Poets, Transvestites and a Pile of Books

When Glenn Goldman propped open Book Soup’s doors 25 years ago at the center of the Sunset Strip, the remnants of the ‘60s purple haze were on the wane and the Eagles ruled the airwaves.

Head shops and strip joints book-ended his modest shop. Rock clubs like Filthy McNasty’s and the Whisky A Go Go thudded through the night. And amid that wall-to-wall, post-psychedelia dissonance, E.L. Doctorow’s syncopated look at turn-of-the century America, “Ragtime,” was one of Goldman’s first bestsellers.

Nowadays, the spirit of the ‘60s has made a comeback. And so have the Eagles. There’s a strip club or two still bumping and grinding along the curve of the strip. But they now co-mingle with a host of tony eateries and spartan boutiques, film and music corporate offices--to all of which Book Soup plays host. As for the store’s current bestsellers, there’s a sobering sign: “American Rhapsody,” screenwriter-turned-novelist Joe Eszterhas’ critically slammed attempt to shave the varnish from America.

Within this ever-thickening entertainment industry stew, Book Soup has not only survived--but prospered as one of the city’s top bookstores. And Goldman has been lucky--and wise--enough to weather the many personas, whims, trends of not only West Hollywood, but the equally capricious independent bookselling trade.

That’s why Goldman--at the time a college student and lofty dreamer and now graying and on the cusp of 50--is slack-jawed at the expanse of the ride.

In the mid-’70s, the Long Beach native was enrolled in UCLA’s arts management program and was friendly with an architecture student, David Mackler, who had a similar passion. “We were both lovers of bookstores. We’d talk about it all the time,” says Goldman, a flawless bookseller specimen--lace-up oxfords, khakis and a crisp denim shirt with a hastily knotted tie (this one, a field of midnight blue dotted with tiny books).

“I just didn’t want to be one of those people who kept boasting about what they wanted to do. I was compelled to act. So we started doing research on where to put the store.”

Operating with limited funds--about $50,000--he says, “I really couldn’t contemplate a lot of places. There had been a period of upheaval here in the ‘60s--of thought and ideas--and I felt that the people who lived in the neighborhood would and could really support a bookstore.”

Settling on a name, “narrowed down from a list to the least offensive,” he admits, Goldman opened the Mackler-designed store with a staff of two--counting himself--and struggled for the rest of the decade and well into the next. “At one point, I lived in the back of the store,” he reflects. “Sold some of my belongings. I just didn’t want to concede to failure.”

As everyone knows, Hollywood is a tough town--full of flashy distractions. But in a certain way, the perpetual jumble and chaos of Sunset Boulevard are what feeds Book Soup’s charm and has ultimately helped contribute to its success.

The bustling setting across from Tower Records, along with its well-off music, film industry and tourist clientele, has helped keep Book Soup as quirky and unpredictable as the eclectic mix of torch songs, ska bands and hard bop that filter seamlessly over the sound system. Within its tall, teetering stacks and Escher-like maze of books--which have become the store’s unofficial trademarks--Book Soup serves as a one-stop for anything from Zagat restaurant guides and Star Maps to au courant and hard-to-find collectibles such as Helmut Newton’s $1500 photo extravaganza, SUMO, sold with its own sleek Philippe Starck stand.

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On a busy Friday night, soft-lit and jampacked, the selling floor can deliver the head-rush of an expertly concocted cocktail party: Marlee Matlin browsing the fiction stacks or Nicholas Cage crouched on the hardwood floor leafing through a biography. Scenes from a documentary about beat poet Allen Ginsberg were shot in the store during one of his last signings; Martin Scorsese and his Lincoln Town Car chauffeur (most definitely “GoodFellas” extra material) wiled away a Saturday afternoon chatting and signing books for a line of fans stretching almost two blocks.

In an age of deep-pocket superstores and beleaguered independents, “not all bookstores are able to create a distinct personality,” says Gabriel Barillas, a 13-years-in-the-trenches sales representative for HarperCollins. “But I even remember years ago--the first time as a customer I went in to buy a Graham Swift novel. I was knocked out by the architecture, the facade, the curving shelves.” That is what has become the store’s sturdiest foundation, which would keep him coming back even if he weren’t in the business, adds Barillas. Not to mention its “smart and entertaining list of events.”

