The LA Times brings the sad news that Book Soup owner Glenn Goldman died from pancreas cancer on Saturday, just one day after announcing plans to sell his Sunset Boulevard bookstore. He was 58.

Goldman opened Book Soup in 1975. After struggling to survive for nearly two decades, Book Soup found its niche. Goldman’s bookstore evolved, as
author Jonathan Kirsch notes, into “ground zero for a certain cool West Hollywood cultural vibe.”

In the late 1980s, he moved the store to more spacious digs a few blocks down the boulevard, where it quickly developed a reputation for art, photography, film and music books, and high-profile signing events featuring authors and celebrities including Gore Vidal, James Ellroy, Mikal Gilmore, Edward Albee, Robert Wagner and Tom Stoppard.

Goldman, a self-described “bookseller to the great and infamous,” would not argue with customers who suggested his store seemingly had a built-in crowd control problem compounded by a lack of space for more than 60,000 titles.

“Glenn was a compulsive over-orderer of books,” recalled Book Soup staffer Manny Chavarria. “We wouldn’t know where to put them all, so we stacked them up in sometimes precarious columns.”

Read more of Louis Sahagun’s story here.

Elsewhere: From LAT Book Editor David Ulin: “I can’t count the number of readings I’ve attended at the store, the books and magazines I’ve bought, the conversations I’ve had. In every way that matters, you can chalk that up to Glenn. He set the tone, both intellectually — the store reflected his tastes and interests, in art and film and fiction — and in terms of personality. ”

From the Book Soup website: “If you have a memory of Glenn that you’d like to share with his sons and the store please come by and write in our Memorial Book. If you want to make a donation in his name, please email the Glenn Goldman Booksellers Scholarship Fund at: ggbsf@booksoup.com
–which benefits the education and development of young booksellers worldwide.”

**From SCIBA Executive Director Jennifer Bigelow: “Last Friday Glenn and his staff announced that Book Soup was for sale. I am sure that under the guidance and oversight of Adrian Newell (longtime book buyer at Warwick’s, La Jolla) business will be as usual at Book Soup. It is Adrian’s desire that the sale of the store help provide for Glenn’s sons Joe (16) and Sam (10) while at the same time carrying on the legacy of Glenn and Book Soup…. A memorial service will be open to the public and held at Hillside Memorial Park (Culver City) at 1:00 pm, Sunday January 11. Please check the Book Soup web site to confirm the details. ”