In Their Own Words… with Ken Kozick

Meet Portsmouth business owner, Ken Kozick, who curates an eclectic selection at Portsmouth’s Sheafe Street Books
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Ken Kozick is the sole proprietor and employee of Sheafe Street Books. Photo Credit/ Liv Frost

The first thing one notices upon entering Sheafe Street Books is that it looks like someone’s home. And that’s because, well, it is.

Ken Kozick is the sole proprietor and employee of the Portsmouth bookstore. He opened for business on the tucked-away side street in 2010, but purchased the house in 1995. He lives there alone, and on most days he can be found seated in the back-right corner of the shop, stately, statuesque, with jazz or classical music floating about. He lives upstairs, having renovated the downstairs — which was previously the dining and living rooms — into the snug bookstore you see today. 

His is a curated shop. As sole employee, it reflects his tastes, with a predilection for Beat-era literature, haiku and counterculture writers. He also maintains a steady selection of new releases, cookbooks, antique tomes, and, as he puts it, “core stock — meaning classics, stuff that’s gonna sell this year or in 10 years.” 

He started his career in his 20s as a book receiver at a Boston B. Dalton’s. Climbing the company ladder, Kozick would manage a Framingham location and build a store from scratch in Newington’s Fox Run Mall before becoming an on-the-road book salesman for two decades. Getting canned in the early- aughts led him to opening Sheafe Street Books, which is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year. He is 70 years old.

I first met Ken in 2019. I was looking for a copy of Cormac McCarthy’s bloody, challenging magnum opus, “Blood Meridian.” Not only did he have it, he had the Modern Library’s 25th anniversary edition. It was a beautiful copy of a stunning book that would rewire my brain. Ken had earned a lifelong patron. 

As a writer, as a reader, as someone who values the way a book can change your life, I’m eternally grateful. I can only imagine how many others feel the same.

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What was previously the dining and living rooms, is now the bookstore, which is
jam-packed from floor to ceiling with books curated by owner Ken Kozick. Photo Credit/ Liv Frost

New Hampshire Magazine: Sheafe Street is really uniquely curated. How would you describe your vision for the shop?

Ken Kozick: It’s a reflection of me — my era, too. I’m stuck in the late ’60s and ’70s. It was an era where people sincerely tried to make the world a better place. It sounds hokey, but there was camaraderie. There was striving to improve, trying to find a collective energy that would benefit everybody. 

I also wanted to eliminate all the big-box-bestseller stuff — the Pattersons and the … I can’t even think of them. I’ve expunged them from my memory. It takes a lot more work just keeping onesies and twosies in stock. If I sell them, I’ve got to replace them with something — and it’s gotta be something good. I’m always going to the Salvation Armys, the Goodwills, estate sales and people walking in the door selling me stuff.

NHM: You’re giving out trade secrets.  

KK: Well, it works here.

NHM: I don’t think this is a common business model.   

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Photo Credit/ Liv Frost

KK: I don’t think anyone could do this unless they owned the real estate.

NHM: How did the first few years of running the store go?  

KK: I really had to change my life. Weekends are the most profitable, so automatically I’m working on weekends. After 10 years, my old friends that I used to hang out with got annoyed. And, unfortunately, a lot of people have drifted away. Committing to this job — there’s a price. I miss my old friends. I stay in touch as much as I can, but the truth is, I’m anchored here. There are worse places to be stuck. I’m a happy guy; I’m in a good position and I know it.

But those first five or six years were really, really shaky. My checking account just had fumes in it. There wasn’t enough money coming in. But slowly, the clientele built, and my reputation built, and it got to the point where I could pay my bills — hoorah! — and now it’s actually kind of a successful venture.

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“To have this nice setup, in this nice town … it doesn’t get any better than this,” Kozick says. Photo Credit/ Liv Frost

NHM: What led to turning that corner?    

KK: Return customers had a lot to do with it. People appreciate the fact that I exist, and so they’re motivated to support me. Don’t ask me where these people come from, but I have a lot of repeat customers, and I swear a lot of them buy books just to support me. Not because they want books, but because they want to help me out. 

NHM: How would you describe your approach to bookselling?

KK: If you can get the right book in the right person’s hands, that’s an accomplishment. You know when it happens, too. People don’t know the books like I do. … Every book I sell is important. Whether it’s a $5 paperback or a $100 antiquarian book, I give the same effort. Getting the right book in the right hands — who knows what’s going to happen? A spark in somebody’s imagination, or the thing they needed to learn in order to get a good career, might be in the book that I’m recommending to them. You never know. It’s important work. I’m sincerely grateful to everybody who buys a book.

Learn more at bookshop.org/shop/sheafestreet

Categories: Q&A