For the past eight months, Dunaway Books, South Grand’s sprawling used bookstore, has been dealing with a mostly good problem: They’ve been extremely busy.
Beginning in January, say owners Claudia Brodie and Kevin Twellman, they’ve gotten online orders of books at a magnitude far beyond anything they’d seen in their previous eight years in the business. To put the influx in numbers: In the first eight months of 2025, they sold 3,600 books through online marketplaces. In 2026, it was 8,993. That’s a 149 percent increase.
There’s been little rhyme or reason to the orders. Exploring the Amazon, The First 28 Years of Monty Python, and Governors’ Mansions of the Midwest were all ordered. So were A Book of Chess and The Household Pollutants Guide. The surge began in January with no warning and no explanation, and when they reached out to the online marketplace that facilitates the transactions, they got nowhere…