This Kansas City suburb didn’t have a bookstore. This woman just changed that
Life’s short. Ask a hospice worker.
“I’ve been in social work for 15 years, hospice the last seven,” said Angie Land. “It was just getting to be time to do something else. I write poetry, and I’d always had the idea that I wanted to open a bookstore. Eventually I realized nobody was going to do it for me. So here we are.”
On Saturday, Land opened Trailhead Books, a used bookstore at 10009 E. 63rd St. in Raytown — the only bookstore in that Kansas City suburb. (Anastasia’s Books, at 10416 E. 63rd St., closed during the pandemic.) The location had been empty for a few years, but prior to that was the longtime home of Raytown Shoe Repair.
Land sells the usual used-bookshop mix: fiction, classics, self-help, current affairs, history, cooking, art, children’s.
“I’ve been finding a lot of rare and antique stuff, too, which I’m trying to figure out what to do with,” Land said.
She chose the name Trailhead due to the shop’s proximity to the Rock Island Trail and for the parallels she sees between nature and bookshops.
“You go out in nature to get away from things, have a breather,” Land said. “It’s the same idea in a bookshop like this. Get away from the daily grind. Find some kind of treasure or adventure. What you see today might not be the same as what you see tomorrow.”
Land envisions Trailhead Books as a community space, with book clubs, open mics and readings by local authors. She serves coffee and tea and plans to have baked goods on the weekends.
Hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The arrival of Trailhead Books comes amid a bit of a surge in new local bookstores around the metro recently, including Seven Stories in Shawnee, Under the Cover romance bookstore in midtown, and a pair in downtown Overland Park, The Pretty Posy and Monstera’s Books.
