From PEOPLE Magazine
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Other celebrity bibliophiles are less enigmatic. Richard Gere, says Bass, flirts while he looks for photography books and "everything on Tibet." Ben Affleck has been there, buying Cormac McCarthy galleys for pal Matt Damon and dressed, she says, "in sweats, like a jovial frat boy." U2's Bono picked up a $25,000 1935 Ulysses signed by both James Joyce and Henri Matisse, whose etchings graced the rare find. "The Strand," says Gere, "is the most dangerous bookshop in New York. It's impossible to spend less than two hours there."
Founded 75 years ago by Bass's granddad Benjamin and owned today by Bass, 41, and her father, Fred, 74, the Strand is the largest independent used bookstore in the U.S., with 2.5 million volumes—from 48-cent paperbacks to a $125,000 1632 Shakespeare Second Folio—and a reported $20 million annual revenue. Bass has expanded it by 120,000 sq. ft.—and onto the Internet. "Our awning says '8 Miles of Books,"' says Bass. "It's changing soon to '16 Miles.'"
There is a shortcut on the road to erudition instant libraries curated by Bass. For his retreat on Miami's Fisher Island, Tom Cruise, she says, "wanted half-priced mainstream hardbacks." Steven Spielberg preferred "every great book on film and theater" for his screening room in East Hampton, N.Y. And when Revlon boss Ron Perelman tried to get her to budge from the $100,000 she was asking for 6,000 antique leather-bound books, she says, "I stuck to my guns; he buckled." Says Fred: "Nancy's a tougher cookie than I am."
Bass also rents out books for use on movie sets—at an average $30 per shelf foot—from Meg Ryan's You've Got Mail bookshop to Russell Crowe's Princeton office in A Beautiful Mind. "I'm able to make money doing what I love and believing in the specialness of what I'm selling," she says.
Bibliophily was in Bass's blood as she grew up in Pelham, N.Y., where Fred and his wife, Patricia, 74, a real estate agent, filled their home with art books. (Brother Steven, an interior designer, died of a heart attack last year at age 48.) As a kid, she traveled to the store with her father, sharpening pencils, answering phones—and exploring every inch of the eight miles of books. "It was so cool," she says. "I could have any book I wanted."
In 1987, with an MBA from the University of Wisconsin, Bass went into the family business, starting out as a buyer. It was the perfect career move. "Books," she says, "are a magnet, an obsession." She puts in six-day weeks to oversee the store's 200-plus employees. Fred also works full-time, mostly in acquisitions. "That's what I love," he says. "Nancy's got her eye on everything. She's a pusher."
Living alone in a two-bedroom Fifth Avenue penthouse, Bass, single since a 1997 divorce from lawyer Kevin Kostyn, loves Manhattan's nightlife—art openings, benefits, dinners and recitals. Her one gripe: Her schedule leaves her little time to curl up with a book. "I love it when I have to fly," she says, "and I can just sit there and read. That's the greatest."
