“I cannot live without books,” said Thomas Jefferson.
Stephen King described books as “uniquely portable magic” and “the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent.”
And author Jhumpa Lahiri wrote: “That’s the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet.”
The benefits of books are now being discovered and shared in a new, independent bookstore in a rural community of Kansas. Jennifer Kassebaum is the owner of Flint Hills Books in Council Grove.
Kassebaum went to the University of Kansas and earned a law degree at the KU law school, where she met and married Bill Kassebaum. They now have a cow-calf operation on a ranch near the rural community of Burdick, population 62 people. Now, that’s rural.
Kassebaum practiced law, worked as assistant general counsel at K-State and later at Wichita State before taking early retirement. As she thought about what she would like to be involved with next, one topic kept surfacing: Books.
“I always enjoyed books,” Kassebaum said. She thought about opening an independent bookstore. After researching the idea, including talking to several independent booksellers, Kassebaum leased a space in a beautiful former bank building in the nearby town of Council Grove.
