Mike Riley sits behind his desk, nestled comfortably behind beautiful treasures long lost to their original owners—only for him, it's another normal day at the book shop.
Riley, 53, is the owner of Book Gallery, a unique store that opened nearly 25 years ago in Phoenix with a Mesa branch that followed not long after. The business has four employees, two at each location, not including Riley, with both stores containing little duplication in selection.
From the many rare, aged gems that reside behind the front counter to the countless copies of quirky books scattered throughout the store, there's something for everyone in the hoards of colors that the spines emit. Browsing these items requires paying an actual visit, since information on current selections can't be found online.
Like many booksellers in the Internet Age, Riley has felt the blow in sales with e-reader devices and websites like eBay and Amazon. However, he remains one of the many bibliophiles out there who still see physical books as treasured possessions. To Riley, nothing beats the experience of going to a bookstore and browsing the shelves with wonder.
Book Gallery has an edge on other brick and mortar bookstores because it specializes in collectible items and rarities. A signed first-edition, for example, can't be purchased on an e-reader, but only a generic version that's the same for every user.
Riley's tenacity has inspired others, like Aaron Hopkins-Johnson, 32, owner of Lawn Gnome Publishing, a small independent bookstore in downtown Phoenix.
Before opening Lawn Gnome Publishing, Hopkins-Johnson brought in some old currency he had acquired that dated back to the 1860s. The banks and coin collectors he visited didn't help, but then a friend told him about Riley and his experience with paper and printing identification.
Many people walk into the shop simply as curious nomads looking for the comfort of a surviving local bookstore. Ronald Daum, a page at Century Library, was one of those people. He roamed the aisles with his Canon camera, eyes filled with wanderlust, looking amazed at the troves.
It was Daum's first time in the store after a friend repeatedly insisted that he pay it a visit.
As a dealer in literary oddities, The Book Gallery contains titles that are well over $50, with some selections reaching into the hundreds or thousands.
The most interesting specimen, Riley says, came in a box with five texts on American history that a couple had brought in. Riley noticed a tiny, leather-bound book amongst the others.
"As soon as I opened it, I knew it was a book that they hadn't told me about," Riley recalls .
The woman who brought the hoard in said it looked so small and insignificant compared to the rest, she didn't think of mentioning it. Riley asked if he could take a closer look and as the woman continued to browse the store, he examined the treasure like an archaeologist would an artifact.
Riley consulted his reference library, which contains over 100 years of auction records. That's how he found out, in about five minutes, that the book was written by a young author from Williamsburg named George Washington.
It was Washington's published journal, detailing his travels in 1753 to ascertain why the French were building a fort on a piece of land in the Ohio River Valley.
After arriving back to Williamsburg, Governor Robert Dinwiddle of Virginia had copies printed. Only eight of the edition printed in Williamsburg have been discovered and it's been 60 years since the last copy was found. Riley says he believes a Williamsburg edition would go for over $1 million today.
While the journal was also published in London, there's no record of how many were printed. Only 50 known copies of the London edition exist today, and Riley says 8 of those reside in the British Museum— it's the edition that ended up in Riley's shop that day.
Another impressive title Book Gallery inherited was Sumo, a collection of monochrome photographs by German-Australian photographer Helmut Newton, which weighs over 60 pounds and comes with its own custom stand.
Riley is able to evaluate the condition as well as the subject matter of books brought to his store in a matter of seconds.
The books he looks for most often, though, are classics, but not necessarily works by Charles Dickens or Jane Austen.
"Every subject matter has a collection of books which are acknowledged as important," he says.
As Riley roamed his shelves for an example, he quickly spotted Joy of Cooking in the cooking section. He also noted that, for example, classics in architecture might center around Frank Lloyd Wright, or classics in science might encompass Newton or Einstein. Riley calls these classics 'standards,' which he tries to have on his shelves at all times.
"[They are] books that are still meaningful even if it was written years ago, and we don't want to restrict that to just literature," Riley said.
Randy Sproat, who has worked with Riley for over six years began at Book Gallery with little knowledge of collectible books or the intricate details required for the position.
Riley's memory, however, is the aspect that Sproat is most enthusiastic about. With so many rare books, it takes a keen eye and attention to detail to find the one small factor that denotes a first edition.
Riley's passion for reading has been evident since childhood. At the age of 28, Riley realized he wanted to go into the book selling business after trying to shove a new purchase on the shelves of his home, which held over 2,000 texts.
And while the subject matter of a book is arguably the most important aspect, Riley places as much fervor into the appearance. He says librarians, for example, destroy books by defacing them. But he does give them credit, because he thinks they only view them as tools.
He laughs as he discusses this piece of the book world, trying to be polite in his opinions.
With physical stores, customers can be assured that the proprietor has experience and knowledge based on the contents of the store. In some instances, customers have come to Book Gallery falsely thinking that a book that purchased online was a first-edition.
The intricacies of the market goes far beyond a simple look at a price guide, according to Sproat.
Stephen Marc, a photography professor at School of Arts at Arizona State University, has been visiting the store for around ten years.
One of Marc's first visits was for research on a project in which he published a collection of photographs exploring places associated with the Underground Railroad, which he explored for almost a decade. The photographs also appeared in a Summer exhibition at the Phoenix Art Museum in 2012.
He has frequented the shop to browse the endless shelves, most notably the unique, precious items in sections like African-American history, Arizona and western history.
A memorable purchase for Marc was French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson's The Europeans. Filled with photos of post-war Europe from the 1950's, it was a first edition that included the original dust jacket a rare insert of captions, which Riley says were printed separately so as to not detract from the aesthetic value.
Riley's knowledge and experience comes largely in part from the books that surround him. He says books transform the human mind with education and make possible anything the reader wishes to pursue.
And as our culture progresses, Riley says it's impossible to know where the medium for printed word will go. Although there's no doubt that books will be here at least for another few generations, he says, the fate of books will be up to the people of the future.