SQUARE BOOKS opened on the evening of September 14, 1979, in an upstairs location on the Oxford town square. Richard and Lisa Howorth had worked two years in self-apprenticeship at the Savile Bookshop in Washington, D.C., before returning to Richard's home to open their own store in the space they had renovated with the help of family and friends.

On that opening night there were many people who continue to support Square Books today. Richard had read that one way to determine whether a bookstore might be successful was by making certain there were at least twelve families who would buy books. On that warm night in September there were Freelands and Lewises, the Wellses, Stubblefields and Ethridges and more — Steve Cooper, a young undergraduate student at the University of Mississippi who insisted on coming in to browse before the store opened, and Craig Werner, a new member of the English department who would become a great customer and teacher before moving on to the University of Wisconsin. And that night there were all the Howorths and Richard's aunt, Vasser Bishop, the store's first employee, a volunteer.

While the Square Books customer base was centered in the Oxford and University community, the selection and display of books was focused upon literature about Mississippi and the South. Customers were pleased to find such books as a hardcover edition of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, or Shelby Foote's Civil War, books that at the time were not commonly available in a retail setting - anywhere. Square Books also hosted book-signings and readings as soon as the store opened, with Ellen Douglas and her new book, The Rock Cried Out, in October, 1979, and the Mississippi poet, Etheridge Knight.

Around the same time Square Books opened, Bill Ferris came to Oxford as the first director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, immediately creating great enthusiasm for academic and cultural interest in the South and Oxford. Ferris was a great friend of Square Books, and was key in bringing such writers as Toni Morrison, Allen Ginsberg, Alex Haley, and Alice Walker to to the store for readings and book-signings.

Willie Morris became writer in residence at the University in 1980, and also was a great friend to the bookstore, who brought to town — William Styron, who in 1980, with Sophie's Choice on the bestseller list, became the first visiting writer to the store to create a line of buyers; and others, such as James Dickey (who would make two later trips to the store) and Peter Matthiessen.

In 1981 Barry Hannah moved to town, a writer who was to literary fiction as Morris was to literary journalism, Hannah had an enormous effect on his students — Donna Tartt among them in those early days — and many writers came to to town to visit Hannah, and thus Square Books, such as Amy Hempel, and, in 1980, Richard Ford.

Needing to expand, the store moved to the former Blaylock Drug Store building in 1986, its current location. In late 1993 Square Books opened an annex store, Off Square Books, only a few doors down the street from the main store, and there has grown a vast inventory of remainders — bargain books — along with a selection of used and collectible books. Off Square Books is also the space where an active schedule of touring authors, children's' events, and the weekly live radio show, Thacker Mountain Radio, all take place, leaving the main store open for undisturbed browsing on its two floors, with a cafe upstairs that allows customers to drink tea or cappuccino on the ninety foot long balcony along the upstairs side of the bookstore.

While the store has been featured in a variety of magazine and newspaper articles and is often mentioned as one of the nation's finer independent bookstores, the Square Books staff remains determined to make it simply the best bookstore for people in the Oxford and University of Mississippi community.

Richard Howorth describes his life as an independent bookseller as "a very happy one," so much that he believes very strongly in the notion of a network of healthy and diverse independent bookstore in various communities of the country. Richard has worked on a voluntary basis for the American Booksellers Association. He encourages people at every opportunity to support independent bookstores and independent enterprise of other kinds as well.

To see several articles that have been written about Square Books and Oxford, click here.