Added: 11/15/2005 |
The house of horror: dark carnival bookstoreStepping into the Dark Carnival, which bills itself as a "bookstore of the imagination", is like stepping into the cluttered library of an extremely eccentric individual. Your eyes do not know where to look first. Shelves of new mystery and science fiction/fantasy books dominate the front of the store and books are stacked everywhere, on every conceivable surface, including much of the floor. Then you start noticing the other goods: hundreds of toys and gizmos, from rubber stamps to gargoyles, from robots to plastic dinosaurs, and though kids undoubtedly love them, they are clearly designed to satisfy an adult's inner geek.
In other words, the Dark Carnival bookstore is a browser's paradise, a place you walk into, knowing you will find something interesting to buy. Located in a small block of other retailers, a bit more than a mile from the University of California's flagship campus in Berkeley, the store is full of personality, much of it deriving from Jack Rems, who founded the Dark Carnival (in another, much smaller location) in 1976, when he was a physics student at Berkeley.
At the Dark Carnival, there are two elements to the idea of "interesting": depth and eclecticism. Customers will also find titles from literary novelists like Martin Amis and Paul Auster, crossover writers like the gothic horror novelist Patrick McGrath and "adult-friendly" kids' authors like J.K. Rowling and Darren Shan.
While the Dark Carnival bookstore offers plenty of novels for a general reader, the most devoted customers are ardent genre fans. It is the store wealth of obscure titles and books from small publishers-items that would be virtually impossible to find in a chain store or a general-interest independent bookstore-that represents another draw.
The diversity of titles reflects the eclecticism of the owner's own taste. The quiet, almost diffident man is serious about books and writing. He relishes and celebrates authors, who are not a mainstream. As the store tagline articulates, the Dark Carnival's "niche" is the imagination, but that is surely a key ingredient in any successful fiction and not solely a purview of the genres. (The name of the store is taken from Ray Bradbury's first collection of short stories.)
Owning and running the Dark Carnival bookstore is a labor of love for its owner, however, it is also very much a business. It seems clear that the focus on "imaginative fiction" (a term he prefers to science fiction or fantasy) differentiates the Dark Carnival along with the extensive stock and non-book merchandise. Events (mostly signs due to the limited space of the store) often generate substantial crowds. Poppy Z. Brite, Darren Shan and Howard Hendrix have recently done events at the store, as well as Michael Chabon, the Pulitzer Prize-a winning novelist, who lives around the corner.
The Dark Carnival bookstore in Berkeley is another example of how independent booksellers can thrive, as it is a place people want to go to. Ultimately that is the real reason the Dark Carnival has survived for nearly three decades in a crowded and competitive marketplace (in addition to Barnes & Noble, Berkeley-a city of about hundred thousand-is perhaps home to a dozen other bookstores). If you go in, you will probably leave with something you did not expect to buy.
Article comments:
No comments for this article yet. Post your comment now!
