Wonderland Books is opening this fall, with an expected November debut. After the closure of Barnes & Noble, Bethesda has gone years without a staple bookstore. The bookstore will have a diverse selection of adult, young adult, and children’s books. The bookstore is co-owned by Gayle Weiswasser and Amy Joyce, longtime friends and book enthusiasts who shared a dream of opening an independent bookshop. The goal of the shop is to bring the community together and revitalize the book-buying experience by making it feel personal and local.
Weiswasser said, “Being an independent bookstore allows us to have some freedom and flexibility to do things that the chains can’t. It allows us to be more reflective of what the community wants. We’re not answering to a corporate algorithm, but we’re choosing books based on the books we think our community will like, and then we’ll ultimately shape that inventory by what they say they want.”
Wonderland Books hopes to connect with the Bethesda community and attract loyal customers through book clubs, author readings, and trivia nights. The bookstore will be located at 7920 Norfolk Avenue, across Wisconsin Avenue, a convenient spot for B-CC students to visit after school or during open lunch.
B-CC Junior Ellie Seiler is looking forward to the opening of the store and hopes it will make a difference for readers in the community. “There used to be an Amazon store with some books but it never had a good variety and reading from real books, especially from kids has declined so much in the past couple of years, it’s kinda depressing,” Seiler said.
The Wonderland owners see a strong opportunity with B-CC. “We know that we’re close, and we want to know what you guys are reading and what you like to read, and we want to stock that stuff. So Wonderland is a place that you guys like to come and hang out,” Weiswasser said.
To the co-owners, the store name “Wonderland” embodies the magic of bookstores. Joyce said, “Wonderland, that’s what bookstores are to us… that’s what bookstores always were. When that name came up, we were both just like, that’s the one.”
For more information and updates on the opening day, visit https://www.wonderlandbooks.com/.
