Acres of Books: a sad farewell & a dilemma

It should come as no surprise to you that I love books. I do. I really, deeply, completely love them. Mike is okay with this. Mike loves books too.

It probably shouldn't surprise you either that I love Long Beach. Not just because I live here, and not just because it's where my hubby lives as well. I love it because it's a beautiful, complex, and flawed city. Beautiful: I have never, no, not in over 11 thousand miles of American roads, seen anything like the El Dorado Nature Center. Complex: in a constant identity crisis, we're the biggest little city there is, and one of the most ethnically diverse places in America. Flawed: well, there's Acres of Books.

Acres of Books, just up Long Beach Blvd. from the hideous mistake that is the New Pike, is one of Long Beach's most beloved landmarks. Established in 1934, it's been in its current location since 1960. In the decades since then, it's given Long Beach residents something to be unabashedly proud of. Ray Bradbury wrote in its back rooms and, in an essay celebrating his time spent wandering there, he writes: "I go there on rainy days for a good dose of this lostness, plus the grand incense of book dust, which I deeply inhale as others take snuff, and clean the booktops with a sneeze."

There's a cat, of course. All good used bookstores have cats. There are rows and rows of oddly-organized bookshelves, each title reminding you of three others you want to search for. There are side rooms to hide in, there is a massive fiction room filled with authors you'd forgotten you loved. There are slightly gnome-ish employees scuttling around, unlikely to approach you, but extremely helpful when cornered. In short, it is a city block of awesomeness, an oasis of culture in a largely ruined downtown, the kind of place that you're glad to know is there, even if you haven't visited as often as you'd like, because you can be assured that its labyrinthine aisles hold all sorts of literary magic that perhaps the unsuspecting public is not yet ready for.

In April, for $2.8 million, the current owner of Acres (the grandson of its founder) sold its land to the Long Beach Redevelopment Agency. It is likely to be condos soon. Soon there won't even be a place to hang a plaque, no where to leave a tattered pulp paperback in sorrowful memory. As Bradbury said, soon they will "cement the whole damned thing over."

Acres has until May of next year to vacate the premises. For a while they were looking at a new location, but it seems those plans have dried up. Their closing sale started last week, and their press release says that everything is priced to sell. I don't know if I can do it.

I don't know if I can go down and look in the faces of the people scurrying through those hallowed catacombs, some just looking for a good bargain but most, I'm sure, mournfully keeping vigil, wanting one last memento from one of the most wonderful things Long Beach has ever been a part of. I don't know if I can go up to the counter with a stack of too many books for too little money, hand over some bills, get my change, and walk out of Acres of Books for the last time. I don't know if I've got the guts.