Opinion: Hail and Farewell to the Chef Who Created the Recipe That Became Book Soup

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Just add my voice to the chorus of those sorrowing over the death of Glenn Goldman, the founder of Book Soup in West Hollywood.

I’ve been to author readings there -- I did an author reading there. On the Sunset Strip, among whose enterprises you’ll find the Hustler store and chic boutiques and restaurants sublime and ratty, Goldman made Book Soup its own singular place more than 30 years ago -- both a refuge from the street and an ornament of it.

An independent book store is the owner’s personality made visible. The recently defunct Acres of Books in Long Beach was a West Coast iteration of Bertrand Smith’s enthralling store in Cincinnati, where I found magnificent burrows and unexpected treasures. Dutton’s in Brentwood was Doug Dutton’s irresistible invitation to the erudite and visceral joys of reading. Skylight Books in Los Feliz, formerly Chatterton’s, has the dynamic, big-city sensibility of people standing in the aisles paging through new books -- supervised by Lucy the cat. And Vroman’s in Pasadena has a spacious charm to entice the curious reader with its serendipitous shelves and enthusiastically literate staff.

And like the fabled clock at the Biltmore Hotel in New York, you could, and did, meet everyone at Book Soup -- not just authors, the celebs like Roger Wagner, the intellectuals like Gore Vidal, but book lovers highbrow and low budget.

Glenn died the day after he announced he’d be selling Book Soup; the best memorial to his faith in the place and the people it serves would be nothing less than keeping its doors open and its work going.