Kepler's Bookstore Closed for Good

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/09/01/BAGB7EG5EJ1.DTL

Employees and industry colleagues knew the nationally renowned independent bookseller had been battling economic fallout from the dot-com bust and competition from chain super-stores and online giants like Amazon.com. But it still came as a body blow when owner Clark Kepler told 40 employees at a 9 a.m. staff meeting that he was shutting the book shop his late father founded in 1955 as a bastion of free speech and a bounty of diverse ideas.

"I told them that I was really saddened to tell them this and it is the most difficult decision that I've ever made,'' an emotionally drained Kepler, 47, said by telephone Wednesday. "But as hard as we've worked to maintain sales and stay open ...we were insolvent."

Chris Pennington, a second-generation Kepler's employee, recounted: "As we went into the meeting, I thought that people were going to be very upset and have cross words to speak. But once the news was conveyed, everybody basically consoled one another. There were hugs and tears and people tried to imagine life outside Kepler's.''

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Ferlinghetti said Kepler's legacy is tied to City Lights and Cody's bookstore in Berkeley, because the three were the first to bring quality paperbacks to the Bay Area, and in a sense, helped bring literature to the masses. At the time, the 1950s, "That was a real revolution in the book trade,'' Ferlinghetti said. "Paperbacks weren't considered real books in the book trade. Up till then it was just murder mysteries, potboilers, 25-cent pocket books sold in newsstands. When the New York publishers started publishing quality paperbacks, there was no place to buy them."

I find this very sad.

I read lots of them but I can't say I've heard of Kepler's or why I should feel sorry about that place going belly up more then any other place going bust. It sounds like the store was more politically active then it was active about watching the bottom line and responding to market realities. While I feel bad for the 40 people who lost their jobs it seems clear to me that management is to blame for the company going under.