ummer vacations for my first ten years meant family trips to Long Beach, California, where my mother grew up. We made an annual trek to Disneyland, and my brothers and I were at the beach with cousins and friends almost every day. But one of the first things my mother and I did, as soon as we got settled, was visit Acres of Books, one of the most magical places in the world. It seemed to go on for literally acres, passageways heading off in all directions, rooms unfolding into each other, all filled to the rafters with towering shelves crammed with books of every imaginable kind. Out of the endless treasures that awaited, I would pick out my summer reading and happily carry a bit of the magic home.

I went back there once as an adult, and it was every bit as wonderful as I remembered. This was after many years of living in Berkeley, home to world-class bookstores. I knew how to discern quality in an empirical sense. Acres of Books was in a class all its own.

Now it’s gone, having fallen prey to the merciless juggernaut of “progress.” No less a luminary than Ray Bradbury wrote a tribute during its waning years:

“Better get there while you can. The dust is waiting like an Orient spice. The literary ghosts are waiting like the friends you always wanted and now at last find. The winding corridors promise you to be forever going on a journey and forever lost. Bring your flashlight for late in the day. Ask for me. Tut’s in there somewhere. Inquire. He’ll tell you where I am.”

As ever, the idea lives on.

To be continued…