Shoppers won't find Raymond Chandler's "The Long Goodbye" on the picked-over shelves at Dutton's Books and Art on Laurel Canyon Boulevard.
That's because bargain-hunters have swept up all the copies as the beloved North Hollywood emporium says its own long goodbye. After 45 years in business, the jumbled, rumpled-sweater shop is slated to close mid-month.
For months now, customers have scoured the store's mismatched bookcases for unexpected treasures priced at 50% off -- soon to be 75% off. Regular patrons, many of them the children and grandchildren of past devotees, inevitably pause to reminisce with and hug Davis "Dave" Dutton, the silver-haired, blue-eyed proprietor whose friendly and erudite literary guidance they soon will be forced to do without.
"It has been like a months-long going-away party," Dutton said. "It has been a very pleasant experience, despite the remorse of conscience."
Independent booksellers are shutting their doors with alarming frequency these days, exhausted from battling Amazon.com and other discount heavy giants such as Borders and Barnes & Noble. So it's not really news that another owner has decided to turn over a new leaf. The Dutton's plot, however, has a twist that makes for a happier-than-usual ending -- at least for the owner.
Dutton, 69, intends to continue in the business when he and his wife, Judy, move to the picturesque little town of Friday Harbor, Wash., on the eastern shore of San Juan Island. They plan to launch a small retail store that will operate at least during the summer months, when hordes of tourists descend. After all, Dutton has hardly unloaded all his books. He looks forward to opening hundreds of "boxes and bundles and bags" of volumes he has accumulated over the last 40 years, many of which he plans to sell over the Internet. (If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.)
In addition to the entire personal library of the late historians Will and Ariel Durant, the titles he will ship to his new home include "The Great Comet and Its Terrible Vengeance" and "God's Wrath Vindicated" -- not your typical "Da Vinci Code"-style bestsellers.
Dutton's, across from a Wienerschnitzel and next to a Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits, had its genesis in late 1960, Dutton said. He was overseas, "trying to abide by the principles of 'Europe on $5 a Day,' the student travel bible in those antediluvian times," when his father, Bill, wired him to say he had found a site for the bookstore that he and Dutton's mother, Thelma, had long dreamed of opening. One of his parents' favorite hangouts at that time was Pickwick Bookshop, a Hollywood Boulevard fixture that eventually became part of B. Dalton Bookseller.
