WILDWOOD — Kieran Linnane, owner of the bright yellow Hooked on Books bookstore in Wildwood, has seen the city, and the public’s reading habits, change dramatically in the store’s 32 years of operation.
Linnane values the face-to-face time he has with customers. He’s always asking visitors what they’re reading, what kind of stories they like to engage with, and where they’re from.
The warmth of an in-person exchange, and the hunt for a new book, keeps his place alive even in the age of online shopping and fading reading habits, he said.
His storefront, adorned with massive yellow letters that spell “Hooked on Books” across the roofline, sits across the street from Byrne Plaza and isn’t chasing trends. It’s a stripped-back place where readers can dive into old bookshelves to find a new favorite, or something on their “to-read” list.
Almost all of the books here are used. Linnane and his partner, Jim Wright, hunt South Jersey’s thrift stores and yard sales for gems to sell at the store. It’s a lot of work to sift through piles and piles of old books to source what people might actually want to read, but decades of experience have made the pair efficient in their search.
Linnane hails from Ireland, his accent faded but still strong. He began visiting Wildwood during a deep economic recession that plagued his country in the 1980s. He visits home whenever he can, usually a month out of each year. But he is a true Wildwood local the rest of the year. His view of the town, what it once was, and what it is becoming is borne from a life of lived experience.
“When I moved here my brother and I had two or three jobs because things were tough at home. … I made $3,000 working my first summer job in Wildwood. For the first time ever I actually had some money,” he said.
Irish students visiting as part of the J-1 Visa program were common across the Wildwoods in the 1980s, he said. The Irish economy boomed in the 1990s, he said, and that changed the kind of student who chose to come to Cape May County. Many of the students who visit today don’t need the money in the same way students once did. They come today, fewer in number, on a sort of working holiday on summer break from college, he said.
Many nightclubs that once neighbored Hooked on Books — places like H20 Night Club, Hill16 (named after a famous stadium in Dublin) and JJ Crawdaddies’ — were rife with Irish students when Wildwood was still known for its club scene. Linnane’s neighboring section of Pacific Avenue became a ghost town when those clubs and other businesses closed en masse at the turn of the 21st century.
“We’ve had so many neighbors open and close — there were years when we were the only place open on the block,” Linnane said. A new bar next door, The Cove, and a redeveloped entertainment plaza where free concerts, a weekly farmers market and holiday activities abound has helped the district spring back to life.
Business is good again on Pacific Avenue, but Amazon and social media pose bigger threats, Linnane said. Amazon sells books at prices that, were Hooked on Books to match them, would render the store unprofitable.
At one time, Linnane said, people carried a book with them everywhere they went.
“You’d bring a book to the doctor, to the school line, to read while you wait. Now, everybody has a phone, and reading isn’t a default thing anymore,” he said.
Linnane believes in the transformative, teleportive and healing power of books. He loves to read science fiction and other genres that transport him to another world entirely. Phones, he said, don’t have the same positive qualities that come with reading. They aren’t a suitable replacement for one’s free time, he said, referring especially to social media. He has given social media up entirely.
“You can look at your phone for 45 minutes and you don’t feel any better. Looking at everybody on social media living a pretend wonderful life, it only makes you feel terrible. I’ve had to let it go,” he said.
At one point in Cape May County’s history there were dozens of bookstores. There are just a few left; Hooked on Books is the only bookstore on all of Five Mile Island, which includes Wildwood.
Linnane hopes that folks will come into the store to discover the joy of reading. “I love being able to help people find something they will love. You can go to WalMart today, surrounded by so many people, and not interact with a single person the whole time. There are people who come here from the Lyons Center who won’t talk to somebody all day — they are thrilled to come here and have someone ask how their day is.”
For Linnane, that’s the power of a bookstore.
Visit Hooked on Books at 3405 Pacific Ave. in Wildwood.
Contact the author, Collin Hall, at chall@cmcherald.com, or give them a call at chall@cmcherald.com
