Another major indy bookstore threatened

Just a few days after the owner of San Francisco's A Clean Well Lighted Place announced he was selling the 22-year-old store, an even more venerable Bay Area institution has announced it's closing its flagship store. Cody's will close its Telegraph Ave. store on July 10 "citing decreased sales and competition from chains," blah blah blah.

From a bookselling email:

The Telegraph Avenue store was part of and witnessed some key moments of
modern American history. Telegraph Avenue was the center of many demonstrations during the Free Speech Movement in the early 1960s, which grew into the antiwar movement. In 1989, a pipe bomb was found in the store during the contretemps about The Satanic Verses. (Despite the attempted bombing, staff voted unanimously to continue selling Salman Rushdie's book.) And (owner Andy) Ross and the store have been vocal promoters of independent, local bookstores--protesting against "huge mass merchants and disembodied Internet retailers."

Cody's two other stores, including a gleaming new store off Union Square in San Francisco opened just a year or two ago, will remain open.

Yikes! It must really be bad when a large independent bookstore at the doorstep of a major university can't stay open.

bookstores, publishing, Cody's