About Us
Forest Chambliss
Founder
Forest Chambliss founded The Book Forest in 2010. His inspiration was to support the volunteers and staff at Friends of the Library programs by selling their books online to maximize their profits to increase the effectiveness of the Friends' mission in the community. From the time of its inception, The Book Forest has helped raise roughly 2.5 million for participating Bay Area public libraries through online sales with the tireless help of the Friends of the Library.
In the mid-2000s, Forest was active in the eBay space and spent time at estate and library sales on the lookout for books and other items to sell online. As Forest started to become friends with many of the volunteers of the Friends of the Library, he saw that helping them sell books online would return a larger share of the profits to the community. The money raised by the Friends of the Library goes to after-school programs, ESL programs, computers, and staff, children reading to dogs, and most programs hosted by public libraries.
Though a bookworm in his youth, Forest's passion for this work came from getting to know and admire many of the library volunteers who have dedicated their lives to supporting their local libraries out of their love for books and the importance of the library to their community. He has held relationships with many of these libraries for over a decade, and expects to continue his mission to increase profits for local Bay Area libraries and the communities they support. The Book Forest is currently in the process of becoming a 501c3 non-profit organization.
Forest grew up in Mill Valley and currently lives in San Francisco with his wife and two children. Forest served in the US army from 1995 to 1998 and earned a NATO service ribbon for his service in Bosnia. He studied International Business at Dominican University in San Rafael, graduating in 2000.
In the local news!
On a recent visit to the Mill Valley Library, Forest and his daughter became part of a KPIX | CBS BAY AREA News story about reading to dogs.
Watch the news story, Therapy dogs help kids in Marin County build reading confidence.