The Other Change of Hobbit (sometimes abbreviated TOCOH) is a

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

and

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and d ...

bookstore, formerly located 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 Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and E ...

and then El Cerrito; it no longer has a physical location. It was founded in 1977, the same weekend that '' Star Wars'' opened. It has been the site of numerous author appearances. The founding partners were

science fiction fans Science fiction fandom or SF fandom is a community or fandom of people interested in science fiction in contact with one another based upon that interest. SF fandom has a life of its own, but not much in the way of formal organization (although ...

Dave Nee,AP
"Genre Bookstores Fight Big Chains with Passion, Expertise"
Oct. 10, 2006 (available via CBC News). Debbie Notkin, and Tom Whitmore. The store is named after the

Hobbit Hobbits are a fictional race of people in the novels of J. R. R. Tolkien. About half average human height, Tolkien presented hobbits as a variety of humanity, or close relatives thereof. Occasionally known as halflings in Tolkien's writings, ...

s from J.R.R. Tolkien's ''

The Hobbit ''The Hobbit, or There and Back Again'' is a children's fantasy novel by English author J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published in 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the ''N ...

'' and ''

The Lord of the Rings ''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's b ...

''. The store database has over 20,000 titles.

History

Nee, Notkin, and Whitmore had formed The Portable Bookstore in 1974 to sell books to members of the science fiction fan organization named after the fictional

Elves, Leprechauns, Gnomes, and Little Men's Chowder & Marching Society The Elves, Leprechauns, Gnomes, and Little Men's Chowder & Marching Society was the fraternal organization frequented by Mr. O’Malley, the fairy godfather in Crockett Johnson’s daily comic strip '' Barnaby''. The actual locale of the ELGLMC&M ...

. As they sold books at

Westercon Westercon (occasionally WesterCon; long version West Coast Science Fantasy Conference) is a regional science fiction and fantasy convention founded in September 1948 by Walter J. Daugherty of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society. The original ...

in 1976, Sherry Gottlieb, founder of A Change of Hobbit (then in Westwood, later in

Santa Monica Santa Monica (; Spanish: ''Santa Mónica'') is a city in Los Angeles County, situated along Santa Monica Bay on California's South Coast. Santa Monica's 2020 U.S. Census population was 93,076. Santa Monica is a popular resort town, owing to i ...

, California), suggested that they open a store in Berkeley. Gottlieb's store was known in fandom for its events—such as hosting Harlan Ellison in its window, writing a story—and Gottlieb offered the store's name to her Berkeley colleagues, so long as it was a little different. The store opened in a retail arcade off

Telegraph Avenue Telegraph Avenue is a street that begins, at its southernmost point, in the midst of the historic downtown district of Oakland, California, and ends, at its northernmost point, at the southern edge of the University of California, Berkeley cam ...

in May 1977, the same weekend that Star Wars opened in theatres. The store moved to

Downtown Berkeley Downtown Berkeley is the central business district of the city of Berkeley, California, United States, around the intersection of Shattuck Avenue and Center Street, and extending north to Hearst Avenue, south to Dwight Way, west to Martin Luther Ki ...

in 1993, at 2020 Shattuck near Addison. The

Shattuck Avenue Shattuck Avenue is a major city street running north–south through Berkeley, California, and Oakland, California. At its southern end, the street branches from Telegraph Avenue in Oakland's Temescal district, then ends at Indian Rock Park ...

store, operated from April 1993 to April 2010, was in a three-story building built around 1905. The second floor, known to the staff as

Shelob Shelob is a fictional demon in the form of a giant spider from J. R. R. Tolkien's ''The Lord of the Rings''. Her lair lies in Cirith Ungol ("the pass of the spider") leading into Mordor. The creature Gollum deliberately leads the Hobbit prota ...

's lair, was the store office. The main street level was the bookstore and Nee's toy collection. Downstairs in the basement storage were thousands more books. The store window displayed

Poul Anderson Poul William Anderson (November 25, 1926 – July 31, 2001) was an American fantasy and science fiction author who was active from the 1940s until the 21st century. Anderson wrote also historical novels. His awards include seven Hugo Awards and ...