All of which, over the years, has lent itself to some rather theatrical times, Goldman says--like the day when ex-Gov. Jerry Brown came in to the store to shop around. “About five minutes after he left, I caught this transvestite on high heels shoplifting.”

Goldman chased the scofflaw down the block before catching up. “He had stolen about 15 reference books. And was dropping them on the street along the way.”

A little sideshow only ups the ante, says poet and on-again-off-again employee Tosh Berman. “The store has always been an interesting mix of rock ‘n’ roll andHollywood show biz people.”

Moreover, because it has a knowledgeable staff and specializes in subjects of interest to its clientele--art, photography, film and literary fiction--it preserves “an old-fashioned, one-on-one book culture,” says Berman. “There’s something about discovering a new author--not just someone from the year 2000--but someone from the past as well that you wouldn’t have if you hadn’t seen it on the shelves.”

The erudite Michael Silverblatt, host of KCRW’s literary talk show, “Bookworm,” makes the store one of his weekly stops, despite the fact that he receives a small library’s worth of reviewers’ copies from publishers. “I’ve discovered things like ‘The Mineral Palace,’ by Heidi Julavits, just because of the way it stood out here,” says Silverblatt, fingering the cover. Today, on this first day of Indian summer, he has rushed out in shorts and a T-shirt to buy a couple of cartons of Winstons and two fresh-off-the-presses copies of the cult lit journal McSweeny’s. “They go so fast!”

Afterward, he will make his way next door to Book Soup’s annex--an orphanage of publisher’s remainders and castoffs. “You cannot fail to mention this!” he says with a finger wag. “They get the best hurt books! The best selection of the city, and they know what they have.”

That sort of anachronistic attention to detail is a rarity in an era of mega chains, online shopping and nontraditional competition--from the likes of Starbucks and Costco. But maybe that’s why some independents may be getting their second wind. (One study conducted by the American Booksellers Assn. reported this year’s revenues are up more than 10% in almost half of more than 1,100 shops surveyed.)

But despite his store’s high profile, Goldman doesn’t operate as a man who thinks that he has it made. He picks his words as carefully as he picked the Sunset Strip as his locale. He also takes pains in choosing his eclectic 45-member staff (the employment application includes essay questions) and in the look of his store. “The original idea was to surround the person with books,” he says.

And when the store moved down the street from two blocksaway in the late ‘80s to more spacious digs, “I wanted to carry that out again. And, frankly, I was worried.”

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You always have to have the next chapter on your mind, Goldman knows. Not only did he open the annex, but he dabbled with a restaurant next door. Book Soup Bistro closed after a five-year run when the building in which the restaurant was housed was sold to USA Network. Now he has launched a Web site, https://www.booksoup.com, which is due to eventually become part of the growing online independent book-selling network.

Goldman periodically entertains the idea of a second store in Southern California--”one that also reflects the personality of its neighborhood.” But right now those thoughts are fleeting.

How could his business get better? “I, of course, think the store was never more perfect than the day I opened, when I hand-selected every title,” he laughs. But certain pleasures never dim. Occasionally, he’ll find himself behind the counter with a customer: “There’s something about the idea of actually pressing a book into someone’s hand. Finding exactly what they want and having a personal hand in that.”

It boils down to that exchange (not so simple in an era of focus groups and guesstimates), which marks the makings of a modest shopkeeper whose store makes the quite immodest claim to being “bookseller to the great and infamous.”

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Meet the Authors at Book Signing

Book Soup’s 25th anniversary author event and book signing will be held tonight at 7:30 p.m. Authors featured: William Claxton (“Jazz Seen,” “Steve McQueen”), Bruce Wagner (“I’m Losing You”), Aimee Bender (“An Invisible Sign of My Own”), Mary Woronov (“Swimming Underground”), Mark Danielewski (“House of Leaves”). Book Soup, 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood. For more information, (310) 659-3110.