Local bookstores, dealt another blow by L.A. fires, become ‘community touchstones’
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The Eaton and Palisades fires effaced entire communities, destroyed thousands of homes and left more than two dozen dead. They also dealt yet another blow to the region’s bookstores, which were still reeling from the effects of COVID-19 lockdowns and last year’s dual Hollywood strikes. Fortunately, all of the bookstores in the region — a few of them dangerously close to the fires — are still standing, and for many customers, the leisurely impulse to buy a book has taken on new urgency. As the region slowly begins to engage in the process of rebuilding, neighborhood bookstores have become tiny beacons of light, drawing Angelenos seeking solace and consolation. The local bookstore has turned into a vital “third place” of social interaction, crucial to the survival of L.A. County’s fire-ravaged communities.
For Peter Wannier, who owns independent bookstore Flintridge Bookstore, the Eaton fire that ravaged Atladena — just a short drive from La Cañada Flintridge — stopped his business cold. “We certainly lost a week’s worth of business,” says Wannier, whose store was vacated under a mandatory evacuation order and lost power for five days. “Our bookkeeper has been unable to return to her house, which was in the fire zone. We all know people who lost their homes.”
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And yet, in the days and weeks that have followed, Wannier has seen the store slowly come back to life. Instead of the usual transactional bustle, Flintridge Bookstore has become a gathering place for people to share their stories, exchange grievances and commiserate with Wannier’s staff, many of whom have been working at the store for a decade or longer. “Our sales staff have been with us for a long time, and people want to see familiar faces right now,” he says. “A few days after the fires started, one of our regulars came in and spoke for an hour about her situation. Customers come to us because we’ve known so many of them for years. We are more than booksellers. We are old friends.”
Vroman’s Bookstore, a Pasadena fixture for more than a century, has seen many of the store’s employees displaced by the Eaton fire. Some of them lost their homes. “We closed the first two days of the fire because the situation was so precarious,” says Vroman’s Chief Executive Julia Cowlishaw. When Vroman’s reopened its doors on Jan. 10, “we were so glad to see each other. And our customers started coming back. We knew people needed a refuge and that we could be that place for some.”
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As Vroman’s foot traffic slowly picked up, Cowlishaw and her team kicked into mobilization mode, doing everything they could to help quell the frayed nerves of their neighborhood. “We have a long legacy here of giving back to this community, which has been with us for so long,” says Cowlishaw. She encouraged customers to use the store as a safe space for their families, increasing the number of children’s story times per week as well as hosting crafting sessions. Vroman’s has also tapped into its long-standing alliances with Pasadena’s schools and nonprofit organizations, mounting an ongoing book donation initiative for Children’s Books for Altadena and conducting a food drive in conjunction with Friends in Deed, a nonprofit that provides food, shelter, housing and eviction prevention for the community. The store has also donated books and art materials for children in evacuation shelters.
Like Vroman’s, Brentwood’s Diesel bookstore found itself close to danger as the Palisades fire threatened to engulf neighboring communities. “The first night of the fires, there was a Brentwood Homeowners Assn. meeting and everyone was fearful of the fire crossing the 405,” says Diesel owner Richard Turner, who bought the store last year from longtime L.A. booksellers John Evans and Alison Reid. “Fortunately, that didn’t happen, but it’s hard to tell how much of our customer base is gone forever.” The store was unusually quiet in the weeks following the fires; only now has business started to pick up. “It’s lovely and sad, seeing people come into the store to tell their stories and commiserate,” says Turner.
A retired advertising executive who is new to the book business, Turner has been heartened to see Diesel becoming “an important community touchstone” in the wake of the firestorms. “I wasn’t expecting it at this moment,” he says. One of Turner’s employees, Liz Lee, found herself in evacuation limbo, unsure whether her Palisades residence was still standing. After weeks of uncertainty, Lee finally received word that the house, while intact, was no longer inhabitable. Turner has initiated a GoFundMe page to help Lee find a new home and replace her belongings. “She managed to get her laptop and some other items, but we’re going to get Liz back on her feet,” says Turner.
In addition to numerous GoFundMe campaigns sponsored by booksellers, there have been small and significant acts of kindness along the way. At Diesel, one anonymous donor bought a gift card for $1,000, with the directive to donate a book to any child that requested one. At Vroman’s, customers are buying books for friends and family who may have lost personal libraries acquired over a lifetime.
School libraries were also decimated. Multiple educational institutions were destroyed by the fires, many of which rely on indie bookstores to supply them with required reading material for their fall and spring semesters. Stores such as Diesel and Vroman’s have kick-started school book drives in conjunction with Los Angeles Wildfires Book Drive, the brainchild of Veronica Bane, a young adult author and English teacher at the Alliance Susan & Eric Smidt Technology High School in Lincoln Heights.
Bane was moved to act when she heard the harrowing stories of families that had lost their homes in the Eaton fire, including parents and children at her school. “Like so many people, I was watching all this devastation happen around me, scrolling through the Watch Duty app on my phone, and my husband and I decided to help deliver necessities to fire victims,” says Bane. As an author with deep ties to the local literary community, Bane realized she could help replace some of the library books burned in the fires. “I sent out a Google Form for requests, just saying, ‘If you have books to donate, please reach out.’” Bane quickly had hundreds of offers from near and far, including Australia. Authors, influencers and publishing houses have also signed on to donate.
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“I knew that, despite the loss of their schools, teachers would be teaching students in some building soon enough,” she says. “And that is what’s happened. But they still needed books. So I took some boxes to a few makeshift schools.” Since then, Bane has crisscrossed L.A., delivering curated book boxes for educators. At a recent event at Black Cat Fables in Monrovia, Bane gave away more than 5,000 donated volumes.
“People need shelter, they need necessities. I know a book is not on the same level as those things,” she says. “But I also know that for me and my students, books can be what get you through a dark time. I can’t replace a classroom, but I can show families and educators that the community cares, and hopefully that provides some comfort.”
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