JULIE WALMSLEY

Alexandra Alter wrote in the New York Times yesterday that Barnes & Noble isn't dead yet, if you read into the retailer's middling quarterly performance as an indicator. Barnes & Noble  had another not-so-bad quarter, which these days counts as good for the struggling bookstore chain. When the company  reported its earnings  on Thursday for the third fiscal quarter of 2016, there were signs that the steep losses that have plagued it in recent years may finally be leveling off. Also, Alter reported, the big retailers are starting to gain ground on e-books, and what retail sales they lose go at least in some part to the indies. Good news to me since I wrote last year about how local Los Angeles independent bookstores are surviving , and saw what they really are to community, placemaking, and authors trying to find a niche audience for their work.

My piece on longtime Larchmont destination Chevalier's Bookstore is now up at Larchmont Ledger and needing a correction. In a conversation with his friend and fellow bookworm, Bert Deixler, Holter proposed buying the store. The two local residents approached Winthrop, and by the end of October they were the new owners of Chevalier’s. It was actually Deixler who suggested buying the store to Holter, not Holter's idea. Holter at the time said, "Yeah right!" and brushed off the suggestion. But after thinking about it and seeing the barren store again, he changed his mind. More backstory on Chevalier's, and the other two independent bookstores I wrote about, Stories on Sunset in Echo Park and Skylight Books in Los Feliz, is here .

So, the independent bookstore is not dead. At least not in Los Angeles. I visited  Skylight Books  in Los Feliz,  Stories on Sunset  in Echo Park, and  Chevalier's Books  on Larchmont for forthcoming articles for the Ledger papers, and found full stores with interesting stories and committed customers. People still use libraries too. I was at the Silver Lake Library twice last week, and parents actually go with their kids and read from printed books, not iPads and Kindles. I wasn't allowed the editorial space for all the photos and interesting bits about the stores, their ownership, and their strategy. The outtakes - A longtime neighborhood hang, Skylight Books has been open since 2006, and owned by the same LLC. Some of the individual investors have changed out, but a core group continues to shepherd the store. The resident cat, Franny, is very sweet. She just hangs out with customers all day. She is named for J.D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey...