The Chronicle reports that the Brazos Bookstore has (finally) found a group of buyers:
Brazos [Bookstore] seemed highly endangered this spring. Since it opened in 1974, owner Karl Kilian had overseen its daily operations, making it a cultural landmark in Houston, with readings by nationally known writers such as Martin Amis, Larry McMurtry and Susan Sontag. But in March, Kilian announced that he was becoming director of programs for the Menil Collection. The job required him to sell or close his bookstore.
The announcement sent tremors through Houston’s literary community. Many feared that Brazos, which occupies 3,000 square feet on Bissonnet near Rice University, would become yet another casualty in the bookstore wars that have seen independents around the country succumb to Amazon.com and the big chains, Barnes & Noble and Borders. (Just this month came news that Cody’s Books, a 50-year institution in Berkeley, Calif., will close.)
“Many of us felt at the time that Houston just has to have a literary bookstore of the first rank, which we’ve been lucky enough to have for 30-plus years,” said Babette Hale, founder of Winedale Publishing (and wife of Chronicle columnist Leon Hale). “To lose that would have been a real blow to the civic health of the community.”
In late April, Hale and investment counselor Edward R. Allen III, who chairs the Asia House board of directors and formerly headed the Contemporary Arts Museum board, organized a meeting of people who might be persuaded to invest in the store.
Out of that meeting emerged Brazos Bookstore Acquisition, a limited liability corporation. The 14 investors contributed a minimum of $10,000, with Allen the largest contributor.
All of the new owners shopped at Brazos, and some are familiar figures on the Houston cultural scene. Besides Hale and Allen, they include Sis Johnson, president of Inprint and a longtime supporter of University of Houston’s Creative Writing Program; investment banker and author Matt Simmons; and attorney and Jung Center board member Travis Broesche.
One can’t help but appreciate a group of literary types who don’t simply lament the likely passing of a bookstore, but take concrete steps to ensure its survival. Here’s wishing them well in what is likely to continue to be a struggle against bigger booksellers.
BLOGVERSATION: Slampo’s Place.
