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A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BOOKSMITH
SAN FRANCISCO'S LEADING INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORE

Did you know that in . . . .

Booksmith owner Gary Frank

1976 Gary Frank opens The Booksmith on Haight Street. The staff consists of three. Prior to opening his own store, Frank works at the student union bookstore at the University of California, Berkeley and then in the book department of Macy's in downtown San Francisco. The original Booksmith (at 1746 Haight Street) is located next door to the I-Beam, a popular concert club.

1977 The Booksmith holds its first ever event with Paul Williams, author of Das Energi. No one shows up!

1979 The Booksmith makes the first of many appearances in Herb Caen's column in the San Francisco Chronicle . That first appearance - now something of a timepiece - reads "At The Booksmith on Haight, Gary Frank overheard this guy leafing through Bruce Feirstein's best-seller, Real Men Don't Eat Quiche, and muttering, 'Real men aren't named Bruce.' Hmf. He'll be hearing from The Bruce Anti-Defamation Society, headed by Bruce Jenner and Bruce Owen . . . . " A framed blow-up of Caen's column hangs in the store.

1980 The Booksmith begins the tradition of serving homemade egg nog and cookies to its many regular customers on Christmas Eve.

1984 Gary Larson, creator of the popular Far Side cartoons, makes a rare appearance at the original Booksmith. Customers line-up down the block to have their books signed. Another early event features Herman cartoonist Jim Ungar.

Of The Booksmith's early days, longtime Booksmith employee Norma Tennis recalls: "If a bulb burned out, then a good part of the store was dark. For such a small store, however, we had an amazing selection of books." Because of increasingly crowded conditions, owner Gary Frank begins looking for a new location.

Our new store 1644 Haight Street

1985 The Booksmith moves down the block to its current location at 1644 Haight Street. Prior to becoming The Booksmith, the location was a market and liquor store called Benedetti's. Anne Rice, reportedly, used to shop there. And in his essay on Richard Brautigan, Beat poet and playwrite Michael McClure recounts: "For a long period I was probably Richard's closest friend and he was probably mine. He was visiting two or three nights a week. We talked and drank Gallo white port, sitting on the floor. This was when we didn't have any furniture. We were still poor . . . . As I remember, a pint of port was thirty-seven cents. We bought it at Benedetti's Liquors on Haight Street, where we bought most of our bottles back in the mid-sixties." (from Lighting the Corners, by Michael McClure).

1986 Business grows, and the staff of The Booksmith reaches six.

1987 Simpson's creator Matt Groening makes the first of two appearances at The Booksmith. Those in attendance go home with Life in Hell books in which the celebrated cartoonist draws scenes from his popular comic strip. Other events in the new store included monologist Spalding Gray, fantasy writer Marion Zimmer Bradley, poet Maya Angelou, novelist Kaye Gibbons, and local columnist and future Pulitzer Prize winner Herb Caen. Also that year, The Booksmith hosts rock poet and Basketball Diaries author Jim Carroll for a booksigning that drew a large crowd.

Steve Silberman, Allen Ginsberg & Michael McClure / Booksmith, 1987

Poet Allen Ginsberg makes the first of his two appearances at The Booksmith. In attendance are a number of other poets and writers, including longtime Booksmith customer (and Beat poet) Michael McClure, vagabond Japanese poet Nanoa Sakaki, and Booksmith regular Steve Silberman, a one-time student of Ginsberg's and author of numerous essays on Beat culture.

The Booksmith wins a contest sponsored by Vintage Books; remarkably, the prize is the opportunity to host a three author reading with then "up-and-coming" novelists Mona Simpson, James Crumley and Richard Ford (a future Pulitzer Prize-winner).

Meanwhile, business grows by leaps-and-bounds and The Booksmith staff reaches ten. The popularity of Joseph Campbell books (after the airing of a PBS series) leads to the expansion of the mythology section.

1988 The Booksmith is the subject of a feature article in American Bookseller , a national trade journal. The three-page article begins: "Looking ahead, San Francisco bookseller Gary Frank was able to see that the Haight would rise again, that a general bookstore could flourish there . . . . but it wasn't all that easy."

1989 San Francisco experiences its worst earthquake since 1906. The store closes early on the day of the quake, but reopens the next day. Despite widespread damage around town, only a few books fall from the shelves.

