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Business & Tech

Business Spotlight: Book Nook

Each week we feature a business from our hometown of Lilburn. This week, learn more about Book Nook.

Alex Duvall was introduced to the world of books at a very young age. Admittedly, Alex got his first job in the company to pay for his comic book habit. Duvall has worked for Book Nook for more than 25 years and has been the general manager of the Lilburn location for the past 10. Alex Nunan, the owner of the three stores in the Atlanta metro area, opened the Lilburn location in the early nineties. I recently sat down with Duvall to talk about the book store.

Patch: What is the best aspect of managing Book Nook?

Alex: For a store like this, since we deal in so many things besides books, even though books are the heart of the store, so many of the people that come in here are afficianados you might say. They are looking for things that are a little bit off of the beaten path. Just having conversations while working here with these people I have been exposed to so many books and music and movies that I would never have given a thought to otherwise. It's just great in that regard.

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Patch: What is the most challenging aspect of managing a book store?

Alex: I would say now the most challenging aspect is that the market is changing. So much of the media we deal with have gone digital. First with music, then with movies and now books with all of the choices. We have to work harder to give people reasons to keep coming back because now they can just go to their computers.

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Patch: What makes Book Nook unique?

Alex: I've been in other used book stores but I've never seen one quite like ours. Usually used book stores are just that, they're just books. But we're a lot of other things as well. We have music and we have comics and we have movies. So if you are the type of person who is looking for something off of the beaten path and you want to save money, the way our system works with the trading, you can really stretch your dollar a long way and find lots of interesting things to feed your head with so to speak. Our trade-in program also sets us apart. We offer half of what we would sell a book for in store credit. So if you find some books here while shopping you can use the credit to pay for up to 50% off of what the total is. If you take into account that our books are already between 40 and 80 percent off of what you would find at a store that sells new books you can really save some money.

Patch: What makes the Lilburn community special?

Alex: I would say it is the diversity. My clientele that comes in is across the spectrum. It's a very diverse crowd and we try our best to cater to everyone. I don't just mean ethnicity but as far as interests, political ideology, whatever. We try to cater to as many different interests as possible. And that is what makes Lilburn so unique. It is truly its own melting pot of people.

Located at 4664 Lawrenceville Hwy., Book Nook is open Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. until 8 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. Book Nook has two other locations, one in Decatur and the other in Marietta.

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