Pass Christian Books Celebrates Reopening

Last weekend, Pass Christian Books of Pass Christian, Mississippi, reopened in a new location about five miles north of the original store destroyed in September 2005 by Hurricane Katrina. Steven B. Yates, marketing director of University Press of Mississippi, and several of the press' authors, including Patricia Pinson (The Art of Walter Anderson), Leif Anderson (Dancing With My Father), Alan Brown (Ghost Hunters of The South), and Phil Hearn (Hurricane Camille: Monster Storm of the Gulf Coast) were among those who took part in the celebration.

"[Store owners] Scott Naugle and Rich Daley have been inspirational to us here at University Press of Mississippi," Yates told BTW. "Their savvy and bravery in the face of an overwhelming natural disaster reminded us throughout this rebuilding what good books and a great store can mean to a community.

"All talk Saturday was of the future and moving forward. And it was clear from customers' and authors' reactions to the store's enormous porch, which faces the Gulf breeze, that there is a wonderful future at the new Pass Christian Books."

In an ironic twist, Yates noted that the previous location of Pass Christian Books is featured on the cover of Hearn's Hurricane Camille. The bookstore was the one intact building in the image of downtown Pass Christian taken after the 1969 storm.

Pass Christian Books' new location is now "far back from the water across from Delisle Elementary at Delisle Corner," said Yates.

In an auspicious sign for the future, Naugle reported that Saturday was the store's highest one-day sales total ever.