looking for books on pandemics and plagues but the store had already sold out.
“The Plague by Camus was long gone,” she said. “But I did sell World War Z, about the zombie apocalypse. I don’t know, maybe it makes people feel better, that it could be worse.”
After finishing her book deliveries, Ms. Coogan headed home to Oak Bluffs where she lives with her husband and two sons.
She is reading Blackwood by Michael Farris Smith.
“It’s a Southern Gothic novel. I had just finished a campus novel that took place in the Midwest and wanted to go south, to where the kudzu was swallowing up everything,” she said.
Although the store is closed for now, Ms. Coogan remains open. Readers can visit the website to order books, and on the door of Bunch of Grapes, Ms. Coogan has left her email.
“Anyone who wants to can check in with me and ask for book recommendations,” she said.
Visit bunchofgrapes.indielite.org or check in with Ms. Coogan at molly4books@gmail.com
—Bill Eville
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