In the early morning hours of Tuesday, July 30, flames engulfed the 1940s-era building at 5433 College Ave. in Rockridge. Thankfully, no one was injured. But dozens of offices and the independent bookstore, East Bay Booksellers, were decimated. Neighboring residents were also displaced. As of this writing, the cause of the fire is unknown.
In the aftermath, friends of the bookstore initiated a GoFundMe campaign in its honor. East Bay Booksellers posts regular updates to its Instagram account and states on its website that future plans to rebuild are in development. They are fulfilling online orders, as well as gift card purchases. Already scheduled author events are to continue, with the support of other local businesses, like City Lights, Point Reyes Books and Gilman Brewing Company.
“We’re trying to find a temporary spot to land,” said owner Brad Johnson by phone Aug. 8. “The plan is definitely to have a store again.”
Johnson opened East Bay Booksellers in 2017, after working for several years at Diesel, A Bookstore, which previously occupied the space for 28 years.
“I am a bookseller,” said Johnson in a video on July 31. “Covid taught me that I’m also wildly stubborn about being a bookseller in a world that makes it very difficult to be such. I gather that this will be a similar challenge. We will figure it out.”
Johnson operated East Bay Booksellers as a neighborhood hub, with a welcoming in-store environment and personable monthly newsletters. The community has responded in kind—the outpouring of support in the face of this latest catastrophe clearly has touched him.
“In our various incarnations as a bookstore, it has very deep and expansive roots,” said Johnson. “But also things that we’ve built upon it, so it’s got quite an overstory as well. It’s nurtured a lot of people—I’m able to basically feed off the energy, the encouragement and support that they give.”
East Bay Booksellers, in conjunction with Litquake, will welcome Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Hernan Diaz on Oct. 17 at Gilman Brewing Company, 912 Gilman St., Berkeley.
