Brand Bookshop is closing after 29 years. Did you hear that sound? It was the sound of my heart breaking, shattering and falling on the floor as I clutched onto a bookshelf to steady myself in my apartment after hearing the news.
I don’t remember the first time I went to a bookstore, but my first lucid memory of it I was very small and holding my Uncle Kiki’s hand. He’d taken me to a store and treated me to a book. That day glistens in my memory like a shining star. I’d been too bookstores before, taken in arms by my grandparents, uncles and aunts, my father…but that day I remembered. I remember the stacks, shelf upon shelf of glorious, musty-smelling used books. Treasures glittering in Aladdin’s cave.
My uncle took me to the children’s section and there I sat happily poring over book after book. We left that day happy, me with a sack full of wondrous books – my uncle probably thrilled I’d been quiet and still for so long. That day became just one of many such days in my life. Bookstores became my refuge, my second home, my lifeline in troubled times. If I had an extra dollar, that was where I was spending it.
My difficult teen years were made better by used bookstores. I’d ride my bike to this store and that and spend hours in the store. Sometimes I’d have in my basket books I could bear to part with and those I would trade in to I’d sit in the stacks as I did when I was small, poring over books, carefully turning pages. I’d walk up and down aisles, reverently touching the spines of old favorites and being entranced by unknown titles. Those booksellers from Acres of Books, Cliff’s Books and many more would steer me towards sections : Poetry, Books on Books, Latin-America… my cultural literacy grew. My love for books deepened. My love of words and language intensified. These booksellers didn’t know it, but they were growing a writer, probably one of many.
I grew up, got married, moved away. I divorced, moved back to L.A and the first thing I did after recovering from the shell shock of it all was come home. Four very small children in tow, we took a bus from my grandfather’s home (we’d lost my grandmother by then) and went into Glendale. My kids were entranced by the Galleria mall but we headed North up Brand, straight to Brand Bookshop. The door creaked slightly on it’s heavy hinges and there it was…that smell of old books that is both wondrously soothing and erotically intoxicating. Jerome Joseph manned the counter, big blue eyes shining with that light only a lover of books recognizes. The kids settled in the stacks as I had done all those years ago. We left, feeling somewhat normal now with great sacks of books for all, each child clutching happily onto their brown paper bag of wonder.
Over the years we went there many times. A single working mother can’t afford much, but a used bookstore provides an economical way to delight. My kids became connoisseurs of the book trade. They loved to trade in their books for new ones and loved haggling with the booksellers. They learned fractions from D & D books that they traded in old picture books for while I worked on building up my poetry library. When I moved and needed to clean out my collection, Jerome was there to take them off my hands. I can’t count the amount of times we drove in with boxes full of books and left with a credit slip, only to return and go to the new home with more boxes of books.
The kids grew up and moved away and I consoled myself in the stacks of Brand Bookshop. Where empty rooms used to taunt me, now a smaller place filled with books became my comfort. I took friends to Brand Bookshop and eventually a man I loved. I knew it wouldn’t work when he lingered over the album section instead of in my beloved book aisles.
My grandchildren were born and they literally cut their teeth on books from Brand Bookshop. They too learned the art of the trade, a love of books, a knowing of that musty, yellowing-paged aroma. I hesitate to tell them that Brand Bookshop is closing, but I must. We will make a final trip to say goodbye. We will be teary and in denial, we will buy and buy till there’s nothing left in our wallets and we will leave with the comfort only a bag of books can bring.
Brand Bookshop will live in our hearts forever, a titan of a store filled with the love and caring only booksellers can give. My life has been shaped by the great bookstores of Los Angeles: Dangerous Visions, Book Soup, Skylight, Cliff’s Books. Vroman’s, Acres of Books, Change of Hobbit, The Book Cellar, Flights of Fancy, Barry Levine’s, Read Books, and so many, many more. Please, for God’s sake put down the Kindles and start supporting our local bookstores. We need them more than anyone could ever know. They save lives, they touch lives, they change lives, they make lives.
Jerome is retiring and we wish him well, but after losing Cliff’s and so many others, this is a particularly wrenching loss. Brand Bookshop begins a 50% off sale on July first and continuing till they close. I would so appreciate you going and buying some books. I’ll be there on Tuesday, being weepy and difficult, but buying books, taking pictures and probably hugging the shelves. I’ll be there on the holiday weekend as well, bringing my grandchildren in to say goodbye and buy them books.
I feel like a family member has died, and so it has. Goodbye Brand Bookshop, we love you well.
