LAFAYETTE — Restaurants might be shuttering at a dizzying pace amid state and local governments’ pandemic response, but Rudy Winnacker believes this was the right year to open another type of traditional business: a bookstore.
After all, who doesn’t want to escape the COVID-19 lockdown by joining Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot as the fictional detective searches for clues amid the landscape of ancient Egypt?
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Or who isn’t interested in how Mars might be terraformed and settled through the lens of science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson? Call it escapism without binge-watching Netflix or Amazon Prime.
“There is a sense of curiosity when you pick up a book,” Winnacker said. “I think it brings people a sense of comfort.”
Winnacker and his wife, Betty, opened Reasonable Books in September in what was once a Papyrus stationery and greeting card store in Lafayette. The couple signed the lease for their shop in March, the same month that Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered California’s nearly 40 million residents to stay home as much as possible to stop the spread of COVID-19. The move to save lives, joined by county governments throughout the state, was a death knell for many small retailers.
“My wife and I talked about it and what we should do,” Winnacker said on a recent morning when the electricity was out in his shop because of gusty winds throughout the Bay Area. “Thankfully, our landlord was very generous and was willing to work with us. We decided to go ahead.”
Still, bookstores, like other businesses across the county, are having a hard time. Bookstore closures began way before the pandemic, as those who love books drifted toward Amazon or other online retailers, where cheaper options are available. The New York Times reported that bookstore sales nationally in April were $219 million, a decline of more than 65% from April 2019, citing figures released in June by the Commerce Department. In the first four months of this year, the Times reported, bookstore sales fell 23% compared with the same period in 2019.
Paul Curatolo, manager of Oakland’s Walden Pond Books, said the store on the city’s Grand Avenue has been struggling. Founded in 1973, the bookshop has raised $108,450 through a GoFundMe effort to keep the doors open. The goal was to raise $100,000. At the time, the business described its future as looking “increasingly dire” on the fundraising website. The store employs 15 people.
“But people always come back,” Curatolo said. “Literature is something that the Bay Area cares about.”
A similar fundraising drive is underway to help Moe’s Books, an institution on Berkeley’s Telegraph Avenue that offers everything from the latest bestseller to signed and rare volumes that are more than a century old. Moe’s opened in 1959 and moved into its current four-story building in 1978.
“The store is full of fantastic books thanks to everyone who has donated or traded with us,” owner Doris Moskowitz posted on the GoFundMe site. “As usual, we look great. Being open 11 to 5 Monday to Saturday may be all we can do given the crazy circumstances, but we would like to thrive.”
As of late October, 994 people had donated $68,785 since April to keep the bookstore going. The goal is to raise $100,000. The business has 21 employees, some of whom have been on unemployment since March 17, Moskowitz said. Sales are down 50% from last year, she said.
“We are needed now more than ever,” Renee Rettig, the owner of Hayward’s Books on B, said about bookstores, noting that people want to find a sense of reassurance amid the pandemic. “Bookstores are the absolute heart of a community. It’s where people come together.”
Currently, just Winnacker and his wife work at Reasonable Books.
“The idea behind the store’s name is that it reflects ‘thoughtful,’ ‘intelligent’ and ‘curious,’ ” Winnacker said. “It seemed like a good name for a business in this time of uncertainty and fragility.”
About 20% of the store’s stock is used books. The store, however, does not purchase or offer trade-ins for used books, or in other words, provide customers with store credit in exchange for books that they bring into the shop. Reasonable Books totals 1,250 square feet, with the books on display taking up about 900 square feet. The rest of the space is for storage and an office.
“A bookstore is not like other businesses,” said Winnacker, whose background is in digital publishing. “There’s something about coming in and picking up an actual book. I really like the atmosphere of a bookstore. And I think other people do too.”
The shop at 3645 Mount Diablo Blvd., Suite C, in Lafayette is open Tuesday through Saturday. For more details, visit the store’s website at reasonable.online, call 925-385-3026 or email books@reasonable.online.
![When the Rev. Cecil Williams took over leadership of Glide Memorial Church in the 1960s and began transforming it into a national powerhouse for social justice and nonprofit services, he became an early ally of Tenderloin residents who were then among the city’s most marginalized: gay men, lesbians and transgender youth. In the 1960s, San Francisco was still “a pretty conservative town” and police, supported by City Hall, regularly targeted gathering spots for LGBTQ men and women, arresting them for merely being social. As part of Williams’ mission to welcome the poor and disenfranchised into his Tenderloin congregation, he began […]](https://www.eastbaytimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/SJM-L-WILLIAMSOBIT-0424-5-1.jpg?w=514 "When the Rev. Cecil Williams took over leadership of Glide Memorial Church in the 1960s and began transforming it into a national powerhouse for social justice and nonprofit services, he became an early ally of Tenderloin residents who were then among the city’s most marginalized: gay men, lesbians and transgender youth. In the 1960s, San Francisco was still “a pretty conservative town” and police, supported by City Hall, regularly targeted gathering spots for LGBTQ men and women, arresting them for merely being social. As part of Williams’ mission to welcome the poor and disenfranchised into his Tenderloin congregation, he began […]")