Peter Ogura, longtime owner of Black Sun Books in Eugene, Ore., "is hanging it up after decades at the helm," Lookout Eugene-Springfield reported, adding that new owner Kel Weinhold said she has thought for about 20 years that she'd like to buy the store someday, and has plans for a few changes, including a new name. Ogura, who owned the bookshop for nearly 34 years, will retire later this month, after which it will become Outliers Books, "dedicated to stocking marginalized writers with a renewed focus as a third space" under its new owner.
Outliers Books will focus on bringing in undersung authors in a variety of categories, including a romance section focused on queer, Black, and brown love stories. Weinhold noted that the Black Sun Books inventory, with humanities-driven titles to fit a literary, university city like Eugene, has laid much of that groundwork.
"There'll be voices that come in that aren't here, but there's a lot of those voices already here," she said. "That's one of the things that I really respect about this bookstore. Find me a bookstore that has as much Japanese in translation, Spanish in translation, and voices of Black, indigenous, queer authors in the fiction section."
Black Sun started as a used bookstore, but expanded to include new releases after customers kept asking for them. Black Sun's "niche in the humanities deepened over the years as reader requests refined the catalog: foreign literature in translation, Continental philosophy, fine arts," Lookout Eugene-Springfield noted.
The store will close for two weeks as Weinhold prepares for the grand opening of Outliers Books on April 7. She said she had walked by Black Sun Books "endless times" over the years, often making the same remark for around 20 years: "I have said out loud to myself and to many people, 'I'd love to own that bookstore.' "
Outliers Books is named after Outliers and Outlaws, a documentary from the Eugene Lesbian History Project focused on the influx of lesbians into Eugene from the 1960s to 1980s, and the resulting thriving community.
"But changes are coming to the cozy store, with more spaces for hanging out and reading, a larger craft section, and, yes, romance books," Lookout Eugene-Springfield wrote. "While the store will stick to its intellectual roots, Weinhold said that levity and joy are critical to survival under tyranny."
Ogura advised Weinhold to listen to the customers: "It's so difficult to keep up with the thousands and thousands of new releases that happen continually," he said. "So often, I have never heard of a book until somebody says, 'Do you have this?' or "Can you get this?' It's a continuing education, every day."