's typewriter and desk, donated by his wife, Karen Anderson, after Poul's death in 2001. For several years, the window also held Whitmore's Hugo Award for co-chairing

Worldcon Worldcon, or more formally the World Science Fiction Convention, the annual convention of the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS), is a science fiction convention. It has been held each year since 1939 (except for the years 1942 to 1945, durin ...

in 2001. Notkin dropped out of the partnership in 1994, a year after the store moved to Telegraph Avenue, and Jan Murphy entered the partnership. Whitmore has since also left the partnership.Charles Burress
"Hobbit Bookstore Moves to El Cerrito from Berkeley After 36 Years"
''El Cerrito Patch'', May 7, 2013. The store set up a website in January 1995, one of the earliest science fiction/fantasy websites in existence. The store struggled financially during the economic downturns of the early

third millennium In contemporary history, the third millennium of the anno Domini or Common Era in the Gregorian calendar is the current millennium spanning the years 2001 to 3000 (21st to 30th centuries). Ongoing futures studies seek to understand what is li ...

, and Nee cited the closing of

Alameda Air Station Naval Air Station Alameda (NAS Alameda) was a United States Navy Naval Air Station in Alameda, California, on San Francisco Bay. NAS Alameda had two runways: 13–31 measuring and 07-25 measuring . Two helicopter pads and a control tower were ...

as an additional economic impact on local bookstores. Nee noted the general decline of bookstores in the Berkeley area over the decades: "In 1977, Berkeley had the heaviest density of booksellers in the world—except maybe London! In those days—within three miles of campus. We've watched it all disappear." In 2008, the Bay Area still supported three separate science fiction and fantasy bookstores. In early 2010, The Other Change of Hobbit received an eviction notice, as the building at 2020 Shattuck had been sold, and the new owners hoped to put a restaurant in the space.Alex Dueben
"Peter S. Beagle Revisits 'The Last Unicorn'"
(interview), ''Comic Book Resources'', Jan. 18, 2011. in April 2010, the store relocated to a large, single-story building at 3264 Adeline Street. Fantasy writer Peter S. Beagle put together a series of benefit sales, of works related to his novel ''

The Last Unicorn ''The Last Unicorn'' is a fantasy novel by American author Peter S. Beagle and published in 1968, by Viking Press in the U.S. and The Bodley Head in the U.K. It follows the tale of a unicorn, who believes she is the last of her kind in the wor ...

'', the film version, and a work by

Avram Davidson Abraham, ; ar, , , name=, group= (originally Abram) is the common Hebrew patriarch of the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In Judaism, he is the founding father of the special relationship between the Jews ...

, to help with the finances of the move. The store reported receiving an eviction notice in 2013,Berkeleyside Editors
"Shop Talk: The ins and outs of Berkeley businesses"
''Berkeleyside'', Feb. 19, 2013. and relocated again, this time to a site on Kearney Street in El Cerrito, CA. As of July 16, 2014, the store has vacated the Kearney Street address.

Author appearances

The store has hosted hundreds of author appearances. Authors who have read, signed books, and spoken at TOCOH include Neil Gaiman,

Tanya Huff Tanya Sue Huff (born 1957) is a Canadian fantasy author. Her stories have been published since the late 1980s, including five fantasy series and one science fiction series. One of these, her '' Blood Books'' series, featuring detective Vicki Ne ...

Clive Barker Clive Barker (born 5 October 1952) is an English novelist, playwright, author, film director, and visual artist who came to prominence in the mid-1980s with a series of short stories, the ''Books of Blood'', which established him as a leading h ...

Terry Pratchett Sir Terence David John Pratchett (28 April 1948 – 12 March 2015) was an English humourist, satirist, and author of fantasy novels, especially comical works. He is best known for his '' Discworld'' series of 41 novels. Pratchett's first no ...

