BOOKSHOP OWNER TURNING A NEW PAGE.Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY Dennis McCarthy may refer to:
Most of us have a special neighborhood haunt where we go to get lost for a few hours - a place we can forget about the job, the unpaid bills, life's other everyday stresses. It could be a thrift shop thrift shop n. A shop that sells used articles, especially clothing, as to benefit a charitable organization. , a bar or even a bench in some remote corner of a park where no one will bug you. Wherever it is, it's yours. Eve Klein's place has been one of mine. She owns the Green Ginger Bookshop at 21710 Sherman Way, in Canoga Park, and I've been sneaking away from work for more than a few years to get lost among her bookshelves. I've met some of the greatest newspaper reporters and editors of the 20th century in Eve's journalism section, and some of history's most interesting characters in her old Life and Saturday Evening Post magazines. I've spent hours thumbing through stacks of old albums looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. a long-lost Sinatra or Dean Martin LP, and I've climbed more ladders at Eve's to reach a dusty top shelf for a book than I've ever climbed at home to clean out the rain gutters A rain gutter (also known as eaves trough, guttering or just gutter) is a narrow channel, or trough, forming the component of a roof system which collects and diverts rainwater shed by the roof. . All the while, Eve just sat there behind the counter reading a book and looking at peace with the world. More times than not, I was the only customer in the place, but she didn't seem to mind. I always figured with a great gig like that, she'd outlast out·last tr.v. out·last·ed, out·last·ing, out·lasts To last longer than. outlast Verb to last longer than Verb 1. me. I was wrong. Come the end of the year, unless she sells the place before then, Eve's closing shop to move to Colorado to be near her two grown sons. ``It's breaking my heart, but it's time It's Time was a successful political campaign run by the Australian Labor Party (ALP) under Gough Whitlam at the 1972 election in Australia. Campaigning on the perceived need for change after 23 years of conservative (Liberal Party of Australia) government, Labor put forward a ,'' she said this week, peering out from behind four tall stacks Tall Stacks, formally known as the Tall Stacks Music, Arts, and Heritage Festival, is a festival held every three or four years in the Cincinnati, Ohio area, which celebrates the city's heritage of the riverboat. of old books a young woman was buying - not to read, but to use in a home she was designing. The sale was for more than $500, one of Eve's biggest of the year. A couple more like that and she might just stay open a while longer, she joked. Her business has been on the decline for a while, not because of competition from the big national booksellers, but because of the Internet. ``People buy a book from Barnes & Noble, read it, sell it back to me for pennies on the dollar, and I resell re·sell tr.v. re·sold , re·sell·ing, re·sells 1. To sell again. 2. To sell (a product or service) to the public or to an end user, especially as an authorized dealer. it at half-price,'' Eve says. ``No, what hurts is all the people sitting at home on the Internet searching for an old book they want, instead of coming in to look for it here like they used to.'' She could have changed with the times, Eve says. Could have spent the countless hours it would have taken to put the 45,000 books she has in her shop online so customers could find them. But that just didn't seem right. ``I didn't buy a bookstore to sit in front of a computer screen all day,'' Eve says. No, she bought one to read all day. To sit behind that counter from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. six days a week, talking to Noun 1. talking to - a lengthy rebuke; "a good lecture was my father's idea of discipline"; "the teacher gave him a talking to" lecture, speech rebuke, reprehension, reprimand, reproof, reproval - an act or expression of criticism and censure; "he had to her customers about their hobbies and reading interests. She bought it so she could walk the kids who come in with their parents back to the children's section, and tell them to take their time. She bought a bookstore to see the look on customers' faces when they finally find that first edition they've been searching for all these years. You meet an awful lot of interesting people walking into your bookstore, Eve says. It wouldn't be the same meeting them online just to stay in business. So, she'll close Green Ginger, the bookstore she named after her favorite street in the town of Hull, England, where she was born. She'll close it almost 12 years after buying it from Sam Briggs, who gave her every chance to back out of the deal in January 1994. ``The Northridge Earthquake The Northridge earthquake occurred on January 17, 1994 at 4:31 AM Pacific Standard Time in the city of Los Angeles, California. The earthquake had a "strong" moment magnitude of 6. hit a few days before escrow escrow Instrument, such as a deed, money, or property, that constitutes evidence of obligations between two or more parties and is held by a third party. It is delivered by the third party only upon fulfillment of some condition. was closing,'' she says, thanking one of her longtime long·time adj. Having existed or persisted for a long time: a longtime friend; a longtime resident of Detroit. longtime Adjective customers, Brian Atkin, for stopping in and buying a few more books from her. ``All the windows shattered shat·ter v. shat·tered, shat·ter·ing, shat·ters v.tr. 1. To cause to break or burst suddenly into pieces, as with a violent blow. 2. a. , and the aisles were chest-high with books. Mr. Briggs turned to me and said, 'You still want to buy my bookstore?''' Eve Klein said yes, then spent the next two months with Briggs and her late husband, Peter, putting every last one of those 45,000 books back on the shelves. And now she's taking them down for the last time. Two potential buyers pulled out of deals to buy the shop at the last minute, and there is no third buyer waiting to step in, she says. She doesn't like to talk price, but the cost of a fully equipped, new luxury car is somewhere in the ballpark. The fliers announcing a 50 percent off book sale (starting today) have already been passed out around the community, and Eve's hoping it goes well these next six weeks before she closes. ``I just want my books to go to a good home, not the Dumpster out back,'' she says. It's been fun, owning a bookstore, Eve says. ``It isn't brain surgery. You sell books and meet people.'' And you read. A lot. Dennis McCarthy, (818) 713-3749 dennis.mccarthy(at)dailynews.com CAPTION(S): photo Photo: Eve Klein, the owner of Green Ginger Bookshop in Canoga Park, looks over the books she plans to sell off after failing to find a buyer for the store. David Sprague/Staff Photographer |
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