First today, we take you to East Emma Avenue in Springdale. A cream-colored storefront with two wide display windows is home to In Bloom Floral Company, KaGie's custom stationery business, Snip and Sprout Co. and its houseplants, and the newest addition, Two Friends Community Books.
Monica Diodati and Rachel Stuckey Slaton are the two friends behind the bookshop.
The small footprint just inside the front door packs a punch. Tucked in the corner behind some shelves is a set of cushions that makes for a reading nook. Stuckey Slaton says she wants it to feel inviting.
"Yeah, this is really where we're hoping children will go get cozy, find whatever 'Dog Man' book they're interested in and just get lost in it. We've also got some sidewalk chalk. If we have any young artists who want to come out and draw something interesting while maybe their grown-up is doing a little shopping, that would also be welcome."
"I love it," Moore says. "How did you acquire this shelving? Because it looks..."
"Oh boy. Let me tell you," Stuckey Slaton says.
"It doesn't look like something you'd find in Ikea, necessarily."
"So this is a Facebook Marketplace treasure, Stuckey Slaton says. “And it came out of a gentleman's house in downtown Fayetteville, off of, I want to say, Maple Street. He was downsizing. He lives in a converted church. And these are library-grade shelves that he just had his personal library on. And so we thought, wow, what a beautiful new life for these guys. Because let me tell you, finding freestanding shelves is very challenging. And we are not supposed to be putting holes in these historic walls, right?”
Those secondhand, freestanding, library-grade shelves hold a collection of new and donated books that serve as the foundation of Two Friends Community Books. Diodati says patrons can pay what they can at this bookshop, even if that's nothing at all.
"And really, you can take a book, peruse it here, and if you want to take it home, you can make a donation to the nonprofit. And then all of the donations that we receive go to restocking the shelves. So, really, we're counting on the community to donate in order to keep this going. But also, if you don't have the funds to donate, that doesn't preclude you from getting that book that you have been eyeing or wanting to read."
The idea of free books is not novel. After all, that's one of the main ideas of a library, right? Diodati says she is definitely pro-library.
"Yeah, I think the library is great and a huge resource for free books, clearly. But there is something to having a home library and having books in the space that you call home and being able to go back to those books that you love to reference."
A 2010 study led by researchers at the University of Nevada, Reno, shows that growing up with 500 books was associated with about three additional years of schooling compared to growing up without books. The study examines data across 27 different countries and accounts for parents' education, as well as other family factors.
Stuckey Slaton says, in conjunction with that data, being able to call a book yours is impactful, too.
"You're more likely to pick it up and read it. You're more likely to consider yourself a reader, and you're more likely to spend time in that quiet, contemplative, imaginary space that our brains really need, especially in this time of technology, artificial intelligence, etc. A book is your friend."
This isn't the first home for Two Friends Community Books in Springdale. Back in February 2025, Casa Magnolia opened at the intersection of Holcomb Street and West Allen Avenue. Inside the cafe and community space was Two Friends Community Books. But just eight months later, the owner of Casa Magnolia closed its doors, leaving the pay-what-you-can bookshop without a home. Stuckey Slaton says the concept was well received and the idea was working, even if it was short-lived.
"If anything, it felt to me more like an encouragement that it is working because we saw that it worked on Holcomb Street, inside Casa Magnolia. To me, that gave me confidence to be like, oh, this is something that we need to continue because there is clearly a demand for it. And we got so much positive feedback from the community."
Stuckey Slaton says for a project like this to work, there needs to be a healthy intersection of commerce and collaboration.
"So I think that part of what that is doing is we all have an incentive to make this space work for the community. For us, the motivation is bringing people in, turning it into a community space and having it be a place that people want to spend time.
"And then from a business perspective, if you're running a retail operation, you need feet in the door. And so we both are working towards the same goal. And I think that also in this case, there's a lot of crossover between folks that love reading and people who like indoor plants and stationery and sort of those tactile, non-technological things to surround themselves with."
For the time being, Two Friends will not have a staff member in the shop at all times. Diodati says staff from In Bloom will be available to answer basic questions.
"But in terms of specific to the collection, we do have a volunteer base that has been super great and willing to help out. And they'll be here a few days a week. We have lunchtime bookseller for a day is what we call the shifts. So lunchtime during the week and then after hours on the days that the shop's open till six, and then on Saturdays and Sunday afternoons, we'll have volunteers here to talk with people through recommendations, receive donations for books, help keep the shelves neat. And Rachel and I will also be here a couple times a week as well.”
In addition to people donating their time, Two Friends is also thinking about people donating their money. Stuckey Slaton says it's important to have a balance of institutional donations as well as individual donors.
"I think that we sort of consider the institutional giving as the ways in which we're able to just exist in this space, and we look at the individual givers, people who are leaving donations when they're taking a book, that's a more direct exchange of, like, 'I'm taking a book from the shelf, and then we're using that book to reinvest in a new book that somebody else can, or the same person could come back and enjoy.'"
Two Friends Books in Bentonville is a community hub in addition to being a for-profit bookstore and café. They host more than a half dozen book clubs, author events, and they regularly partner with the Bentonville Public Library for events, too. Diodati says there's nothing set in stone right now, but they hope to provide similar opportunities with Two Friends Community Books in Springdale.
"We have interest in bringing back the bilingual book club and kids' storytimes. We did, at Magnolia, rely heavily on the community to do that programming. And I think, as we invite people into the space, hopefully we'll have people being like, oh, I want to host my craft night here. Or, I'm reading this book with my friends. We're all going to meet here tonight. And so that's definitely doable. And we have, just like we did at the other space, a shared calendar with all of the people we're sharing the space with. And we can figure out nights where we can block things off."
"What does success look like?"
"To me, success looks like a really high turn rate on the books," Stuckey Slaton says. "That means these books are going out into Northwest Arkansas, into people's homes. And ideally, there is also a reciprocal culture of donation so that we can refill them. That feels very successful to me, with one or two institutional partners who can help us maintain the real estate."
The books currently on the shelves run the gamut, Diodati and Stuckey Slaton say the mix is about 50-50 adult and kids. There are a handful of Sears guides to home repair, a Reader's Digest Fix-It-Yourself Manual, books written in Marshallese and Spanish, plus a few hidden treasures.
"One Easter egg, and I don't know if I can find it. Oh, no. Here it is. Okay, this looks like nothing. Okay. So it's called the 20th edition Speedball Textbook for Pen and Brush Lettering. So up here we have a hand-painted sign from a local sign painter down in, I want to say, West Fork. And as I was putting books in the shelves, I saw this. And at first I thought it was kind of maybe something to throw out, but then I opened it up and saw the really interesting lettering designs.
"And whenever I showed this to the sign painter, he was like, oh yeah, that is the very first book that I got to learn how to do. Sign painting was this one right here that you're holding, and that was in the 1970s in Detroit. And I was like, okay, so this is a relic of a craft that is kind of dying, unfortunately. And so it really feels like a special little piece of history."
"What else?"
“Can I just draw your attention to? One little detail of the physical space? Okay. So these are three things that we brought over from Holcomb Street. This right here was our sign that was outside the building that's now living inside on this delightful floral cooler. But then next to it are these plates, which I feel like that's such a grandmotherly design choice. But if you look closely, you see that they're actually scenes from Charles Dickens novels. And so sitting here next to some fiction, it feels like a very appropriate and delightful little detail."
Two Friends Community Books is open seven days a week. You can find more details at twofriendsbooks.com/nonprofit. For Ozarks at Large, I'm Matthew Moore.
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