Roger Zelazny Roger Joseph Zelazny (May 13, 1937 – June 14, 1995) was an American poet and writer of fantasy and science fiction short stories and novels, best known for ''The Chronicles of Amber''. He won the Nebula Award three times (out of 14 nomin ...

Anne McCaffrey Anne Inez McCaffrey (1 April 1926 – 21 November 2011) was an American-Irish writer known for the ''Dragonriders of Pern'' science fiction series. She was the first woman to win a Hugo Award for fiction (Best Novella, ''Weyr Search'', 19 ...

, Harlan Ellison,

C. J. Cherryh Carolyn Janice Cherry (born September 1, 1942), better known by the pen name C. J. Cherryh, is an American writer of speculative fiction. She has written more than 80 books since the mid-1970s, including the Hugo Award-winning novels '' Downbelo ...

Jane Fancher Jane Suzanne Fancher (born 1952) is a science fiction and fantasy author and artist. Work In the early 1980s, she worked for Warp Graphics as an art assistant on '' Elfquest'', providing inking assistance on the black and white comics and colori ...

Katherine Kurtz Katherine Irene Kurtz (born October 18. 1944) is an American fantasy writer, author of sixteen historical fantasy novels in the '' Deryni'' series, as well as occult and urban fantasy. Resident in Ireland for over twenty years, she moved to Virg ...

Larry Niven Laurence van Cott Niven (; born April 30, 1938) is an American science fiction writer. His best-known works are '' Ringworld'' (1970), which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards, and, with Jerry Pournelle, '' The Mote in God's E ...

Jerry Pournelle Jerry Eugene Pournelle (; August 7, 1933 – September 8, 2017) was an American scientist in the area of operations research and human factors research, a science fiction writer, essayist, journalist, and one of the first bloggers. In the 1960s ...

Joe Haldeman Joe William Haldeman (born June 9, 1943) is an American science fiction author. He is best known for his novel '' The Forever War'' (1974). That novel and other works, including '' The Hemingway Hoax'' (1991) and '' Forever Peace'' (1997), hav ...

, Poul and Karen Anderson, Gordon Dickson,

Octavia Butler Octavia Estelle Butler (June 22, 1947 – February 24, 2006) was an American science fiction author and a multiple recipient of the Hugo and Nebula awards. In 1995, Butler became the first science-fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship ...

Thomas M. Disch Thomas Michael Disch (February 2, 1940 – July 4, 2008) was an American science fiction author and poet. He won the Hugo Award for Best Related Book – previously called "Best Non-Fiction Book" – in 1999, and he had two other Hugo nomination ...

, Michael Bishop,

Greg Bear Gregory Dale Bear (August 20, 1951 – November 19, 2022) was an American writer and illustrator best known for science fiction. His work covered themes of galactic conflict ('' Forge of God'' books), parallel universes ('' The Way'' series), c ...

Gregory Benford Gregory Benford (born January 30, 1941) is an American science fiction author and astrophysicist who is professor emeritus at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine. He is a contributing editor of ''Reas ...

David Brin Glen David Brin (born October 6, 1950) is an American scientist and author of science fiction. He has won the Hugo,Joanna Russ Joanna Russ (February 22, 1937 – April 29, 2011) was an American writer, academic and feminist. She is the author of a number of works of science fiction, fantasy and feminist literary criticism such as ''How to Suppress Women's Writing'', as w ...

Marion Zimmer Bradley Marion Eleanor Zimmer Bradley (June 3, 1930 – September 25, 1999) was an American author of fantasy, historical fantasy, science fiction, and science fantasy novels, and is best known for the Arthurian fiction novel ''The Mists of Avalon'' an ...

, Madeleine L'Engle, artists Leo and Diane Dillon, Vonda N. McIntyre,

Jane Yolen Jane Hyatt Yolen (born February 11, 1939) is an American writer of fantasy, science fiction, and children's books. She is the author or editor of more than 350 books, of which the best known is ''The Devil's Arithmetic'', a Holocaust novella. He ...

