It was the beginning of the Depression and G. C. Law and his son Arthur moved to New York City from California. Gordon landed a job at Hotalings News, an out of town newspaper shop, that carried papers from across the United States. After a few years of working regular at the NYC shop G. C. became restless and started taking summers off and opened up his own "Out of Town" newspaper stand on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, NJ, a few hours from Manhattan. As the story goes, the owner of Hotalings, found out that one of his employees was moonlighting, and using his business connections to obtain the papers for himself. So Gordon was told his services were no longer required at the New York Store and his connections went cold on him also.

This didn't fraught the young Law, he was ready for a change anyway. He started his own lending library in 1937 and squeezed out a marginal living for a few years. Next entrepreneurial Gordon had an idea, instead of renting the books, he could get paperbacks in mass quantities and sell them inexpensively. So he obtained a connection and started buying remainders, paperbacks with their covers torn off, and selling them for 10 cents. He converted the library into a store in 1940 and named it Publishers Outlet. By the early 1950's he had 5 stores in New York City and one in Florida.

Arthur, Gordon's son ran the largest store on 8th Avenue and 43rd Street near the New York Times Newspaper. In 1956 he bought it from his father and the remaining smaller stores closed and G. C. Law retired. They renamed the business A&S Book Company, for Arthur and his wife Sophia. Gary's father, Lawrence, worked for Arthur his stepson in that store for 15 years until 1971, when high rents on the Avenue forced them to downsize the store by half and move onto 43rd street directly across from the New York Times. This was a blessing and curse for them. There was an immediate drop off of traffic from the Avenue location but more of the Times employees started shopping there. Also the business model changed from new & used books to used magazines and used paperbacks.

Arthur Law, retired in 1972 for health reasons and handed down the business to Lawrence. He ran it successfully for 15 years and then retired and left the business to Gary his oldest. He opened a second store next to the Port Authority Bus Terminal and doubled the business in the first year. Gary ran the stores along with his brother Larry until high rents combined with the recession of 1991 forced them to close. Both boys were working in the family stores since they were 8 and 9, interning on Saturdays and then more involvement as they got older, so this was a tough blow to take.

Gary Blue had studied theatre in college and went into that field while Larry went into construction. In 1992, Gary moved to Arizona, he started working in the corporate audio/visual field and stayed in that field for 15 years servicing clients in the Scottsdale and Phoenix Hotels & Resorts. It was the spring of 2007 when Gary moved to Prescott and get out of the growing sprawl and heat of the Valley. Things were doing well for him until the current economic downturn, which presented him with a choice. Leave Prescott and return to work in Metro Phoenix full time or open a bookstore again in Prescott, just like the old days.

The store opened March 1st and has been met with encouraging community response during the first two months. Paperback City features Mystery, Romance, Novels, Fantasy, Scifi, Military, Westerns, Children's and Christian Fiction books, also one third of the store is dedicated to assorted non-fiction topics. Paperback City (City meaning populous) is a 1,200 square foot store that holds 20,000 books, 16,000 and 4,000 hardcovers. Books are unit priced $5.00 for most hardcover books and $2.50 for all paperback books (some larger format books are the exception priced at $10.00). The store has 60 book shelves and 5 table tops with spacious 4 foot aisles. The construction is all custom in pine and oak with blond to red tones mixed around the store. The walls are painted in a soft coffee earth tone scheme hand brushed in a varied freeform treatment (subdued Jackson Pollock). A 4 foot high live spruce stands at the cash wrap to finnish the nature tone motif. Gary is also a digital artist and he will be adding his artwork around the store. Featured will be Landscapes of the Prescott area with a outdoor reader theme as the final touch of the decor. There is a little something for everyone at Paperback City store with over 2,000 new titles coming in each week it's always a new adventure.