Staff and customers experience a flashback-of sorts as director Oliver Stone films parts of his bio-pic of Jim Morrison on Haight Street. A number of Booksmith customers and neighborhood regulars work as extras.

1990 With the fall of the Berlin Wall, books about Eastern Europe (including travels guides, novels and reportage) become all the rage. Reflecting staff interests, in-store displays feature the literature of Czechoslovakia, Poland and and other points east and slavic.

A customer browses at The Booksmith

1991 The Booksmith hosts a wedding as local news cameras and amused customers look on. The bride is a Bay Area bookseller and friend of the store. The bride's longtime dream was "to get married in a bookstore." Only at The Booksmith do such dreams come true . . . .

The Booksmith staff reaches an even dozen. Meanwhile, the store sets up a "recovery" section to meet the growing demand for self-help books.

1992 Author events for the year include the legendary 1960's poster artist Stanley Mouse, Grateful Dead percussionist Mickey Hart, and best selling novelists Armistead Maupin and Isabel Allende. Allende's bilingual reading is the first ever such reading at The Booksmith.

Much to everyone's amusement on Christmas Eve, neighborhood resident and Booksmith regular Bobby McFerrin begins harmonizing with the beeping, whirring and jingling of the cash register. Be happy . . . .

1993 The Booksmith joins the impending personal computing revolution when it stocks its first CD-rom, a visual & musical presentation by The Residents called Freak Show; the store also hosts its first in-store CD-rom demonstration with representatives of the reclusive, experimental San Francisco rock band. Were some of The Residents - who are only photographed and appear in disguise - in attendance ? The question is still asked today.

A view of the store

As he signs books, science fiction legend Ray Bradbury both enthralls and entertains a lunchtime crowd with stories of meeting Mikhail Gorbachev, working with director John Ford, overcoming his fear of flying, and his early successes as a writer. Bradbury's paper coffee cup, dated 9-17-93, hangs in The Booksmith back room to this day.

Legendary German-born photographer (and occasional customer from the store's earliest days) John Guttmann is spotted in the magazine section browsing the photography section.

The Booksmith begins issuing its popular author trading cards. The first card features Shann Nix, a novelist and local newspaper columnist. Later that year, William T. Vollmann makes his first of four appearances at The Booksmith (the most ever for any author). Those in attendance at his first reading are startled when the author repeatedly fires a starting gun to punctuate passages from the book.

1994 Best-selling novelist Robert Olen Butler reads at The Booksmith. The Pulitzer Prize winner requested an event at the store because he is an avid collector of trading cards.

The Booksmith staff reaches fifteen. Times change - and so does The Booksmith. The store establishes its "green" (environmental), multicultural, postmodern and deviance sections. The latter includes true crime titles, books on tattoos, body piercing, rebellion, anarchy and other "kindred" subjects. The birth of the deviance section was in response to the "interest" of our neighborhood customers.

After being prompted by comedian Robin Williams, science fiction legend Harlan Ellison writes a short story in the window of The Booksmith. The event draws the largest crowd ever to the store and is covered live on public radio. Ellison spends the day in the store window - alternately being inspired, writing, and talking with customers. At the end of the day Ellison read his original story, "The Byte that Bites," before an enthusiastic audience again numbering in the hundreds. (Those who made purchases of more than $50.00 that day also received a unique collectable - autographed photocopies of the Ellison manuscript.)

Keeping up with the times, The Booksmith takes its first tentative steps on-line with its own email address. The Booksmith engages in some online guerrilla marketing, and a few orders trickle in. Author events for the year include ex-Monkee Mickey Dolenz and English comedic actor Terry Jones. The former Monty Python member delights the crowd by reading from his just published Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Book.

A frail Timothy Leary returns to the Haight-Ashbury for a standing room only reading at The Booksmith. Twenty seven years earlier Leary had taken part in the historic Human Be-In in nearby Golden Gate Park. A week later, Anne Rice does a signing at the store. Coming shortly before Halloween, the costumed line extends out the door and down the block.

Photographer William Wegman gives a brief reading after screening one of his videos (a first ever event at the store). Richard Avedon also appears at The Booksmith to sign his just released Autobiography. After the event the famed photographer retreats across the street to a local watering hole - the Persian Aub Zam Zam - well known for its sometimes temperamental bartender. Unrecognized, Avedon and a group of admirers are promptly kicked out. The occurrence makes the local gossip columns.

