For Hillel Stavis, who first sold books part time as a high school student, there was something almost spiritual about spending time in a sanctuary of book-lined shelves.
“That reverential moment when somebody walks into a bookstore,” he told the Globe in 1997, “is a different kind of experience from entering a clothing store or supermarket.”
When he launched his own bookstore, though, he had his feet firmly planted on the ground — on sidewalks, to be precise. Scouting Greater Boston locations and calculating foot traffic, he settled on Harvard Square, where he opened WordsWorth Books on Brattle Street in 1976. Even though the neighborhood already had bookshops, he saw it was full of readers walking with books in hand.