Where the booklovers are

Dutton's Brentwood Books, among the best-known and best-loved of Los Angeles' independent bookstores, will close on April 30.

It is hard not to take this as a sign of the times.

Over the past few years many local independent bookstores have gone the way of the local movie theater, the local hardware store and the local stationery shop -- disappearing -- as much victims of a changed retail and commercial real estate environment as a victim of our changing consumer and lifestyle habits (more on that later).

All my favorite haunts of my post-grad years in New York have vanished: Books & Co., the Madison Bookstore, Canterbury Books, Shakespeare & Co. In Beverly Hills, no general bookstore remains, only Taschen's retail outlet. In Santa Monica, we have lost bookstores big (Crown) and small (The Book Nook in the country mart).

However, to paraphrase Shakespeare, that best-selling author, we have come not to bury Dutton's but to recall the good times.

First some history: Doug Dutton's parents were booksellers and ran Dutton's in North Hollywood, which Doug's brother, Davis Dutton, took over after them (and then closed in early 2006). Doug Dutton opened the Brentwood location in 1984.

Dutton's extends across several different rooms on the ground floor of a two-story building on San Vicente Boulevard, and at its heart is a central courtyard that seems tailor-made for readings and book parties. The site also provides ample parking behind the building (an important draw in Los Angeles).

The two-story U-shaped building, with its stairways lining the central courtyard, have always reminded me of those Bauhaus-style structures that dot Tel Aviv and are meant to express a functionality in harmony with the Mediterranean climate and an indoor/outdoor lifestyle. How toddlers love those stairs! How parents eyed them nervously!

Duttton's itself occupies almost 5,000 square feet. The main room, on the west side of the building, is filled with literature, mysteries and current non-fiction in both hardcover and paperback. To the north is housed the non-fiction, as well as music offerings and audio books; to the east are the children's room, the travel books and cookbooks, and the gift and stationery items and, a relatively recent addition, a cafe.

The whole place always had a ramshackle feel, with frayed carpets and crowded shelves. Each area is its own empire, and one felt free to wander among them, and trusted to take a book from one area to the other without being accused of running off. The staff has always been friendly, knowledgeable and, on occasion, eccentric (Dutton's had a staff poet in Scott Wannberg).

Oh the book signings and parties I've attended at Dutton's! Lots of white wine and cheese cubes under the bridge. Dutton's was a place where you went to support your friends, to buy copies of their books, to hear them read. I recall attending events for friends such as (alphabetically) Robert Cohen, Roger Director, Seth Greenland, Mona Simpson and Deanne Stillman (and those are just ones I remember). Dutton's was a place you took your out-of-town friends to show them what Los Angeles had to offer in book culture. It was where you took your author friends to ask Dutton to let them sign copies of their books. It was a place you went to get a peek at your writing idols when they came to town.

I myself had one or two book events at Dutton's, and the feeling of sitting behind the counter and looking out at a room of friends and readers crowded between the display tables was a heart-warming sight for any author. It made a writer feel, for a long moment, part of a community.

Dutton's was old school: I had a house account there that allowed me to sign for books for which I was billed monthly; my 10-year-old daughter had signing privileges on my account. I had imagined the day would come when she would have her own account, but that is not to be. (This reminds of the time my father was approached about buying a "lifetime membership to a health club," and he replied, "My lifetime, or your company's?" He outlived that business by several decades.) So it goes.

No more stopping by on a Saturday afternoon to wander among the display tables, to run into friends, to discuss new books, to recommend favorites. No more going to get a signed first edition of a friend's new work (talk about an author's heartbreak: Mark Sarvas was scheduled to read from his new novel, "Harry, Revised," at Dutton's in early May; Dutton's closing on April 30 forecloses that, as well).

Which brings me to Dutton's closing -- who to blame and what to do about it?

One could blame a world in which handbags regularly sell for more than $1,000, where coffee can cost more than $4 a cup and a tart frozen yogurt is a $5 treat as explaining a retail environment that demands a greater return than books can deliver. Or an inflated real-estate market that calls on developers to achieve a greater return than the current structure can deliver -- but Doug Dutton himself will tell you that the developer who owns the building, Charles Munger, who plans to redevelop the property into something more high-rent, is not the villain here. From Dutton's announcement of his store's closing:

"Given our situation as it now stands, the pride we feel in our past achievements, and the vagaries of the current book market, shuttering our doors seems the only realistic solution. It is important to note that Charles Munger has committed to a significant amount of financial support for the difficult process of closing the store, and we appreciate his generosity."