Stacey's Last Author Reading and other tidbits

Stacey's Bookstore on Market Street in San Francisco is closing at the end of March and today is the store's last author reading. Cara Black, the Bay Area writer whose books feature Aimee Leduc, a half-American/half-French detective, will be reading from Murder in the Latin Quarter at 12:30 pm.

Dozens of local authors who have read at Stacey's famed noontime lectures plan to join Black in a community-wide goodbye. Local author Kemble Scott is helping organize the send-off and so far Julia Flynn Siler, Michelle Gagnon, as well as Joe Quirk, Kathi Kamen Goldmark and others hope to be there. I can't attend, unfortunately, but I will say a note of thanks in that hour.

Ingrid Nystrom, the long-time events coordinator at Stacey's, sent out a last email about the store:

"As this is my final email post, I’d like to again say thanks for all of your support over the years. When I first started working for Stacey’s, I was excited at the opportunities open to me but a bit disappointed that I wasn’t in a neighborhood bookstore. What I have realized in my eleven years here is that I am in a neighborhood bookstore. It may be a slightly strange neighborhood that arrives at 8 in the morning and goes home by 8 in the evening, but it has its regular rhythms, its regular characters, and a sense of community for anyone wishing to extend themselves.

After talking with so many customers disappointed by Stacey’s closure, I’ve been reminded that Stacey’s has served as a decompression zone between work and home, a welcoming island of culture, a Christmas treat, a literary community, an escape from corporate-land, an interesting talk with lunch, and, of course, a bookstore. Whatever Stacey’s did or didn’t mean to you, I would like to remind you to look around you at your physical community and think about what matters. And if it matters, remember to step outside of your virtual world, unplug your iPods, look up from your Blackberrys and shop it, talk it, engage it."

In other vein, I will be speaking about Towers of Gold tonight, March 4, at 7:30 pm at the Jewish Community Library at 1835 Ellis Street in San Francisco.

The Washington Times gave Towers of Gold a really nice review on March 2.