Pass Christian Books Is a Beacon: An Interview with Scott Naugle

Perched above the beach in the Gulf Coast town of Pass Christian, Mississippi, sits a landmark structure that appears as much a small lighthouse as it does a shop. This is the home of Pass Christian Books, which is both a beacon and cornerstone business for this coastal community.

Operated by business partners Scott Naugle and Sean Pittman, Pass Christian Books survived Hurricane Katrina and became the welcome sign for a re-blossoming downtown area at the foot of Davis Avenue on East Scenic Drive. The renaissance of this coastal town is reflected in the fresh architecture of this shop, and in the initiatives undertaken by its owners to help build a vibrant town center. 

I interviewed Scott Naugle this week. Originally a Pennsylvanian, Naugle took an undergraduate degree in insurance and actuarial science, but changed tracks to take a master’s degree in English Millsaps College and a second master’s in English from Tulane University. He moved to the Coast twenty years ago in response to a job offer, and while looking for homes, he fell in love with Pass Christian. Here he put down roots.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Cultured Oak: Tell me about the founding of Pass Christian Books.

Scott Naugle: The bookstore has existed for 16 years. A lot of the reason people get into the book business is they love books and love reading. And I continue to collect books and rare books. Sixteen years ago I thought there was a need on the Gulf Coast for—we initially opened as a used bookstore. And gradually moved into stocking more and more new books, to the point now, for the past several years, we do nothing but new books.

CO: The current location is pivotal. A landmark for the city.

SN: We were very fortunate to obtain that piece of property. When the previous owner approached me, this was after Katrina. If you’ve been there, you’ve seen the large parking lot? There was a service station on that parking lot. Where we built the bookstore was part of that parcel. But initially the owners of the service station just approached me about buying that small parcel. Thought it would be a great place for a bookstore. My business partner (Sean Pittman) and I decided that—he’s a coffee lover—that we should add a coffee house. Because there was not a coffee house on the coast at that time. So we worked on the building. We had different visions. He’s very aesthetic, and that’s the reason the bookstore looks like it does.

With my background in risk management, I insisted on it being a wind resistant structure. So we both got our way. It engineers to a 150 mile-per-hour wind, although it’s never been tested. But if you’ve been there, you’ve seen the aesthetics with the glass and the loft and all that. It would have been criminal to put a building on that lot that didn’t have that view.

And then subsequently when we realized with the amount of business we were having, we bought the parking lot across the street.

CO: I’m sure that comes in handy when you have book signings.

SN: Yes. Fridays, Saturdays, we need every one of those thirty-five, forty parking spaces. Saturdays and Sundays are very, very busy.

CO: A lot of bigger bookstores have cafes almost as an afterthought. But at Pass Books, it’s integrated as part of the entire concept.

SN: What we do is create an experience. Part of that experience, the books and the coffee are integrated into the fact that we can talk about the coffee bean, where it’s from, why the coffee has certain notes, and tastes and flavors. And as you’ve probably seen, we don’t bulk brew. We grind the coffee in front of you, we drip-brew it. And that’s what a coffeehouse does. It’s about respecting the coffee bean and the experience. We just thought that experience as well as the books and literature might work well together. We don’t have a drive through window, we won’t take call-in orders. We don’t have an app where you can order off site, because we want people to come in, catch their breath, experience it, relax, and spend some time.

I don’t know if you know my business partner. His name is Sean Pittman. And we’re 50-50 business partners. He’s responsible for bringing the coffee house component. And that’s such an exacting process. His background, he’s a chemical engineer. He’s that precise in everything that’s done on that side of the house. And I’ve learned a lot about, if you’re going to get coffee right, or a latte right or an expresso right—the water’s got to be right, it’s got to be clean, the temperature has to be right, the milk has to be the right temperature. And he’s very good at that. He’s very exacting. He’s very good at training the baristas that work for us.

CO: Coffee is another form of cooking.

