Dreams of a Booktrovert
Jennifer Caspar and Her Passion for Bookstores
“I just think books are healthy things to be around.” — Jennifer Caspar
Sometimes it takes half a lifetime to get to building a life built around our deepest passions. Sometimes it takes even longer. But it’s never too late.
Proof of this principle is in the story of Jennifer Caspar, founder of Village Well Books & Coffee, a cozy, community-focused bookstore and coffee shop nestled in the heart of Culver City, California.
Walk inside, and you’ll feel all the love she poured into the place. Thoughtfully arranged displays showcase contemporary and classic books of the season, while totes and stickers featuring cats with their noses buried in books and charming slogans like ‘BOOKTROVERT’ and ‘Reading Books Makes Me Happy’ line the shelves. The smell of fresh espresso and grilled paninis fill the air. The store’s small but diverse selection—from recent Pulitzer Prize winners to contemporary psychology to rows of children’s books—reflects Casper’s careful curation. She spends countless hours selecting each book, ensuring that every item reflects her store’s mission of fostering community and connection.
“I was just so elated,” she says, recalling when she finally opened it. “It was something I had been talking about and thinking about for so long. I had allowed myself to share [my dream] with other people. But I was getting embarrassed… like maybe this is just something I’m going to talk about forever and never do. So when I finally got the opportunity, I was just so happy.”
Her joy of books has spread. Whether it’s a typical Wednesday afternoon or during one of their packed writing classes or author events, Village Well is filled with people reading or talking about books. On any given day, you might find groups of local writers huddled in a corner, discussing their latest drafts, or regulars like me, sipping lattes while browsing the latest collections. Ask the cashiers or baristas for a recommendation, and they will light up with enthusiasm. Caspar has created a place where everyone loves books as much as she does.
“Everything is in a bookstore,” she says. “All the knowledge, all the books, all the words… they can take you in so many different directions.”
Since discovering Village Well Books & Coffee last year, the place has captured my heart. It’s the combination of carefully chosen books and book lovers in the small but welcoming, brightly decorated space that makes it feel like something out of the pre-internet age. It’s as if we all share the same worldview, one that my friend and author Steven Kotler encapsulated perfectly: “Books are where the secrets are.” At Village Well, it’s like we’re all in on this same secret together.
And in today’s digital age, Caspar believes that physical books are more important than ever. “Books are the antidote to everything that ails us,” she says, explaining that as our attention spans shrink, books help us focus deeply on one thing. “I just think books are healthy things to be around… And when you’re in a bookstore, you’re just surrounded by it. The feel of it, the smell of it, the colors. It’s wonderful.”
Caspar has always loved books. She grew up in a family where everyone was always reading. “I don’t remember at any point in my life thinking, ‘I read more than other people do,’” she recalls. To her, it was just normal.
But this love of books took on even more importance when, at the age of two and a half, she faced a tragedy—her sister died in a car accident. As she went inward with her sorrow, she turned to books for solace. But the loss of her sister left its mark on Caspar, creating what she calls a hole in her heart.
“I was a person who couldn't find connection, who never felt good enough or loved enough worthy of love,” she recalls. “So I just looked around me, and I just thought… I want other people to not feel lonely.”
Sometimes, it’s these holes in our hearts that become the seeds of our eventual passions. If we pay attention to the areas where we feel that emptiness, we might find we become energized by filling it later on. For Caspar, creating Village Well was her way of filling that void. It provided her with the sense of community and connection she had longed for since she was a child and ensured that others would never have to experience the loneliness she once did.
Caspar always knew her way of building community would involve creating a space where people could come together around something meaningful. In their twenties, she and her husband talked about what this might look like, dreaming of buying an old movie theater or opening a coffee shop with rows of bookshelves and author events. “I wanted to create a space to give people something to talk about… and space to talk about it in,” she says. “That’s how us introverts connect… over books or movies or songs or whatever. It’s like, ‘Don’t make me do small talk.’”
