Kepler's Books and Magazines is an

independent bookstore An independent bookstore is a retail bookstore which is independently owned. Usually, independent stores consist of only a single actual store (although there are some multi-store independents). They may be structured as sole proprietorships, ...

Menlo Park, California Menlo Park ( ) is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County, California, San Mateo County in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, California, Eas ...

. It was founded on May 14, 1955 by Roy Kepler, a peace activist who had endured multiple internments as a conscientious objector during World War II. Kepler previously had worked as a staff member of radio station

KPFA KPFA (94.1 FM) is a public, listener-funded talk radio and music radio station located in Berkeley, California, broadcasting to the San Francisco Bay Area. KPFA airs public news, public affairs, talk, and music programming. The station signed o ...

, listener-supported and based in Berkeley.The culture of Kepler's
/ref> The bookstore "soon blossomed into a cultural epicenter and attracted loyal customers from the students and faculty of

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

and from other members of the surrounding communities who were interested in serious books and ideas."

Roy Kepler's activist bookstore

In ''Radical Chapters: Pacifist Bookseller Roy Kepler and the Paperback Revolution'' author Michael Doyle documents the bookstore's origins and culture as an expression of Roy Kepler’s life and times, from World War II as a radical pacifist, antinuclear activist during the Cold War, and antiwar activist from the Vietnam War to his death in 1994. Kepler's partner in this project and man-behind-the-counter-who-knew-all-about-books was Ira Sandperl, an anti-war and civil-rights advocate who was a student and teacher of Gandhi's method of

nonviolence Nonviolence is the personal practice of not causing harm to others under any condition. It may come from the belief that hurting people, animals and/or the environment is unnecessary to achieve an outcome and it may refer to a general philosoph ...

. From the beginning, Kepler's Books was an activist enterprise in consciousness-raising through book-selling, like Ferlinghetti's

City Lights Bookstore City Lights is an independent bookstore-publisher combination in San Francisco, California, that specializes in world literature, the arts, and progressive politics. It also houses the nonprofit City Lights Foundation, which publishes selected ...

in San Francisco, or Cody's Books in Berkeley. Through their bookstore Roy Kepler and Ira Sandperl mentored the most prominent young activists of the anti-Vietnam-war movement in the 1960's.

Sixties counterculture

John Markoff in his 2005 text, '' What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry'', referred to Kepler's as an important meeting place for the

Counterculture of the 1960s The counterculture of the 1960s was an anti-establishment cultural phenomenon and political movement that developed in the Western world during the mid-20th century. It began in the early 1960s, and continued through the early 1970s. It is ofte ...

. The ''Palo Alto Weekly'' noted that, "through the 60s and 70s, the culture of Kepler's began to evolve into a broader counter-culture. Beat intellectuals and pacifists were joined by 'people who worked for '' Whole Earth'', hippies into the rock and roll and recreational drug scene, politicos, and people with an interest in ethnic groups'." The

Grateful Dead The Grateful Dead was an American rock music, rock band formed in Palo Alto, California, in 1965. Known for their eclectic style that fused elements of rock, blues, jazz, Folk music, folk, country music, country, bluegrass music, bluegrass, roc ...

gave live shows there and "folk singer

Joan Baez Joan Chandos Baez (, ; born January 9, 1941) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist. Her contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest and social justice. Baez has performed publicly for over 60 years, releasing mo ...

, members of the Grateful Dead, and many local leaders remember sharing ideas, political action, music, and danger in the cramped store."About Kepler's
/ref> According to Scott W. Allen's ''Aces Back to Back'' (1992), the roots of the Grateful Dead's musical family tree were sown at Kepler's Books in 1960. That year, the Hunter/ Garcia folk duo played there and at universities and colleges all over the Bay Area. "From this point on," says Jerry Garcia, "I kept going farther into music and

obert Obert may refer to the following people: Given name *Obert Bika (born 1993), Papua New Guinean football midfielder *Obert Logan (1941–2003), American football safety *Obert Mpofu, Zimbabwean politician *Obert A. Olson (1882–1938), American p ...

Hunter into writing."

Recent history

In 1980, Roy Kepler's son Clark took over management of the bookstore. The store had three different locations in Menlo Park, moving in 1989 to its current location in the Menlo Center on El Camino Real. In 1990 ''Publishers Weekly'' ranked Kepler's as “Bookseller of the Year.” The rise of chain bookstores and online shopping created unbeatable competition, rising prices in Menlo Park resulted in Kepler's closing its doors on August 31, 2005. The local community held demonstrations to protest the closing. Kepler's subsequently re-opened in October 2005, financed by community investments, volunteers and donations. In 2008, The Kepler's children's department won the ''Pannell Award'' for excellence. The 2008 documentary '' Paperback Dreams'' chronicles the related histories of independent bookstores Kepler's and the now defunct Cody's Books in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Anglo-Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland, Cali ...

. In 2012, Clark Kepler and Praveen Madan, of San Francisco's ''The Booksmith,'' put together the Kepler's "Transition Team," a group of volunteer local business and community leaders. It launched “Kepler’s 2020,” an initiative seeking to transform the independent bookstore into a next-generation community literary and cultural center. The project aims to "create a hybrid business model that includes a for-profit, community-owned-and-operated bookstore, and a nonprofit organization that will feature on-stage author interviews, lectures by leading intellectuals, educational workshops and other literary and cultural events," according to Kepler's press release. Under the Kepler's 2020 program Kepler's was split into two legal entities – a for-profit business with a social mission and a community sponsored nonprofit – with the complementary goals of fostering a culture of books, ideas and 'intellectual discourse and civic engagement in the community,' according to Kepler's press release." Since 2012 Kepler's successful turnaround and reinvention have continued to receive wide coverage in national and international press because of the public's interest in finding sustainable models to keep bookstores thriving.

References and further reading

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Citations

External links