LENOX — As he approaches a celebration of his 50th anniversary as owner of The Bookstore & Get Lit Wine Bar, Matt Tannenbaum wants you to know he’s not going anywhere.

But he will be able to reduce his hours in the shop at 11 Housatonic St. as a transition plan shifts into higher gear.

Tannenbaum expects to become a “bookseller emeritus,” allowing him the flexibility to travel more and attend literary events.

“I’ll still have my hand in, passing along the institutional knowledge, the most important thing, and then the presence, being here for the customers,” he said.

“What I want to emphasize is the gratitude I have for the customers who constantly say 'I could have bought a book elsewhere, faster and cheaper, but I wanted to support you,' ” Tannenbaum said.

“Our motto is, it takes longer but it costs more,” he quipped.

Danny Farber, center, and Anne Weiss, right, listen as Matt Tannenbaum reads an excerpt from Gertrude Stein’s biography of Pablo Picasso last month during a celebration of the author’s 152nd birthday at The Bookstore in Lenox.

The store will mark the half-century milestone on April 1 with an all-day open house, also serving as a pre-birthday party for Tannenbaum, who turns 80 on April 11. Food and drink will be on hand, and guest speakers will hold forth during an open mic.

Keeping it all in the family, his well-versed daughter, Shawnee Tannenbaum, 40, will become the day-to-day proprietor, assisted by part-time staffers, including Sheppard Bear and Ryan Marchione.

There’s no timeline for the succession plan, as she has two kids to care for after school — Siena, soon to turn 6, and Desmond, 3 — with her husband Michael DuPont, a School Committee member.

“Siena jokes that she wants to work here,” said Shawnee, who works in the store during school hours and on Saturdays.

Matt Tannenbaum, left, is shown with Alice Brock and singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie, at Tannenbaum's shop in Lenox. The Bookstore is hosting an exhibit of artwork created by Brock, who died in November 2024.

Younger daughter Sophie, who works with Wildflower Alliance to assist homeless people in Pittsfield, will be an adviser on book selection and eventually a part-owner of the business.

Featured in a widely praised 2022 documentary, “Hello, Bookstore,” filmed on location during the pandemic and streaming on Apple+, Prime Video and Kanopy, the local landmark ranks as the oldest retail store downtown owned by one proprietor, Matt said.

"In the shadow of the pandemic, a small town rallies to protect a beloved local bookstore,” according to the film's trailer — a reference to the astonishing $125,000 raised within three months by local and distant donors in a “GoFundMe” campaign to keep the shop open against all odds, as a matter of survival.

The original goal, $60,000, was reached within 23 hours.

“It was a scary time, I knew that I had to do something,” he said. For Shawnee, “it felt weird, I was uncomfortable about it, the world was on fire in July 2020. But I understood we weren’t going to make it without it.”

The store’s slogan, “Serving the community since last Tuesday,” originated on a bookmark that also stated, “All kinds of books for all kinds of people,” Matt explained. It had no specific meaning and was completely arbitrary, he confessed, other than that “it sounded funny,”

The Bookstore in Lenox will mark its 50th anniversary April 1 as owner Matt Tannenbaum steps back to let his daughter Shawnee take the reins on day-to-day operations.

But people inquired, “so I had to tell them, this is our joke.” By his calculation, the store has been open for 2,608 Tuesdays.

Having moved back to the area from New York City in 2015, Shawnee helped out on weekends while her weekday job was at Zogics, the online cleaning products supplier in Lenox.

After her first child, was born, she phased out of Zogics, eyeing an eventual role as owner of The Bookstore. Several potential buyers had come forth, Shawnee recalled, but they wanted to turn it into other things.

The Bookstore in Lenox on April 1 will host a daylong celebration of its 50th anniversary in business in downtown Lenox.

Shawnee acknowledged that some customers insist on buying from her dad and prefer to visit when he’s there. “He has found his own way; I’m not him," she pointed out. "I’m not going to change things, but I do things differently.”

Meanwhile “I think I have a lot of books to read, to catch up on.”

“I knew you were not me and you had your own sensibility and would bring that to the store,” Matt chimed in. “Once I understood that implicitly, then I was fine knowing what Shawnee was going to do. It took me 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years to learn all the things I know now.”

Pointing out that the book trade is constantly changing, “Shawnee is going to keep up with that, probably better than I’ve been able to keep up,” he said.

Working alongside her father for the past several years, she learned that people come in to chat.

“He’s part bookseller, part therapist,” as Shawnee put it. “There’s a lot of lonely people, seeking comfort, needing to feel better about how the world is now. Coming into a safe place, with an anti-ICE T-shirt in the window, they know they can sit here just to talk to him.”

“Also, he knows what books they enjoy, even those he didn’t like,” she added.

“When people come in for comfort and therapy, it’s not me especially," Matt said, "it’s what books provide, whether self-help, a psychology text, or a novel — non-fiction is where you find the facts, fiction is where you find the truth, especially for young people.”

To people pleasantly surprised to find an independent bookstore still in business, Shawnee said, “my go-to response is, they’re still teaching kids how to read, so until they stop, I think we’ll be in business.”

Timeline

1968: The Bookstore is founded in Stockbridge by David Silverstein in his living room at a cottage near Alice's Restaurant in Stockbridge (first known as The Back Room).

1973: Silverstein, having relocated to Lenox at two different sites, opens The Bookstore on Housatonic Street near Loeb's Market.

1975: Two years after first moving to New Marlborough from q wholesale book business in Washington, D.C., self-styled hippie Matt Tannenbaum relocates to a log cabin in Great Barrington, working as a carpenter.

1976: After his first visit to The Bookstore in Lenox, Tannenbaum seals a deal with Epstein, purchasing the shop with a silent partner on April 1.

1977: After his investor-partner goes bankrupt, unable to pay the purchase loan, Tannenbaum buys the store himself with a loan from his mother.

2020: To survive the pandemic, The Bookstore sets up a GoFundMe campaign, raising $60,000 in the first day, wirh a final total of $125,000 three months later.

2022: "Hello, Bookstore," a documentary filmed during the pandemic is released to wide acclaim.

2026: On April 1, the shop will celebrate 50 years under Tannenbaum's ownership with an all-day open house.