Ellie Fortney, owner of Ellie’s Paperback Shack.

Ellie Fortney didn’t get the day off on her 73rd birthday.  She laughed, “My boss didn’t give me any time off.”  Ellie is her own boss and the owner of Ellie’s Paperback Shack in Waldorf.  This year Ellie’s little bookstore is having a sort of big birthday too, its 30th anniversary.

The Paperback Shack contains one mountainous row of books after another.  Thin wooden shelves bow under the weight.  Everything balances like a Seussian illustration and yet there is order to the chaos.  The whole store has a system, implemented in the early days by an elderly gentleman, Jack Alexander, who asked Ellie for a job to keep him occupied after his wife passed away.  Mr. Alexander worked for Ellie for ten years and perfected the system which the store uses to this day. 

Ellie extols the kind, helpful nature of her employees.  “They have to be my memory.”  When her memory began failing a while back, her employees began leaving notes to supplement her memory.  They want her to call them at home if she can’t find something.  And through all that, it seems her employees generally like to stick around for a while.

Ellie stocks many out-of-print books.  You can’t beat the bargain of buying a used book for half its original price.  She’s even happy to take requests.  The wall next to her tiny counter is covered with little notes detailing customer requests.  They reside right in her line of vision, fresh in her memory, next to all the family photos she’s tacked up beside the spot where she sits.

“I’ve never had a mean customer in thirty years,” she adds.

Several decades ago, her husband Charles fulfilled his dream of building a brick house in St. Mary’s County.  In order to make things fair, he gave Ellie the money to start her own dream business.  Though she admits that a bookstore wasn’t her initial idea, it turned out to be a good one.  With a smirk, Ellie shares that Charles still calls the book store her “hobby” despite the fact that she’s put two children through college with income it generated.

Ellie first opened her bookstore in La Plata in 1977.  But, the retail space changed and she needed to move.  At the time the Berkley Square Shopping Center off of Route 301 was the only space available in her budget range.  It’s worked well for her and she likes Waldorf, so she’s still there today.

When asked if her business suffered when Borders was built, Ellie said that her business not only stayed strong, but that Borders also sends people her way from time to time.  They send her their customers looking for something out of print; she tries to return the favor as often as possible. 

Ellie’s Paperback Shack
2700 Crain Highway
Berkley Square
Waldorf, MD 20601
301-934-3140

Ellie has scheduled several sale days to celebrate her 30 years in the second-hand book business. 


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