There were more television camera crews than customers when Eso Won Books opened Sunday morning. By afternoon, though, the place was packed with customers -- many sent from church by their pastors -- as news spread that the venerable black-owned bookstore will close soon if it doesn't sell more books.
The challenge facing the Leimert Park shop is neither new nor distinctly black. Independent bookstores have been on the endangered species list for years.
Twenty years ago, the threat was from chains, like Crown, then mega-stores like Borders. Now the competition is online; one-third of all books sold in this country today are ordered through the convenient clicks of Amazon.com.
But in an era when neighborhood businesses -- from hardware stores to pharmacies -- are often pushed into insolvency by corporate giants, why does the closure of a bookstore spark such hand-wringing?
Because bookstores sell more than books; they offer a sense of community. At their best, this vanishing breed -- think Midnight Special in Santa Monica, Dutton's in North Hollywood, Sisterhood in Westwood -- functioned not just as shopping venues, but libraries, sanctuaries and public plazas.
When I moved here from Ohio at 25, I spent months feeling lonely and lost. I found a family at Bread and Roses, a women's bookstore in Sherman Oaks. The store became my favorite hangout, with cozy sofas, an endless supply of cookies and coffee, and shelves stocked with everything from pregnancy primers to dress-for-success manuals to politics-of-lesbianism manifestoes.
But it was less the books than the people that drew me in. When I couldn't get my baby to sleep through the night or wondered how to ask my boss for a raise, I relied not only on advice I read, but lessons I learned from the women I met there.
For hours, we'd thumb through books and talk, sharing stories too intimate for the strangers we'd been. Some I'd never see again. Several became my closest friends.
Bread and Roses closed and I moved on, taking my business to a discount chain a few miles from home. I'm sure I saved money over the years. But I never made a friend at Crown.
The concept -- a bookstore for women -- seems almost quaint today. Maybe the era of the niche bookstore is over, done in by assimilation , technology and upward mobility. The type of "community" I found at Bread and Roses, can be found online, not in chain bookstore aisles. All we need from Borders is a wi-fi connection and a table where we can sit. Alone.
