Depending on the era in which you drove by, you would have been able to find soap, dolls, popcorn balls, stoves or ironing boards at 85 Pierce St. And starting Nov. 4, you can add new, used and vintage books to that list.

Roundabout Books is set to have a grand reopening the first weekend of November, with owner Raymond Neal opening the doors to the public to show off his new location, with at least  20,000 volumes on two floors of salvaged steel library shelves in a sprawling space that maintains its proud industrial aura.

“I mean, this is going to be one of the biggest bookstores in New England,” he said. “I think people will be into it. And we have really good books.”

Neal purchased the farmhouse-style building from Tognarelli Heating & Cooling for $200,000 in July 2021. He started Roundabout Books on Kenwood Street in 2012 after years of working as a teacher and he is transferring the business to Pierce Street. He has also owned Boswell’s Books in Shelburne Falls since last year. The original business had been slated for the Interstate 91 rotary. The plans changed, but the name stuck.

“I liked the name,” Neal said. “It has a nice sound.”

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, he made most of his living at college book fairs.

The two-floor Pierce Street building spans 10,000 square feet, with 6,000 square feet of browsing space. Neal said he carries every genre conceivable, and his employees are spending their days sorting enormous quantities of books.

“We bring in books in bulk from transfer stations, from donations from people. We buy books,” he said. “We’ve never turned away a book in 11 years.”

The new store will also have a dedicated children’s section, which Neal said typically brings in about 50% of a bookstore’s revenue.

Holyoke Hummus will serve from its food truck throughout the day on Nov. 4. Complementary tea will be served. The bookstore will raffle T-shirts with its new logo, designed by bookseller and artist Miriam Wells and printed locally by Silver Screen Designs. At 2 p.m., 8-year-old magician George the Great will perform in the children’s room. Bill Pennington, of Bill’s Home Repair, led the sustainable renovations and will be on site through the weekend to discuss the project.

At 2 p.m. on Nov. 5, folk musicians Tracy Grammer and Jim Henry will perform an opening concert in the fully-accessible event space upstairs. There will be a $20 suggested donation for this performance. Neal said he hopes to host concerts quarterly.

He has held one-dollar sales of DVDs and CDs at 85 Pierce St., but this will be the first time the storefront – with its structural brick and south-facing windows – is open to the public. He said he hopes his customers become pleasantly overwhelmed, getting nearly lost in a large number of books that are well organized.

“That’s a big part of what a used-book person finds joyful, certainly for me” he said. “I’ve gotten that. That’s been reinforced by our customers. I think the actual physical environment is actually appealing, too.”

Neal mentioned he planted a row of dogwood trees out front and he plans to have picnic tables and Adirondack-style chairs for customers to enjoy.

“It’s a different experience than being in a city bookstore, to be able to drive past flowering dogwoods,” he said.

Roundabout Books received an $18,976 U.S. Department of Agriculture grant through the Rural Energy for America Program, enabling Neal to pay for the rewiring of the former Diamond-Electric Soap Factory to allow for the installation of a photovoltaic solar array on the roof’s south side. The building’s roof also needed to be replaced to support a solar array. The USDA’s Rural Energy for America Program includes small businesses in communities like Franklin County, alongside the nation’s farmers.

The independent bookshop will be open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., seven days a week. It also offers free shipping to customers.

More information is available at https://roundaboutbookstore.com/ or on the store’s Facebook page.

Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-930-4120.