Tally Kerr believes books sustain us, like food.

And if there are food trucks, let there be book trucks. 

Let there be Roadrunner Bookshop, this book-filled trailer Kerr has been hauling around Colorado Springs this year. 

She’s often been parking next to food trucks, like this one at this brewery this afternoon. Kerr has been catching people by surprise, like this woman stepping out of the trailer now, book in hand. 

The title had been on her list, she says. “And it’s like, Oh, wow! It’s right here!”  

Right here where she least expected it, inside this candle-scented trailer she did not imagine when she came for a beer. 

“I hope you enjoy it,” Kerr says to the customer. 

And she hopes more discover Roadrunner, which deals in this sort of serendipity as much as it deals in books. 

Kerr’s only regret: “Because it’s under 100 square feet, I can’t carry everything.” The effort is valiant: Here’s a small section of brand new books between hundreds of “previously enjoyed” paperbacks and hardcovers lining the shelves bolted to the trailer walls. They are arranged according to labels for classics, fantasy, travel, nature, history, economics, children and more. 

But no, it’s not the variety you’ll find at a more traditional independent bookstore. Certainly not the variety you’ll find at Barnes & Noble. 

“I can’t compete with Barnes & Noble, and that’s not my intent,” Kerr says. “My intent is to take books to places where people wouldn’t normally find them.”

Along with breweries, Roadrunner has parked at coffee shops, tea shops, yoga studios and festivals. And this is one great contribution of the mobile concept Heather Duncan has seen take off in the industry. 

“They can sell books to people who might not think of visiting a bookstore,” says the executive director of the Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association. 

The association counts 73 bookstore members in Colorado, and six of them are what Duncan calls “new mobile and/or pop-up stores.” Roadrunner is the only one of its kind around Colorado Springs. It’s overseen by a woman with tattoos on her arm and boots on her feet that hint at the life she leads at home on the plains around Falcon — gardens, honeybees, llamas, chickens, rabbits and all.

In the wake of a pandemic that reignited a nationwide love for books, Kerr is among “a new crop of diverse, younger bookstore owners” Duncan has seen move into the industry. “And the ease and affordability of opening a mobile store allows them to get into the business,” Duncan says. 

For Kerr, the concept felt like more than a business. It felt like spreading that power she knows books to have — that power to sustain, not unlike the honey from bees she keeps and veggies she grows. And similarly, she knows, books should be consumed. 

“I love giving books another chance,” she says. “Sometimes I come across books and think, If I don’t take these, what’s gonna happen to them? So just trying to give them another chance at life rather than being discarded is really important to me. That’s why 95% of the trailer is previously enjoyed books.”

Yes, Kerr does not easily walk away from books — as her friends have seen over the years. 

Recalls one of those friends, Jennifer Underwood, thinking back on the start of Roadrunner: “I think this all began with a trip where she bought more books than any one person should need, and we were kind of joking about, you know, you really need a way to keep buying more books but for a good reason. It was this idea of, OK, I can’t personally keep all of these books, but I would love to share them.” 

To share all of the knowledge every book offered. This was how Kerr first fell in love with books.

“It was just the different stories you hear, the different experiences,” she says. “Especially when you grow up in a small rural community, books take you to different places.” 

Kerr grew up around Raton, NM, where she often pretended to be a librarian, scanning books. She’d get a real job in the Pikes Peak Library District while attending the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. She studied forensic science and went on to the city’s Police Department, where she met Underwood. 

They bonded over much more than evidence analysis. “We’ve bonded over so many things,” Underwood says, mentioning books along with thrifting, gardening, crafting, embroidery, watercolor and ongoing mosaic classes. “We’ve just bonded over our shared passion for learning as many things as possible.” 

Kerr also loves birding, which explains her bird-specific book club. She’s currently reading about life that thrives in the dark, bats and owls and glowworms and fireflies and such. It’s a break from her favorite genre: memoirs. 

“It’s just this constant desire to learn new things and see things through other people’s perspectives,” says another longtime friend, Rachelle Fante. 

And so it’s only fitting to find Kerr there in the trailer, surrounded by books. “Surrounded by the smell of books, the feel of old books,” Fante says. “And getting to find those treasures and seeing people’s faces when they find those treasures on her shelf, that’s really exciting for her.” 

As exciting as that smell, that flip of the page. The physical sensations of books lend to a certain experience hard for Kerr to come by in a digital world. 

“So much of life is in fast forward, and we’re always go go go,” she says. “It’s so important for us to take that break and have that time to nurture our soul and our mind.” 

Maybe more people are taking a break with a book these days, as Duncan likes to think. She like to think that’s the case, judging by growth she’s tracked with Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association.

She counted 97 member stores across the association’s 14 states when she became executive director in 2018. Now that number is 307, seemingly helped by a time defined by people slowing down and reading. 

“While quite a few stores that have opened in the post-pandemic boom have not survived, the growth is still net positive, with more stores opening than closing,” Duncan says. 

But challenges remain for independent sellers, she says: overhead costs, “notoriously small” profit margins and “fierce competition from chain bookstores who can purchase books in large quantities and get better pricing, as well as online stores like Amazon, who choose to sell books as a loss leader in order to get customers on their platforms.” 

Little Roadrunner can’t compete, of course. “I can only offer an experience,” Kerr says. 

A surprising experience.

“The word that comes to mind is wonderment,” Underwood says. “People walk up and they just have this look of childhood wonder on their face. There’s this bookstore in a place they least expect to find a bookstore.”

It’s not what Kerr was expecting either.

She had long enjoyed her management position at Buckley’s Homestead Supply, where she shared her passions from back home: chickens, rabbits, beekeeping, growing and canning. Ownership changed and the business transitioned around the start of this year. 

“One chapter closes and another one opens,” Kerr says. “No pun intended.” 

This next chapter finds Kerr connecting with strangers, like the man who picked up a book and proceeded to share his knowledge of James Polk, the country’s 11th president. Another man wandered into the trailer and left with a book about Abraham Lincoln along with a copy of “All Quiet on the Western Front” and a collection of Native American poetry. Kerr had an emotional reaction that she struggles to explain. 

“He was like, ‘Are you gonna cry if I take them?'” she recalls with a laugh. “It just made me so happy. Like, I had chosen those books at one point, and those were beautiful books, and it was amazing to think somebody else is gonna appreciate them.” 

Would people appreciate the trailer in the cold of winter? Kerr has thought about this, just as she has thought about more books and more space. She has thought about a brick and mortar someday. 

Of course, the business name wouldn’t make as much sense in one place. Roadrunner is for Kerr’s love of birds, the state bird of her native New Mexico, “and we’re on the move,” she says. 

She’ll keep moving, she says. “It’s an open road.”