, musician/author

Greg Kihn Gregory Stanley Kihn (born July 10, 1949) is an American rock musician, radio personality, and novelist. He founded and led The Greg Kihn Band, which scored hit songs in the 1980s, and has written several horror novels. History Kihn was born ...

Cecelia Holland Cecelia Holland (born December 31, 1943) is an American historical fiction novelist. Early life and education Holland was born December 31, 1943, in Henderson, Nevada. She grew up in Metuchen, New Jersey, where she started writing at age 12, rec ...

Kim Stanley Robinson Kim Stanley Robinson (born March 23, 1952) is an American writer of science fiction. He has published twenty-two novels and numerous short stories and is best known for his ''Mars'' trilogy. His work has been translated into 24 languages. Many ...

, Pat Murphy,

Sean Stewart Sean, also spelled Seán or Séan in Irish English, is a male given name of Irish origin. It comes from the Irish versions of the Biblical Hebrew name ''Yohanan'' (), Seán (anglicized as ''Shaun/Shawn/ Shon'') and Séan (Ulster variant; angliciz ...

Cory Doctorow Cory Efram Doctorow (; born July 17, 1971) is a Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author who served as co-editor of the blog '' Boing Boing''. He is an activist in favour of liberalising copyright laws and a proponent of ...

David Weber David Mark Weber (born October 24, 1952) is an American science fiction and fantasy author. He has written several science-fiction and fantasy books series, the best known of which is the Honor Harrington science-fiction series. His first nove ...

Terri Windling Terri Windling (born December 3, 1958 in Fort Dix, New Jersey) is an American editor, artist, essayist, and the author of books for both children and adults. She has won nine World Fantasy Awards, the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award, and the Bram S ...

, Laurell K. Hamilton, and John Varley."Past Events: 2000-2003"
Other Change of Hobbit website (last visited March 31, 2014). Author appearances in 2010-2011 included

Seanan McGuire Seanan McGuire (pronounced SHAWN-in; born January 5, 1978 in Martinez, California) is an American author and filker. McGuire is known for her urban fantasy novels. She uses the pseudonym Mira Grant to write science fiction/ horror and the pseudon ...

Clare Bell Clare Bell (born 1952) is a British author in the United States best known for her Ratha series of young adult fantasy novels about prehistoric big cats. These books, also called the ''Named series'', are about intelligent self-aware large cats ...

Anne Harris Anne Harris may refer to: *Anne Harris (journalist) Anne Harris (born 25 August 1947) is the former editor of the '' Sunday Independent''. Her daughter Constance Harris writes for the newspaper as a fashion writer. She is the former wife of Eogha ...

Richard Kadrey Richard Kadrey (born August 27, 1957) is a San Francisco-based novelist, freelance writer, and photographer. Kadrey was born in New York City, New York. Fiction Kadrey has written fifteen novels, including ''The New York Times'' Best Seller ...

, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro,

Claude Lalumière Claude Lalumière (born 1966) is an author, book reviewer and has edited numerous anthologies. A resident of Montreal, Quebec, he writes the ''Montreal Gazette's'' Fantastic Fiction column. He also owned and operated two independent book stores ...

, and

Brian Brian (sometimes spelled Bryan in English) is a male given name of Irish and Breton origin, as well as a surname of Occitan origin. It is common in the English-speaking world. It is possible that the name is derived from an Old Celtic word me ...

and

Wendy Froud Wendy Froud (''née'' Midener; born 1954) is an American doll-artist, sculptor, puppet-maker, and writer. She is best known for her work fabricating Yoda for the 1980 film '' Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back'', for which she has been called "th ...

. The store has a large collection of author signatures from over the years of appearances.

References

External links

The Other Change of Hobbit official site

Other Change of Hobbit official facebook page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Other Change of Hobbit Bookstores in the San Francisco Bay Area Companies based in Berkeley, California Retail buildings in California 1977 establishments in California Tourist attractions in Berkeley, California Science fiction fandom Fantasy fandom Tolkien fandom Retail companies based in California Independent bookstores of the United States