Bookstores, libraries, and other literary souls have long been safe harbors for ideas, community, and other dangerous ideals, so I always have to check them out when I stumble across them, even if it’s just a cursory glance.
Right now, Oklahoma City has about five or six raging independent bookstores holding firm to the true spirit of mass literacy—charging head-first into the wracked sternum of total commercialism, ever battling mega stores like Barnes & Noble.
That’s why it was an absolute pleasure to discover—in the white-bread, chicken-fried, MAGA-wonderland of Guthrie, Oklahoma—a new bookstore in an old town that revels in the ideals of what should make America great, A Novel Idea on 116 W. Oklahoma Ave.
But, sadly, not everyone in town appreciates folks who read good... or read at all.
Before the excited owners could cut the grand opening ribbon and say, “Imagine that!” a small band of feral internet crusaders began denigrating the owners, the staff, and, even worse, the customers, all in the name of a shit-brown red wave on a cheap ball cap.
You see, according to online posts in various forums like Reddit and Facebook, some of the local townsfolk have a problem with the small store’s LGBTQ+ section— as well as the romance section, which they say is filled with pornography.
Well, now I am fully intrigued!
After a short drive from the city to A Novel Idea in Guthrie, I was sold before I even made it inside. From the hanging sign in front to the doggy in the window, it had more charm and personality at first glance than most bookstores in Oklahoma City.
Surrounded by five antiques stores within a 50-foot radius, the people were streaming in, and I was one of them. They were there looking for new books, sinking cozily into well-worn chairs and couches, and, of course, giving belly rubs to the trio of mutts that mind the store.
Yes, there were LGBTQ+ books, but there was also a selection of banned books, anti-censorship posters, and a mural with a quote from Cicero that reads, “A room without books is like a body without a soul.” Sorry, but this store is more like a true progressive library than the lusty hotbed of sex and corruption that online pontiffs made it out to be.
When I went to the counter to ask about the rumored troubles surrounding the store, the clerk directed me to co-owner Rod Richardson, sitting in one of the aforementioned cozy chairs. While my wife was looking at the Jane Austen swag, I went to sit down and chat with him.
He told me that, for the most part, business has been good… with the exception of a neighboring business that has been trying to cause a commotion around everything A Novel Idea does, from superfluous real-life jabs on the street to racist posts in the Guthrie Reddit forums.
But, instead of turning a blind eye to the haters, Richardson and his co-owner, wife Chelsea, are having fun with them. Recently, they had shirts printed with an online review on the back that proclaims “a woke disaster disguised as a bookstore.”
Burn!
When I asked about the shirts, the owner said he can’t keep them in stock. It felt like a tiny Oklahoma enlightenment—people buying the shirts, wearing the insult proudly, and letting the local haters know their hate speech won’t be tolerated, even in Guthrie.
“We are intolerant of intolerance, I guess…” he said as he rubbed the snout of the bigger basset hound.
I walked around the store for a few minutes while my wife picked out various stickers for her laptop case. While she was doing that, like a true investigative journalist doing his due diligence, I tried my hardest to find the secret backlog of porn the right-wing loons said was so prevalent there… spoiler alert, it doesn't exist.
Yep, this is just another manufactured culture-war brouhaha of rural Karens who, one, don't read and, two, hate that you do.
We left A Novel Idea with some new books, a few stickers, and the sense that real people—real Oklahomans—are doing God’s work to keep us literate, educated, open-minded, and always critically thinking about how to make the world a better place.
Walking outside, I paused once more at the poster in the front window, which featured a quote from George Orwell’s 1984:
The Party told you to reject the evidence of your ears and eyes. It was their final, most essential command.
In Guthrie, A Novel Idea is doing the opposite—asking people to open their eyes, open their minds, and maybe even open a damn book.
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Follow Louis Fowler on Instagram at @louisfowler78.
