Bridgeside Books' One Town pick
Vermont’s Bridgeside Books announced Gregory Grosvenor’s Second Pocket First as the 2026 One Town, One Book selection and reported the store has sold 917 books across all four One Town titles so far (waterburyroundabout.org). The manager, Jenna Danyew, highlighted those cumulative sales as evidence of locally driven reading programs feeding indie‑store traffic (waterburyroundabout.org).
Bridgeside Books has picked Gregory Grosvenor’s *Second Pocket First* for Waterbury’s 2026 One Town, One Book program, extending a townwide reading project the store launched in 2022. (waterburyroundabout.org) The Waterbury, Vermont, bookstore said it has sold 917 copies across the program’s first four selections, a tally manager Jenna Danyew cited as proof that a local reading campaign can bring customers into an independent shop. (waterburyroundabout.org) One Town, One Book is a community read built around a single title, with the store stocking copies and local readers discussing the same book over a season. Bridgeside described the effort in 2022 as a way to get “everyone in town to read the same book at the same time.” (thebridgevt.org) Bridgeside has tied the announcement to Independent Bookstore Day, the annual American Booksellers Association event set for Saturday, April 25, 2026. The association says the one-day promotion now spans more than 2,000 bookstores in all 50 states. (bookweb.org) The store’s own events calendar lists “Indie Bookstore Day: One Town One Book” on April 25, 2026, alongside other April programs in Waterbury. That puts the reading initiative inside a weekend built to drive in-store visits, not just book-club participation. (bridgesidebooks.com) Bridgeside has kept the formula consistent: pick a Vermont-connected book, bring in the author, and spread copies through the store, the Waterbury Public Library, and even some little free libraries. Waterbury Roundabout reported that pattern for the 2025 selection, Amy Klinger’s *Ducks on the Pond*. (waterburyroundabout.org) The earlier picks show how the project has evolved. In 2022, the store chose Catherine Drake’s *The Treehouse on Dog River Road*; in 2023, owner Katya d’Angelo picked Anne Averyt’s *Vermont Perspectives* and said the goal was to get readers “on the same page, literally and figuratively”; in 2024, the selection was Annie Seyler’s *The Wisdom of Winter*. (thebridgevt.org) (waterburyroundabout.org 1) (waterburyroundabout.org 2) Grosvenor’s novel fits the store’s taste for regionally rooted fiction with a strong local hook. The author’s site describes *Second Pocket First* as a comic novel about Issey, a thief pulled between his old habits and a town’s goodwill, and publisher materials list its release in late February 2025. (gregorygrosvenor.com) (blackrosewriting.com) For Bridgeside, the pitch is simple: one book, one town, repeated every year. After four seasons and 917 sales, the store is presenting that small-scale model as a working piece of its business. (waterburyroundabout.org)
