Another one bites the dust

Bibliophiles from across the Southland are descending on Long Beach to say goodbye to a longtime and good friend. Bertrand Smith’s Acres of Books, the largest used bookstore in California, will be closing its doors after 74 years.

The skinny of it is this, from the Long Beach Press-Telegram:

Owners Phil and Jackie Smith recently sold the 12,500 square-foot property at 240 Long Beach Blvd. to the Long Beach Redevelopment Agency for about $2.8 million.

They are making way for a mixed-used project being built around Broadway, Long Beach Boulevard, Third Street and Elm Avenue. The project — which officials say is key to connecting downtown to the East Village — calls for student housing, retail and an art center for classes, events and art displays.

Basically the city is interested in cleaning up urban blight and gentrifying more of its downtown area. The Redevelopment Agency is willing to bulldoze Long Beach and California history in the process. Acres was designated a cultural and historic landmark by city officials in 1990.

I’m not sure when the store is closing. The Smiths are able to stay in the building rent-free until May 1, and Jackie Smith told the PT the sale will go on until the last book is sold, so I doubt if there is a definite date scheduled. Nonetheless, I wanted to pay a visit…and snatch up a few books to help them out.

I’d only been to Acres once before. I walked in the side entrance and was immediately overwhelmed. I couldn’t believe how many books there were. The tall shelves reached nearly to the ceiling and the bottom levels were caulk full. Everything was close and compact, which gave me a sense of literary claustrophobia, something I have never felt even in a library. I was surrounded, drowning, in books.


I didn’t know where to start — that’s how overwhelming it was. For a few seconds I had to orient myself and read the signs around me. I followed the arrows to the fiction room in the back and had to reorient myself there, too.


The selection was incredible. (The Acres website estimates the entire collection at over 1 million.) Many of the books were old, obscure, and outdated, probably donated after garage or estate sales, but I also found a lot of current and very interesting volumes. A curious thing I noticed was that the majority of the books — at least 75 percent, I would guess — were hardcovers. It’s true that paperbacks don’t age well, but shit. Hardcovers aren’t my thing so I became a little disinterested, but I was still impressed. Amazed, actually, is more like it.


This morning I made my way to Long Beach on the PCH. The marine layer was still hovering overhead when I started out, but by the time I got to Acres it had burned off and the sun was shining. I walked into the front entrance expecting to see the store packed with bargain hunters causing chaos. Biting, spitting, grabbing, tackling — complete madness. But it was calm and customers were browsing the shelves cautiously, not wanting to miss a single title for fear they might miss it forever. (Who knows what will happen to the books that aren’t sold in time.) I walked to the fiction room and searched for a few authors, but found that all the well-known books and writers had been taken already. Next I searched the religion section for a Bible. As I mentioned a long time ago, probably in one of my first posts, I want to read the Bible cover to cover, so I looked for a good, slightly used copy I wouldn’t feel guilty about highlighting and marking-up. But I only found selected books and readers.

I didn’t want to leave without buying something. Not only did I want to support the store, I felt the urge to satisfy my own fix. I went on a book-buying binge in Iowa City and the craving for literature has stayed with me. And at 70 percent off how could I resist? So I kept searching, eventually making my way to the section for US states and regions. I looked for books on Iowa and found two: “Iowa’s Natural Heritage” from 1982, and “Iowa: A Celebration of Land, People & Purpose” from the sesquicentennial celebration in the mid-‘90s.

I walked the aisles and found the essays/memoir shelves. There wasn’t much I recognized, but a couple titles caught my eye: “Making Hay” by Verlyn Klinkenborg, and “Dakota: A Spiritual Geography” by Kathleen Norris. Both books are about the Midwest (Klinkenborg grew up in Iowa) so there was little argument from my frugal side when I took them off the shelf.


At the register the cashier tallied the prices penciled on the inside of each cover in a calculator and took off 70 percent from the total. She punched the result into the register. $9.42 for four books is a hell of a deal, but I felt bad for taking advantage of the discount. The PT article mentions a dedicated customer who refused the discount, preferring not to cut into the store’s profit.

I could be wrong, but I think the cashier was Jackie Smith, the owner. When I took my books off the counter and accepted the change and receipt, our eyes met and she said “Thank you” with a sad and disheartening smile. Sitting behind her on a desk, propped against the wall, was Acres’ City of Long Beach cultural and historic designation plaque.