Meet Your Merchant: Early retiree turns book-collecting 'disease' into antique bookstore

Michael Morley's family has loved books for as long as he can remember.

He and his wife used to take vacations he dubbed "seeing America through its bookstores." When he moved his mother into a residential adult living facility, he had to whittle down her collection from 20,000 books to 1,500. At one point, he counted his collection at about 11,000 volumes.

"I still have a disease," Morley joked from his just-opened antique bookstore in downtown Carson City. "I've still been known to buy books for myself."

His shop, Morley's Books, hasn't had its official grand opening yet, but the shelves are already lined with books ranging from Harry Potter to an 1893 edition of G.A. Henty's "Condemned as a Nihilist: A Story of Escape from Siberia," though the tilt of his wares definitely weighs toward classics and the hard-to-finds.

"I didn't want to be a general bookseller and compete with the (now-out-of-business) Borders and Barnes & Nobles," he said. "You just can't do it."

He added later: "I'm eclectic. I carry what amuses me, and I'll carry what the public wants."

He retired in 2006 at 50 years old from Silicon Valley, but knew he was too young to "go out to pasture."

Morley said he took some time, after the death of his father and wife, to put his head back together. He said he looked at two options. The first was to put his stuff in storage and "point west;" the second, he said, involved asking himself, "What do I love?"

The answer: books.

He bought the building at 201 W. King St. in Carson City about a year ago and set about renovating the 150-plus-year-old structure, creating a reading space as comfortable as any in the process.

One room has a bar from an old Truckee watering hole, lined with antique glassware that's also for sale. The "kids' room" has a sheet hanging from the ceiling and a bright red stool popping out among the other furniture. The center room has a reading chair flooded with natural light from the window behind it, two shelves labeled "first-editions" against the wall, and a $1 used-book rack. The back room has decorative writing tables.

He also kept some of the history in what he said is the first two-story commercial building in Carson - the entrance has a small section of wall covered with what Morley described as "bordello red" wallpaper that used to line its entirety.

He said he expects his business to just "eke" by, given the popularity of online booksellers these days, though he said it's not something that will deter him.

"I love it," he said. "No one does this to make significant money."

Which is why he picked his niche of antique books. And, with his business still in its infancy, he has no complaints.

"It's mostly what I had hoped for," he said.