When a diner or shoe store closes the two rarely raise the ambient decibels while, when a bookstore closes, the future of civilization is imperiled. The difference is that bookstores, for many, symbolize their residual faith in the society we live in. From childhood we learned by reading and have always since relied on this basic skill to understand the world. When a book store closes we often feel a sense of threat.
Such angst should not be surprising, as for more than 20 years our children and their children have been learning online and many simply have not become emotionally attached to the printed word. Information yes, books not necessarily.
For those us of a certain age this is difficult to accept but our reality has long been that bookstores have been disappearing for decades. That another closed on April 28th in Boulder, Colorado, seems inevitable.
What brings me to this subject as that the proprietor of Red Letter Books announced, “that after 31 years at 1737 Pearl St., we are being asked to leave. Developers are going to tear down half the block on 17th and Pearl to make way for luxury condos and upscale dining. Heartbreaking. We thought we had more time, but it looks like we are being asked to leave by April 29th. We would like to make it clear that this is not our decision, nor is this due to the pandemic. We’ve been contributing members to the neighborhood for 31 years. Sadly, no longer. We will continue selling books in some capacity, but at the moment, we do not have a new location. We are not entirely sure when our lady plan for the public will be. Please stay tuned for more information.”
I’ve looked over their web presence and haven’t found a database of their material which looks to be of the catch and catch can variety. Many bookstores in their last stages become everyday bookfairs providing tens of thousands of possibilities but little or no cataloguing. Such material is often priced by fiat, “all material in a section is $10” or some other number. Such an approach has long been employed elsewhere to turn browsers into buyers.
I have no doubt the firm and their friends will find each other on the web, quite possibly on Facebook, as they seem to have a robust presence. Yahoo also seems to be keeping tabs on them.
And one last word, they seem to be trying to raise capital on a go-fund-me basis. Such efforts sometime work but long term solutions cannot depend on charity.
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 28th May 2026
Forum, May 28: Book of Hours.- Heures de nostre dame a l'usaige de Romme, Paris, Antoine Chappiel pour Germain Hardouin, [1504]. £6,000-8,000
Forum, May 28: Colonna (Francesco). La Hypnerotomachia di Poliphilo, second edition, Venice, Sons of Aldus Manutius, 1545. £15,000-20,000
Forum, May 28:The Christ Child holding a crystal orb and surrounded by banderoles with devotional exhortations, on a leaf most probably from a Book of Hours, [Southern Netherlands, last decades of the fifteenth century]. £2,000-3,000
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 28th May 2026
Forum, May 28: Jackson (Shirley). The Haunting of Hill House, first English edition, signed presentation inscription from the author to Claude Fredericks, 1960. £2,000-3,000
Forum, May 28: Lennon (John). In His Own Write, first edition, first impression, signed by the author, 1964. £3,000-4,000
Forum, May 28: Doves Press.- Keats (John). [Poems], one of 200 copies on paper, Doves Press, 1914. £5,000-7,000
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 28th May 2026
Forum, May 28: Rodrigues (João Barbosa). Sertum Palmarum Brasiliensium, 2 vol., first and only edition, Brussels, 1903. £8,000-12,000
Forum, May 28: Newton (Sir Isaac). Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica…editio ultima, auctior et emendatior, Amsterdam, Sumptibus Societatis, 1714. £8,000-12,000
Forum, May 28: Kepler (Johannes). Ad Vitellionem paralipomena, wuibus astronomiae pars optica traditur, first edition, Frankfurt am Main, 1604. £5,000-7,000
Forum Auctions Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper 28th May 2026
Forum, May 28: Tagliacozzi (Gaspare). De Curtorum Chirurgia per insitionem, libri duo, first edition, Venice, Gasparo Bindoni, 1597. £7,000-10,000
Forum, May 28: Lootsman (Jacobsz). The Lightning Colomne, or Sea-Mirrour, containing the Sea-Coasts of the Northern, Eastern and Western Navigation..., 1670. £8,000-12,000
Forum, May 28: Ribelles y Helip (José), Attributed to. An album comprising 33 finely executed watercolours of Spanish costume, bull-fighting scenes, and other genre subjects, [circa 1830]. £10,000-15,000
