San Francisco is My Home

22
Feb

You put your bookstore in, you put your bookstore out

Author: kris, Category: News, Shopping

As Berkeley’s Cody’s Books moves house yet again, things continue to look dire for independent bookstores. This isn’t really news, of course. Indie bookstores have been failing for decades. Still, Cody’s was an institution for years and years, and on their new premises they’ll be seriously dialing down their selection.

“The days of big full-service bookstores are over,” said Hut Landon, director of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association. “The smaller neighborhood model is what’s working.”

I wonder what this means for Green Apple Books, SF’s fabulous enormous used bookstore. They appear to be thriving — they’re always packed, no matter what time or day I go. And it doesn’t hurt that they’re a block from one of the city’s hottest restaurants, Burma Superstar, which often has a two-hour seating delay, giving diners nothing to do in the interim but browse through the bookstore while they wait for a table. Still, it seems unlikely that this one mega-indie store will escape the axe, just because it happens to be the one I love most.

This artwork is by Paul Madonna, another fabulous San Francisco institution.