But the idea remained just a dream. After college, Caspar went into affordable housing and real estate development, putting her early passions aside to focus on raising a family. It wasn’t until the second tragedy struck—her husband passed away in their 40s—that the dream resurfaced with new urgency. She couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Still, she didn’t take the leap. She made excuses for delaying—just like so many of us do when we consider the crazy idea of actually building our life around our passions, not a more professional role or safe and traditional path. “I was thinking a lot during those years, ‘I’m going to do it this year. I’m going to find a place.’ But I never did,” she says.
In fact, it took another 10 years—and her kids graduating from college—for Caspar to finally take that first step. By then, she was in her 50s, and she realized that if her dream had endured for so long, it was meant to be. “Then it was just like nothing was holding me back,” she says. She solidified her vision into a combined coffee shop and bookstore, which combined her two lasting passions: books and community.
Then she got practical. She started by learning everything she could about the business she wanted to be in, signing up for a training program for aspiring coffee shop owners and another for prospective book owners. Next, she leaned on her skills in urban planning and real estate, which she says were essentially the same thing as being a project manager. “When you’re a project manager, it’s just like, put one foot in front of the other. What do you need to do to make this happen? What money do you need? What do the funders need? It’s just a checklist, you know?”
Once she got going, Caspar treated opening a bookstore just like any other big project: she chipped away at the unknowns until she understood everything she needed to know. That’s what passion does… it gives you the drive do the sometimes impossibly hard, long-shot work.
“It took me a long time,” she says. “I’m a slow learner. And it took me until into my fifties to have the confidence and the calm to take it on.” Caspar’s story is a reminder that it is never too late to pursue our passions. Even if you’ve been thinking about doing something for years—or even decades—it’s never too late to take that first step. In fact, all the wisdom and experience gained over those years might actually increase your chances of success.
Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s been all smooth sailing since opening day (which, by the way, was January 1st, 2021—in the middle of the COVID pandemic. Talk about challenging!). Every small business owner knows how demanding it is to run a physical space, from employee management to handling inventory and fundraising. But it’s clear Caspar loves it: “It’s so satisfying,” she says. “I’ve had this dream in me for so long.”
Caspar believes that a big part of the reason she’s been able to live out her dream is because of that early hole in her heart.
“I think if you don’t have a hole in your heart that’s big enough, then maybe your dream doesn’t burn at you,” she says. “You know, maybe you’re just happy to have good dinners with your family and Sunday lunches.”
Like me, Caspar doesn’t live near her extended family and has always struggled to build a broader community outside of her work. “I have a really good relationship with my daughters… and I have a boyfriend,” she says. “But I feel like I don’t cultivate community. I think it’s just more natural for me to pour my energy into this external business dream.”
Caspar’s journey shows that it’s possible to address pain with passion—both forces so connected to the heart. By pouring that big heart of hers into Village Well, she has let us all in on what makes it tick. And that’s made us possible for us all to love books, especially the ones she picks out, as much as she does.
Takeaways
Here is one big thing I learned this week about passion, one exercise you can do to stoke your own inner fire, and one aspect of Caspar’s intense enthusiasm that rubbed off on me — and that I now want to learn more about, too!
1. One Lesson: Turning Personal Struggles into Community Strengths
Caspar’s path to opening Village Well Books & Coffee shows how personal struggles can be transformed into strengths that benefit the broader community. Her early experiences of loneliness and loss drove her to create a welcoming space for others to connect and find companionship through a shared love of books. Caspar’s journey demonstrates that by embracing and channeling personal challenges into our passions, we can create supportive environments that uplift others.
2. One Exercise: Reflecting on Dormant Dreams
Take a moment to reflect on any dormant dreams or passions you’ve set aside over the years. Consider the wisdom and skills you’ve gained since then and how they could now help you pursue these passions. Ask yourself: What dreams have I put on hold? How has my experience prepared me to take them up again? Brainstorm ways to reignite those passions, inspired by Casper’s journey of turning her long-held dream into a thriving community space.
3. One Curiosity: The Art of Book Selection for Bookstores
Talking to Caspar about everything that goes into running a bookstore got me curious about the book selection process for small, community-focused bookstores like Village Well. Casper told me she goes through catalogs with up to 10,000 books a year to choose their selection! Her goal is to find the ones that will spark conversations—whether they’re the books winning the Pulitzer Prize or something more under the radar. I’ll never look at a bookstore’s collection in the same way again.