Last chapter for beloved Under Charlie's Covers

BERNALILLO — A 17 -year story is at an end as Under Charlie's Covers prepares to close for good.

Owner Lara Harrison, a Rio Rancho resident, recently announced the store would be closing in May and that she is looking for a book lover to buy her "ready-made" store.

"I'm just priced out and I am not going to move again. I've already moved twice, and it was a lot. The community came and helped me move both times, and it was amazing," she said.

Harrison built the business out of books from her late father's collection, which included 18,000 books in total. She explained her dad, Charlie, had a dream of opening his own book store one day and calling it "Under the Covers" but never got to. When she opened, she took influence from his name and the name he wanted.

"I opened my first store, and that was in 2009. That was when Amazon was putting all of the bookstores out of business because, you know, Amazon started out as a book-seller website and people were selling books for a penny, but it just crushed independent bookstores," she said.

She had her father's books in storage and needed to see if the store would work.

"It still works. People still read in spite of what others say, I feel like there's a lot of people that still read, and they still read real books," she said. "A lot of people that read on a tablet or whatever, but I think that there are still plenty of people that like to have a physical book in their hand."

Harrison expressed distaste for online book shopping because it is very possible to not even get what people ordered. 

Similarly, she said people just won't get the same feel in a corporate book store.

"We're a used bookstore and Barnes & Noble's a new bookstore and carries current books, popular books. But first of all, you're paying double the price you're going to pay in our store because our books are half the retail price," she said. "But also, there's so many books that are out of print that are not available readily in a new book store."

The most important part of her store, however, is the community, according to Harrison.

"Over the years, I've had so many people come into my store and find, and they're just like, 'I've been looking for this book for 20 years,' and here it is. It just makes you feel good. When people are able to find that, they walk out happy and I'm happy," she said.

She got emotional talking about the community that she has known since she opened.

"Every day when I come to work, it's so much fun! Because I get to talk to people about books. Also, I made friends through this. I've just met some amazing people," she said.

She thanked everyone for supporting the store over the years.

People who have credit in the store will be able to use it for the next couple of months. Harrison is hoping someone can buy the store to keep it going.