1995 George Takei - Star Trek's Mr. Sulu - gives a reading at The Booksmith. Uniformed members of the U.S.S. Golden Gate, a local Star Trek fan club, act as escorts and security. (Over the next few years, actor and authors Grace Lee Whitney (Yeoman Rand of the original Star Trek), Walter Koenig (Mr. Chekov of the original Star Trek) and LeVar Burton (Geordi LaForge of Star Trek: The Next Generation) also drop by the store to sign books.

Booksmith store window promoting our website

The sale of computer-related books and magazines explode. The Booksmith expands its computer section. The store also establishes its own web site, just three months after amazon.com is launched.

The chain-smoking Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Art Spiegelman appears at The Booksmith. The author of Maus draws mice and other cartoon figures in the many, many, many books he signs and inscribes.

The Booksmith issues its 100th author trading card. The card features novelist William Wharton, author of Birdy. That year, rock star Ray Davies also appears at the store. Along with signing copies of his just published autobiography, the Kinks' lead vocalist also autographs record albums, a couple of broken arms and even a few guitars. Later that year, vocalist Marianne Faithfull reads to a packed store from her newly published autobiography.

1996 In response to the explosion of chain stores and the widespread discounting of books, The Booksmith initiates its Booksmith Bonus Club as a means of rewarding its many loyal customers. The store also launches its own magazine-of-sorts, an on-line journal called The Booksmith Reader. The first installment features contributions from talented Booksmith staff and customers.

Author events for 1996 include return appearances by Ray Bradbury and Allen Ginsberg. Martin Amis, Nicholson Baker, Clive Barker and Jay McInerney also read at the store. With the appearance of McInerney - three of the so-called "brat pack" authors (the others being Tama Janowitz and Brett Easton Ellis) have now read at The Booksmith.

In May, The Booksmith web site records its 10,000th visitor as orders arrive from South Carolina, Texas, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii and elsewhere. By July, web business begins to take off and The Booksmith acquires its own domain name www.booksmith.com. The web site records its 15,000th hit and orders arrive from Japan, Singapore, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Saudia Arabia, U.A.E., Israel, Greece, Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Canada. By the end of the year, more than 28,000 people will have visited our web site; orders come in from the Czech Republic and Vatican City.

In October, 1996 The Booksmith celebrates its twentieth year in business ! Numerous authors, including National Book Award finalist Ron Hansen, columnist Joel Selvin, novelists April Sinclair, Armistead Maupin, Pat Murphy and others "work" the store on the day of our anniversary celebration, recommending books and helping customers.

1997 The Booksmith issues its 200th author trading card while its website surpasses 50,000 visitors.

1998 The Booksmith website surpasses 100,000 visitors.

1999 The Booksmith hosts well-attended readings for Neil Gaiman (his second appearance at our store), as well as crime fiction novelist James Ellroy and NPR commentator Andrei Codrescu. In March, acclaimed photographer Joel-Peter Witkin ("Well known for his portraits of subjects both living and dead," San Francisco Chronicle) gives a 45 minute talk before signing more than a hundred copies of his lavish new book of photographs, The Bone House.

In response to the continueing popularity of our in-store author events, The Booksmith launches a new series of readings at the Park Branch library - located just around the block on Page Street. Science fiction novelist Neal Stephenson is the first author to appear as part of the "Booksmith on Page" series.

2000 The Booksmith enters the new century with an incredible series of signings and events featuring authors like Jane Smiley, William T. Vollmann, Jim Harrison, Kazuo Ishiguro, Ishmael Reed, and Sonny Barger. The staff grows to an all-time high of 18.

2004 The Booksmith cements its place as San Francisco's most exciting bookstore by hosting Neil Young and James Mazzeo for their book Greendale. This world-exclusive event draws fans from all over the world and a fine time is had by all.

2006 The Booksmith is sold by longtime owner & founder, Gary Frank to Christin Evans and Praveen Madan. Gary wanted to retire and Christin and Praveen want to own a bookstore. They also run a literary-minded website called litminds.org .

Litminds.org is a literary bulletin board, it is a space for book lovers to chat and share information about books and literature. The first thing the retired Gary does is sit down to be interviewed at Litminds.org!

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