History
The store was founded in 1975 by Glenn Goldman [4] [6] and David Mackler (both in graduate school at UCLA at the time) raised $50,000 and, after doing extensive research on where to locate their store, opened Book Soup on Sunset Boulevard. [3] The rationale for the location, as Goldman explained, was that there "had been a period of upheaval here in the '60s—of thought and ideas—and I felt that the people who lived in the neighborhood would and could really support a bookstore." [3] Book Soup (the name was the least-offensive of those proposed by Goldman and Mackler) was nestled between a head shop and strip club. [3] Mackler designed the store's interior. [3]
The store and its staff of two (which included Goldman) struggled for two decades to run a profit. [2] [6] It nearly closed early in its existence, but a publisher's representative helped the store re-establish its credit line and saved the business. [1] In 1985, Book Soup again nearly closed, but another publisher's representative loaned it the money to stay afloat. [1] Book Soup added a storefront newsstand, "News Mews," and began selling thousands of domestic and international periodicals and newspapers. [1] In the late 1980s, Book Soup moved two blocks further down Sunset Boulevard to its current, more spacious location [3] [6] and expanded to 50,000 titles. It also began earning a reputation for art, photography, film and music books as well as for hosting high-profile events featuring authors and celebrities such as Gore Vidal, James Ellroy, Mikal Gilmore, Edward Albee, Robert Wagner, and Tom Stoppard. [2]
A second Book Soup store at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, California, opened in 2002 but closed in 2007 due to high rent and the impact of competition from Amazon.com and large discount chain stores such as Wal-Mart and Target. [2] [7]
As of July 2017 there is a branch of Book Soup in the departure lounge of the Tom Bradley International Terminal at Los Angeles airport.
Goldman announced he was selling Book Soup on January 2, 2009, then died of pancreatic cancer on January 3, 2009. [2] Vroman's Bookstore and Book Soup signed an agreement October 9, 2009, to purchase Book Soup. [8]
Sunset Boulevard is a boulevard in the central and western part of Los Angeles, California, United States, that stretches from the Pacific Coast Highway in Pacific Palisades east to Figueroa Street in Downtown Los Angeles. It is a major thoroughfare in the cities of Beverly Hills and West Hollywood, as well as several districts in Los Angeles.
Fairfax Avenue is a street in the north central area of the city of Los Angeles, California, United States. It runs from La Cienega Boulevard in Culver City at its southern end to Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood on its northern end. From La Cienega Boulevard to Sunset Boulevard between West Hollywood and Hollywood, Fairfax Avenue separates the Westside from the central part of the city along with Venice Boulevard, La Cienega Boulevard, Hauser Boulevard, San Vicente Boulevard, South Cochran Avenue, Wilshire Boulevard, 6th Street, Cochran Avenue, 4th Street, La Brea Avenue, Fountain Avenue and Sunset Boulevard.
Vroman's Bookstore is reportedly the oldest and largest independent bookstore by multiple news media reporters in Southern California.
Sunset Junction is an informal name for a portion of the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles, California. It was home to the Sunset Junction Street Fair from 1980 through 2010. It is in the southwestern part of the district along Sunset Boulevard.
Amoeba Music is an American independent music store chain with locations in Berkeley, San Francisco, and Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. It stocks media, primarily music, but also films and television programs via DVD and VHS. Its music selection includes rock, pop, blues, soul, funk, rap, and jazz. It is popular as a tourist destination for fans of physical media or music in general. It was founded in 1990 in Berkeley, California, and remains in operation, having survived the decline of CD sales in the 2000s. Amoeba stores generally focus on vinyl and compact discs.
The Rainbow Bar and Grill is a bar and restaurant on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, California, United States, adjacent to the border of Beverly Hills, California. Its address is 9015 Sunset Boulevard.
San Vicente Boulevard is an east–west street in Santa Monica and Brentwood, in the Westside region of Los Angeles, California.
Centinela Avenue is a 10.2 mile major street in the Westside region of Los Angeles County, California.
Schwab's Pharmacy was a drugstore located at 8024 Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California, and was a popular hangout for movie actors and movie industry dealmakers from the 1930s through the 1950s.
Cahuenga Boulevard is a major boulevard of northern Los Angeles, California, US. The “Cahuenga” name is a Spanish, phonetic derivative with no actual Spanish language meaning that is attributed to the Tongva village of Kawengna, meaning "place of the mountain". It connects Sunset Boulevard in the heart of old Hollywood to the Hollywood Hills and North Hollywood in the San Fernando Valley.
Book store shoplifting is a problem for book sellers and has sometimes led stores to keep certain volumes behind store counters.
Dutton's Books was an independent bookstore located in Valley Village, Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley. It was known for its friendly and knowledgeable staff, sizeable and affordable used book collection, rare books, and its owners Dave and Judy Dutton. There were two Dutton's locations in the San Fernando Valley, the other located in Burbank, California, but the Valley Village location was the larger of the two.
Pandora's Box was a nightclub and coffeehouse on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, California. It was at the center of the Sunset Strip curfew riots in 1966.
A Different Light was a chain of four LGBT bookstores in the United States, active from 1979 to 2011.
The Last Bookstore is an independent bookstore located at 453 S Spring Street, Downtown Los Angeles. Conde Nast Traveler called it California’s largest new and used bookstore.
The Ricardo Montalbán Theatre is a theater in the Hollywood section of Los Angeles.
Ken Davis is a multi-Emmy-Award-winning television producer, journalist, and author. After becoming one of the youngest television news anchormen in the country, he went on to have a four-decade career in broadcasting. In 2018, he published a popular memoir about his extensive adventures in the industry.
Eso Won Books, an independent bookstore located at 4327 Degnan Boulevard in the Historic Leimert Park Village neighborhood of South Los Angeles, was one of the largest Black-owned bookstores in the U.S. In 2021, Publishers Weekly awarded the business Bookstore of the Year.
Misery Loves Cabernet is a 2009 chick lit novel by Kim Gruenenfelder. A sequel to 2005's critically acclaimed international bestseller A Total Waste of Makeup, the book continues the adventures of Los Angeles personal assistant Charlize "Charlie" Edwards and her friends. Library Journal credited Gruenenfelder for her "well-written characters" and "wicked sense of humor," as well as for capturing the Hollywood scene accurately through her background as a screenwriter.
