While recovering from radiation therapy, Suzanne Strempek Shea heard from a friend who was looking for help at her bookstore. Shea volunteered, seeing it as nothing more than a way to get out of her pajamas and back into the world. But over the next twelve months, from St. Patrick's Day through Poetry Month, graduation/Father's Day/summer reading/Christmas, and back again to those shamrock displays, Shea lived and breathed books in a place she says sells "ideas, stories, encouragement, answers, solace, validation, the basic ammunition for daily life."