FULLERTON : Bookseller Gets Back to Business

It was a night Al Ralston says he will never forget: the October evening when someone phoned him at dinner to say that a fire was raging in a business adjacent to his used-book store, Book Harbor.

“I stood outside and watched the flames,” Ralston said. “It was not the best night of my life.”

When the fire had been extinguished, three Fullerton stores were out of business, including Book Harbor. Moreover, Ralston had lost about 20% of his stock to water damage, including his collection of first editions.

But now, Book Harbor is back.

The store, at the corner of Harbor Boulevard and Amerige Avenue, remained closed for almost two years as the damaged building’s owners, Don and Jean Parker of Fullerton, struggled to rebuild and repair the 90-year-old structure.

During that time, the burned-out Comic Castle comic book store reopened in Riverside County and the Elegant Lady dress shop, also damaged in the fire, found a new location in Fullerton.

But Ralston waited patiently, many of his surviving books stored in friends’ houses and garages. He supported himself through his mail-order book service and by writing book reviews.

“I didn’t know how long it was going to take and it was a corner location downtown,” Ralston said. “I figured I’d get back in, and I did.”

The grand reopening was Saturday, but Ralston says former customers have been wandering in for several weeks as he prepared the store, which now contains more than 100,000 volumes, for its public debut.

“It’s a people business,” Ralston said, explaining why he has turned few visitors away even as mounds of books lay on the plastic-covered floor. “Many (customers) are offering to help.”

Among those who have greeted Ralston with open arms are the employees and owners of Fullerton’s half-dozen other used-book shops.

“We’re not fearing another competitor in town. There are people who spend Saturday afternoons going to all the bookstores in the area,” said Don Cannon, whose brother John owns nearby Aladdin Books. “Book lovers visit communities that have clusters of quality bookstores more often than communities with only two bookstores.”

Added Jim Lorson, owner of Fullerton’s Lorson’s Books and Prints: “The more bookstores in an area, the better.”

Ralston, a former professor at Cal State Fullerton, was a collector of mysteries before he purchased Book Harbor in 1980. He says he will never give up the book business.

“I love to read,” Ralston said. “My Monday mornings are everybody else’s Friday afternoons. I love it. I never get up and say ‘Oh my God, it’s Monday.’

“How many people get to do what they love for a living?”