Cody's Books' San Francisco outlet should open September 1, "give or
take a week," according to owner Andy Ross. The 22,000-sq.-ft. space,
once a Planet Hollywood and vacant and dilapidated for several years, is being
completely renovated. "It's a very expensive project," Ross told Shelf
Awareness.
Currently
Ross is devising a color scheme "inspired" by the columns of the Palace
of Knossos in Crete (l.) for use in the new space (r.), as it looked
earlier this summer.
Ross waxed enthusiastic about the store, Cody's third after its two smaller stores across the Bay in Berkeley. "It's a gorgeous space," he said. Near Union Square at Stockton and Market, the store is in the same building as Virgin Records and a half block from Macy's. Most of the space is in the basement (which has a lower rent), but the main entrance is at street level, where an escalator will whisk customers down to the main level.
Seeking to make use of the somewhat impractical big wall at the top of the escalator, Ross has come up with an idea that "no one's ever done," he said: an "ongoing literary slide show" that will project "hundreds of slides of people reading at Cody's" over the years as well as images of "good visual books" coming out. He laughed as he added, "I don't expect anyone to copy this for a month and a half at least." (Ross has been taking pictures at Cody's events for 30 years and plans "to keep shooting.")
Under manager Patrick Marks, who was the Cody's buyer for 20 years and earlier managed a Books Inc. store on Union Square, the new Cody's will have a "wide range of books and try to emphasize literary titles." Considering that a Borders is nearby, Ross said, "We want it to be a Cody's. We don't want to try to out-Borders Borders." The store will eventually have about 100,000 titles.
Business in the Berkeley stores has been somewhat slow, he said, because of the state of the California economy, but is "beginning to come back."
Asked about hot titles in the People's Republic, he raved about the slim, updated volume Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate--The Essential Guide for Progressives by U.C. Berkeley cognitive scientist and linguist George Lakoff (Chelsea Green, $10, 1931498717). "Most political books are dead, but this is hot, hot, hot," Ross said. "It's offers a very sophisticated analysis."
Currently
Ross is devising a color scheme "inspired" by the columns of the Palace
of Knossos in Crete (l.) for use in the new space (r.), as it looked
earlier this summer.Ross waxed enthusiastic about the store, Cody's third after its two smaller stores across the Bay in Berkeley. "It's a gorgeous space," he said. Near Union Square at Stockton and Market, the store is in the same building as Virgin Records and a half block from Macy's. Most of the space is in the basement (which has a lower rent), but the main entrance is at street level, where an escalator will whisk customers down to the main level.
Seeking to make use of the somewhat impractical big wall at the top of the escalator, Ross has come up with an idea that "no one's ever done," he said: an "ongoing literary slide show" that will project "hundreds of slides of people reading at Cody's" over the years as well as images of "good visual books" coming out. He laughed as he added, "I don't expect anyone to copy this for a month and a half at least." (Ross has been taking pictures at Cody's events for 30 years and plans "to keep shooting.")
Under manager Patrick Marks, who was the Cody's buyer for 20 years and earlier managed a Books Inc. store on Union Square, the new Cody's will have a "wide range of books and try to emphasize literary titles." Considering that a Borders is nearby, Ross said, "We want it to be a Cody's. We don't want to try to out-Borders Borders." The store will eventually have about 100,000 titles.
Business in the Berkeley stores has been somewhat slow, he said, because of the state of the California economy, but is "beginning to come back."
Asked about hot titles in the People's Republic, he raved about the slim, updated volume Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate--The Essential Guide for Progressives by U.C. Berkeley cognitive scientist and linguist George Lakoff (Chelsea Green, $10, 1931498717). "Most political books are dead, but this is hot, hot, hot," Ross said. "It's offers a very sophisticated analysis."