Subscribe to Breaking NewsWithers: Oscar Wilde Bookshop will close in March
Come March, New York’s cultural life will be a little less exciting because Oscar Wilde Bookshop is closing its doors.
A victim of a bumpy economic climate and a reading culture that is changing the ground rules for independent bookstores, Oscar Wilde has been around since 1967, making it the oldest gay and lesbian themed bookstore.
Now I try to stay away from the “back in the day was so much better than now” noise because it tends to be noisy and not worth much. However, the proud nerd in me always gets misty with nostalgia when I hear about a bookstore closing down. If I didn’t have to work and pay bills, I would pack an old Chevy Impala and just drive around the country and visit every independent bookstore still standing. All the best stories I have are connected to bookstores. Not getting the joke Allen Ginsberg made when he signed two books of mine in Houston. Recognizing the voice of film critic Elvis Mitchell as he browsed the aisles in a Los Angeles independent. Having an argument with a stranger about William Faulkner in Faulkner House Books in New Orleans. Flirting shamelessly with Susie Bright in another New Orleans business called Faubourg Marigny Art & Books. Being in Boston, finding out due to a store’s window (by the way: that independent is long gone) display that Toni Morrison won the Nobel, and weeping tears of joy as I waited for the subway.
I’m depressed now.
A toast to Oscar Wilde Bookshop and every other bookseller hanging on and in.
Larry,
That is such a shame. I loved that place when I lived in Houston.
Sincerely,
James
A footnote, the bookstore where Ginsberg signed those two books in Houston was the Lobo Bookshop which died its own death in 2004 at the ripe old age of 31 years.
This is so sad…as a teenager I stood in that bookstore figuring out that I wasn’t the only girl In the world that felt that way.
I felt free and like I found a place I belonged.
Sad day! I have visited every gay bookstore in every city I have visited and the loss of even one is depressing. Mainstream bookstores stock only a few titles, and don’t stay up-to-date. But I fear this was inevitable, since people, especially the younger, are not reading much anymore. I buy pretty much every gay title published. I feel incomplete when I don’t have a book in my hand.
Amazon wins!