Wichita bookstore owner remembered as thoughtful man of faith. His store will carry on
He was a self-described introvert who turned his love of reading into a unique book store that has drawn readers, thinkers and believers for nearly 40 years.
Despite his death this week at age 70, Warren Farha’s Eighth Day Books at 2838 E. Douglas will continue on, said his two adult sons. Warren had made it clear during the last couple of years what his wishes were for the store, and his family is carrying them out: A group of longtime employees, including one that has been at the store for 25 years, will keep it running. The Farha family will retain ownership.
“Although the bookstore has spread to the ends of the world, it was started and it’s been supported by this city and this community, and our dad was the hand that held that store up,” said Timothy Farha, one of Warren’s two sons. “Now it’s going to take our Wichita community to ensure that the bookstore’s beauty and its legacy continue.”
Warren, who founded Eighth Day Books in 1988, died on Wednesday after a brief illness. His sons say that he had been dealing with respiratory issues, and his health declined quickly.
The employees who will keep the store going, though, said that Warren had been working with them for a couple of years already on a transition plan that would allow him to be out of the bookstore more often and to spend more time with his eight grandchildren.
They intend to keep the store, whose focus has always reflected its owner’s interest in the classics. religion, literature and history, operating the way Warren planned.
“He wanted to make sure that the people who kept running it understood what Eighth Day Books was about, the whole ethos of it,” said Rebekah Sturgill, who has worked at the store for five years and whose husband, Joshua Sturgill, is the store’s longest-term employee, at 25 years. “It’s not a Christian bookstore. It’s a bookstore run by Christians. It is a bookstore focused on the books that are the best books, whatever the best books are that we can find.”
Warren, a lifelong Wichitan, was born in 1955 to Bus and Ruth Farha. Bus was a Lebanese merchant who started his career as a grocer but later opened Farha Sales, which dealt in building materials. Warren and his three siblings worked in the grocery store as children, and Warren continued working for his father through high school, college and into his early married life in the early 1980s.
But in May of 1987, Warren’s wife, Barbara, — who was pregnant with the couple’s third child — was on her way home from work as a telephone operator when she was hit by a drunk driver at First and St. Francis. A couple of months later, both Barbara and the couple’s unborn child died.
Warren was a voracious reader and a deep thinker who in his teens had become devoted to his faith, even majoring in religion at Wichita State University. After Barbara’s death, he said in an essay he posted in 2022 on Memoria Press, he needed a change.
“I felt that my life had also ended, and that I had to start over,” the essay read. “For a number of months I had no idea what to do. When I began to recover from the numbness that goes with grief, I started to ask myself obvious questions. What kind of job could I look forward to going to every day? What kind of work would involve the tendencies, loves, talents, and gifts that were part of my particular makeup?”
Warren and his book-loving friends had often discussed what they’d stock in their dream bookstore. He decided he’d pursue that dream.
Eighth Day books opened in one of the old houses in Clifton Square, but in 2002, Warren got the chance to buy his own building: a former wedding shop at 2838 E. Douglas. The building was a converted house with about 3,000 square feet, and the store has operated there ever since. Its 40,000 books occupy two levels, and the basement, dubbed “the hobbit hole,” is full of children’s books. The attic of the house contains its offices.
Warren would go on to marry his wife, Chris, in 1988, and the two would have a son, Timothy. The five Farhas, including Rachel and Nathan, who were 4 and 6 when their mother was killed, became a cohesive family unit, the Farha brothers said.
They will remember their father as a man who was dedicated to his faith, to his family and to his business.
“He was a man of few words who said everything,” Nathan said.
“He was genuine, and he was humble, and he was absolutely determined to do whatever it took to make the store survive, and to support his family,” Timothy said. “A lot of our fondest memories are just being with him and asking him the deeper questions. He embodied a lot of wisdom.”
Sarah Bagby, who owned nearby Watermark Books at 4701 E. Douglas from 1996 until she sold it last year, said that she was surprised and saddened to learn of Warren’s death this week. She respected him immensely, she said, and would sometimes bring visiting authors by Eighth Day Books, knowing they’d enjoy meeting its owner. She remembers that when Warren would recommend a book to her, she’d rush to read it.
The store itself was a special place, she said.
“I loved it,” she said. “It just felt like you were in a place that was very, I’ll just say, sacred. And for someone like me, it was.”
Bagby said she will remember Warren as someone who had a specific vision for his bookstore and managed to carry it out. That’s something all successful booksellers do, she said, and it’s more difficult than it sounds.
Warren’s vision, she said, was to sell books that made people think.
“He was like Diogenes looking for the truth with a lantern,” she said. “You would go drive by his store, sometimes in the evenings when it was already dark, and there’d be a little light on, and you’d just think, ‘He’s in there trying to shed light and brightness — and thinking.”
A funeral service is scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday at St. George Orthodox Cathedral, where Warren was a devoted member. Burial will be at 11 a.m. Wednesday at Kensington Gardens.
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