Glenn Goldman, founder and owner of Book Soup, an independent book store in West Hollywood died yesterday. Goldman died of pancreatic cancer, an illness that came on suddenly, and he leaves behind two sons and his store. Glenn created, almost out of nothing, a great treasure of a book store that has meant a lot to me, and I’ll always be thankful to him for that.
I started working at Book Soup in late 2001. I needed money and jobs were tough to come by, and I had been fairly discouraged by what I’d been doing in Los Angeles to that point.
Book Soup became special to me for three reasons. First, almost immediately it broadened my reading horizons. I’d always been an active, curious reader but within weeks of working at Book Soup, I realized how proscribed my knowledge of books had been. Despite growing up in a house full of books and despite taking more than a few literature classes in college, my true introduction to the world of literature and publishing was being surrounded by books for three years and meeting dozens of writers who stopped by the store. Glenn handled all the book ordering at the store, and every book I read during that time was at my fingertips because of him.
Secondly, I met a bunch of amazing people, several of whom I’m still in touch with today (including Edan, who writes for this blog, and her husband Patrick who used to). Los Angeles isn’t exactly the intellectual wasteland that east-coasters (and San Franciscans) make it out to be, but the concentration of wonderful minds and vibrant personalities at that store was a very special thing, particularly in that city, but anywhere really. However different we all were, we shared a love for books and an appreciation for the sublime wackiness inherent in a book store on the Sunset Strip. I met a lot of smart people in Los Angeles, but the bookstore that Glenn built was the intellectual center of the city for me. Right there, in the neon, limousine wasteland of the Sunset Strip were thousands of books. It was a crazy, brilliant idea.
Finally, looking back, it seems clear to me that my job at Book Soup was one of those pivotal experiences that set my life on a certain course.
More than five years ago, I decided to use this blog to write about books, and that decision was almost solely based on my experience working at Book Soup and wanting to bring it home with me. The blog and what I learned from running it, propelled me to go to graduate school for journalism and it introduced to me to hundreds of new people. I was able to put this great team of writers together and I landed on the radio and have seen my name in newspapers and magazines.
The point is: I owe quite a lot to this blog. This blog owes everything to Book Soup. And Book Soup owes everything to Glenn Goldman. He will be missed.
