Booksmith

Founded in 1976, The Booksmith is an independent bookstore located in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco. The Booksmith is a general interest store, and as such, carries books and magazines in many subjects. The store is located at 1644 Haight Street, and is open 7 days a week. Other nearby businesses include the Persian Aub Zam-Zam, Amoeba Music, and the former I-Beam nightclub.

Today, the store is best known for its events program. [ [http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-bookstores7feb07,0,1601891,full.story?coll=la-home-business Streitfeld, David. "Bookshops' latest sad plot twist." "Los Angeles Times", February 7, 2007.] ] The series has featured more than 1000 authors including novelists, poets, politicians, biographers, historians, cartoonists, actors, musicians, McSweeney's contributors, two U.S. Poet Laureates, numerous science fiction and fantasy writers, and various Pulitzer Prize, Booker Prize, National Book Award, and National Book Critics Circle Award winners.

The Booksmith is a member of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association and the American Booksellers Association.

Authors events

Among the celebrated authors who have appeared at Booksmith events are the Nobel Prize winning Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz, science fiction great Ray Bradbury, gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson (together with Johnny Depp), Simpson's creator Matt Groening, rock legends Neil Young and Patti Smith, and acclaimed photographers Richard Avedon and Annie Leibovitz. Notably, Beat generation poet Allen Ginsberg gave his last ever reading at The Booksmith, a number of months before his death.

Other authors who have appeared at store events include Lemony Snicket, David Sedaris, Nick Hornby, Art Spiegelman, Dave Eggers, Khaled Hosseini, Isabel Allende, Paul Auster, Michael Ondaatje, Jeffrey Eugenides, Jim Harrison, Amy Tan, Maya Angelou, and Robert Bly - as well as Neil Gaiman, Wes Craven, Forrest J. Ackerman, Camille Paglia, Spalding Gray, Margaret Cho, Tom Robbins, Lynda Barry, Alice Walker, Senators George McGovern and Gary Hart, and Louise Brooks biographer Barry Paris. Of note, a number of critically acclaimed and bestselling novelists gave their first San Francisco readings at The Booksmith - these authors include Chuck Palahniuk, China Mieville, and Sarah Waters.

Located in the heart of the Haight Ashbury, the store has hosted a number of individuals associated with the 1960's. These include Sixties icon Timothy Leary, one-time digger Peter Coyote, alternative press editor Paul Krassner, artist Stanley Mouse, Beatles associate Barry Miles, and Hell's Angels founder Sonny Barger. Among the era's musicians who have appeared at the store are Marianne Faithfull, Grace Slick (Jefferson Airplane), Eric Burdon (the Animals), Ray Davies (the Kinks), Ray Manzarek (The Doors), and Grateful Dead band members Phil Lesh and Mickey Hart. Some of the Beat-related authors who have appeared at the store include Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Michael McClure, Diane DiPrima, Anne Waldman, Joyce Johnson, and Ann Charters.

The five authors who have appeared most often at The Booksmith are novelists William T. Vollman and Jonathan Lethem, culture critic Greil Marcus, sexpert Susie Bright, and science fiction writer Rudy Rucker.

Other information

IBID, a widely used bookstore inventory system, had its origins at The Booksmith.

Since 1994, The Booksmith has offered author trading cards for most all of the writers who appear at the store. Modeled after baseball cards, Booksmith trading cards promote store events. On the front is a picture of the author. On the back is text - information about the writer and their book as well as the time and date of their appearance. A display at the front counter of the store showcases each month's cards. To date, approximately 1000 cards have been issued since the series began. [ [http://www.booksmith.com/cards/cards.html Booksmith webpage] ] The honor of being card #1000 went to Mary Roach.

Only one author included in the author trading cards series never appeared at the store - Thomas Pynchon. In 1997, The Booksmith hosted a no-author reading to celebrate the release of Pynchon's novel, "Mason & Dixon". The well-attended event included a Pynchon look-alike contest.

Prompted by comedian and actor Robin Williams, award winning author Harlan Ellison wrote a short story in The Booksmith store window. That story, originally titled "Computer Vampire: The Byte that Bites," appeared as "Keyboard" in the Ellison's 1997 collection, "Slippage: Previously Uncollected, Precariously Poised Stories" (Houghton Mifflin).

In 1999, the Indian-born novelist Vikram Seth wrote an original poem on the bathroom wall of The Booksmith. The poem, a quatrain which began with the words "In this loo . . . ," was later printed as a signed, limited edition broadside by PandorasBox Press.

A number of published authors have been employed by The Booksmith, including writer Lewis Buzbee (author of "The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop"), novelist Kiara Brinkman (author of "Up High in the Trees"), syndicated cartoonist Tom Tomorrow (author of the "This Modern World" comic strip), San Francisco Bay Guardian contributing writer Todd Lavoie, short story writer Lisa Buchanan, and humorist / stand up comic Paco Romane.

Neighborhood resident Daniel Handler has appeared at Booksmith events as himself, the novelist Daniel Handler, as the children's author "Lemony Snicket," and as McSweeney's author "The Pope" and "Snicket Squirrel."

The Booksmith is a long-time sponsor of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. As such, the store helps arrange book signings with film historians, biographers, and film world celebrities who appear at the twice annual Festival. Among the authors hosted by the store have been the silent film star Baby Peggy, stage star Sydney Chaplin, Jr., screenwriter Frederica Sagor, and film historians Leonard Maltin, Mick LaSalle, Anthony Slide, and Arthur Lennig. [ [http://www.tcm.com/movienews/index/?cid=178014 Turner Classic Movies website ] ]

In June 2007, The Booksmith was sold to new owners who plan to take the store in a new direction. [ [http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2007/08/20/story5.html?ana=from_rss Duxbury, Sarah. "Duo seeks to turn bookstore decline into fiction." "San Francisco Business Times", August 17, 2007.] ]

References

External links

* [http://www.booksmith.com/ Booksmith website]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEg_h9D7yFc RENT star Anthony Rapp sings at his Booksmith appearance]
* [http://trashotron.com/agony/news/2008/06-16-08.htm#podcast062008 NPR Producer Rick Kleffel interviews Praveen Madan for Agony Column]
* [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/09/12/DD300263.DTL Garchik, Leah. "Getting the vapors over literature." "San Francisco Chronicle", September 12, 2003.]