SN: You nailed it. We don’t let people touch that expresso machine until they’ve been with us for quite some time. And they go through exhaustive training, where they work on steaming techniques. And calibrating the grinder, and all of those things. You’re exactly right. It’s like a chef cooking. Some of the franchise coffee shops—I won’t call them coffee houses—they just press a button and the expresso machine is pre-timed. We don’t do any of that. It’s individually handled, individually made.

 CO: Do you have an operational philosophy?

SN: Everything we do, we try to frame it in the context of: does it support the community, and does it provide a welcoming and unique experience. If you listen and get out of the way, your customers, your consumers will often tell you what direction to go.

CO: Tell me about the authors who support the shop.

SN: We’re very lucky. Over 16 years, we’ve probably had at least 200 author events. And they’ve all been wonderfully supported. It’s also a business. So when a publisher sends an author to us, we’ve got to move and sell books. But now that we’ve demonstrated we can do that, we’re often able to either pitch to a publisher or they will approach us, and think that an author would be a good fit. Some authors wouldn’t have a following in our area. And I don’t mean that as a denigrating comment at all. Some authors we know do very well. Richard Ford. Greg Iles. Julia Reed. We’re having Joyce Carol Oates this coming Saturday. [The Joyce Carol Oates event was held on July 14, 2018.] They all do well, as well as authors who have nonfiction books of interest. We had a packed house for a book about Cat Island by John Cuevas two months ago.

So we try to be selective. Try to bring authors in that our community would like to see. And then in turn, the sales send a signal back to the publisher that it’s worthwhile sending authors to us.

CO: It’s unusual that a small bookstore can draw such popular names.

SN: We’re very fortunate.

CO: And the Gulf Coast is interesting because of the concentration of authors who live around here.

SN: Oh, very much so. And that’s very helpful as well, in terms of setting up or pitching a signing event.

CO: What is One Book One Pass?

SN: I want to be clear. We are a supporter of it, and I would say a founding member. It wasn’t our original idea. I wasn’t smart enough. But that is an initiative where the entire community reads one book, and then we have the author come in and do a presentation, speak to a community, and often he or she might visit a school earlier in that day. It’s the third year. The first year we had Erik Larson and his recent book at that time. It was about the sinking of the Lusitania. Last year we had Jesmyn Ward with her book, The Fire This Time. And this year, we have, and he’ll be speaking in October, Jack Davis, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his book, The Gulf. So up to that point we have book discussion groups, presentations, various events to get the community involved. The bookstore donates books to the juniors and seniors in the high school. And the teachers incorporate the book into various aspects of the classroom.

CO: What are you reading right now?

SN: [Laughs.] Depends on where I’m sitting in my house. The obvious answer is I’m reading through a lot of Joyce Carol Oates, and being reminded what a brilliant author she is. I’m also reading Jon Meacham’s book, The Soul of America. I’m reading Minrose Gwin’s novel, Promise. I’m reading Andrea Palladio. There’s a book about him and his architecture in 16th, 17th century Italy. And I read a lot of obscure books about literature that are on my stack. Charles Baxter is a literary critic. I’m reading a series of essays by him right now. A very memorable book I enjoyed a lot that I just finished by Susan Jacoby, it’s called, The Age of American Unreason. It was written about 15 years ago. It’s essays about the degradation of speech and how we talk. It’s not a political piece. It just about, I hate to use the overused phrase, of dumbing down of our society. And I don’t know that I would agree with that phrase. She’s a very acute social critic, is the way I would put it.

CO: What does the future hold for Pass Christian Books?

SN: We’re going to keep growing, we’re going to fine tune our model in response to the community. As you touched on earlier, we think we’re in a great location and we think the Gulf Coast community is a great place to be. So we’re going to keep doing what we’re doing, just try to get better at it.

Pass Christian Books is located at 300 E. Scenic Drive in Pass Christian at the corner of Davis Avenue. They are open Monday through Saturday from 6:30 am to 8:30 pm and Sunday from 7:00 am to 4:00 pm. Phone: (228) 222-4827.