‘We’ve got one shot to open up this bookstore’: First Light Books opens in Hyde Park

In the construction of First Light Books, Taylor and Robin Bruce, along with general manager Breezy Mayo, put thought into every aspect of their new bookstore, which is opening at a time when book sales are on a post-pandemic decline nationally.

At the corner of Speedway and 43rd Street in Austin in early August, under the watchful eye of his publicist, Taylor Bruce describes how his soon-to-open bookshop got its name.

“We went through a long process, my wife, Robin and I, on what we wanted the place to be called,” he says. “We wanted the name to represent a bigger picture.”

Standing outside First Light Books near the end of a tortuously hot Texas summer, Bruce presents the property, which is still under construction.

“First Light is really attached to that feeling of the early morning and that sense of possibility,” he says. “You know, awakening.”

We’re standing on the side of the building that has the store’s outdoor patio and coffee window, which will be open 7 a.m.-9 p.m. seven days a week. There’s just enough shade in the area to make the August heat semi-comfortable.

“The idea of First Light really does attach to what a book can do,” Bruce says. “Books are powerful. They can sort of change the way you think, plant a new idea.”