The Other Change of Hobbit

The Other Change of Hobbit is a bookstore that began in Berkeley, California in 1977, opening the same weekend as Star Wars. Specializing in science fiction and fantasy books, it has been the site of many popular events over the years. The founding partners were Dave Nee, Tom Whitmore and Debbie Notkin.^[1] Today, the staff has more than 100 years of accumulated experience in reading and selling science fiction.

The store has hosted hundreds of signings, including Neil Gaiman, Tanya Huff, Clive Barker, Terry Pratchett, Roger Zelazny, Anne McCaffrey, Harlan Ellison, C. J. Cherryh, Jane Fancher, Katherine Kurtz, Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, Joe Haldeman, Poul Anderson, Karen Anderson, Gordon Dickson, Octavia Butler, Thomas M. Disch, Michael Bishop, Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, David Brin, Joanna Russ, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Madeleine L'Engle, Leo Dillon, Diane Dillon, Vonda N. McIntyre, Jane Yolen, Greg Kihn, Cecelia Holland, Kim Stanley Robinson, Peter S. Beagle, Pat Murphy, Sean Stewart, Cory Doctorow, David Weber, Terri Windling, Laurell K. Hamilton, Brian Froud, and John Varley. The store has three different boards with all those signatures and doodles on them.

The three partners had formed The Portable Bookstore in 1974 to sell books to members of The Elves', Gnomes', and Little Men's Science Fiction, Chowder, and Marching Society. As they sold books at Westercon in 1976, Sherry Gottlieb, founder of A Change of Hobbit (then in Westwood, later in Santa Monica, California), suggested that they open a brick-and-mortar store in Berkeley. This was their incentive to start The Other Change of Hobbit.

Originally hidden away under a parking garage off Telegraph Avenue, the store moved to Shattuck Avenue in Downtown Berkeley in 1993. The Shattuck Avenue store (April 1993 – April 2010) was three stories, in a building built around 1905. Upstairs, better known to the staff as Shelob's lair, was the store office. The main street level was the selling floor with its thousands of books and Dave's toy collection. Downstairs in the basement storage were thousands more books. In one of the display windows of the store were Poul Anderson's typewriter and desk, donated by his wife, Karen Kruse Anderson, after Poul's death in 2001. For several years, the window also held Tom Whitmore's Hugo Award for co-chairing Worldcon in 2001.

In April 2010 the store relocated to a large, single-story space at 3264 Adeline Street with the thousands of books in its inventory plus Sam and Trouble, the most recent batch of cats.^[1]

Its science fiction website is one of the earliest such websites in existence, having come online in January 1995. The store database has over 20,000 unique titles that have been cataloged in the store's history.

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Bullock, Ken (August 10, 2010). "The Other Change of Hobbit is Living in South Berkeley". The Berkeley Daily Planet. http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2010-08-10/article/36052?headline=The-Other-Change-of-Hobbit-Thrives-in-South-Berkeley. 

External links

• The Other Change of Hobbit official site