Pleasure Doing Business: Small Adventures Book Shop

Small-town bookstores are a dying breed, but Gulfport has its very own “cubby hole” reading spot in the.

Small Adventures Book Shop is located on Beach Boulevard tucked away by the Beach Bazaar.

Jan and Bruce Dutton bought the spot in the mid 80's, but it wasn't ready just yet. Much of the cottage needed to be remodeled and fixed up. It took nearly three years of working on the weekends to fix the house up before it was ready to be used.

After some time of owning the location, Jan and Bruce decided that they wanted to open up cottage as a shop of some sort.

“My husband said it would be a great bait shop. I told him that he hadn't been fishing in twenty years. He said that he was going to start when we retired and I told him 'No, you're not' and that this was going to be a bookstore,” Jan said.

The name for the bookstore came from a story Jan's mother told her was growing up.

“My mother knew an old lady in the nursing home who had been the head librarian in the town for many years. She had been reduced to living there with a great agitation. She used to say 'We're going to have Jello today, it's a small adventure’. I always remembered that,” Jan said.

She takes the idea of small adventures to everything, from books to running the store day to day. Running Small Adventures brings Jan her own adventures with people who come in to visit her and Emily Dickinson.

Emily Dickinson is one of the more recognizable features of Small Adventures. She's a black and white cat owned by Jan and Bruce. People will come in just to say hello to Emily and Jan during the day, Jan said. She even adorns some of the free bookmarks that Jan gives out to customers.

“Every cat needs a literary name,” Jan said.

Part of what makes Small Adventures special is the trade-in policies that they have. People can come in and trade in books and Jan will keep a tab of how much credit they have towards getting any of many types of books available.

Rather than use a computer database to keep track of her customers, she uses a file card system to mark down what they have in their store credit.

“I [was] forced to buy a laptop five years ago. I have not entirely figured out how to turn it on and I'm not going to. Things work fine the way they are and I'm having fun here everyday,” Jan said.

Over the years, Jan has seen the shopping trends change with the seasons.

“Tourists are going home now and they're coming here for their on the road book. When they first came to town, they needed their beach book,” Jan said.

Jan’s bookstore is unique, just as she described the city it resides in.

“Gulfport is a funky town. You can go out in the street and see funky people go by,” Jan said.

Small Adventures Book Shop is open Tuesday through Saturday 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.