Community Bookstore Celebrates 40th Anniversary with Local Authors

On Saturday afternoon, Community Bookstore, on Seventh Avenue, celebrated its 40th anniversary with a free reading and book signing at Old First Reformed Church. 

Part of the Brooklyn Book Festival, the event was as much of a coming-out party for new co-owners, Stephanie Valdez and Ezra Goldstein, as it was a celebration of the bookstore’s history.

“Our small cozy bookstore is a dream,” said Valdez, welcoming the close to 1,000 attendees.

After a proclamation by Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, local authors Paul Auster, Siri Hustvedt, Jonathan Safran Foer, Nicole Krauss, Mary Morris, and Haley Tanner shared passages from their favorite books published within the last 40 years.

Author John Scieszka, reaching back further than four decades, read from Norton Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth, published 50 years ago.

“We invited these seven authors because they are part of our community,” said Valdez. “They come to our store to buy books, browse the shelves, bring their kids and talk to us about what they are reading.”

Along with their chosen texts, readers took a moment to reflect on their relationship with Community Bookstore. Mary Morris, author of The River Queen, discussed how it provided a haven when she first moved to the area in the 1980s. 

“You couldn’t get brunch anywhere, but there was a bookstore,” she said, “It became home right away.”

Since then, Park Slope has changed rapidly, Morris explained. But throughout its evolution, the Community Bookstore has remained a constant.

For Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Eating Animals and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, the emotions were equally strong. 

“To think of Park Slope without the Community Bookstore is, to me, like thinking of Park Slope without [Prospect Park],” said Foer, who read passages from Sea Under: Love by David Grossman. “It’s that indispensable.”

Founded by Susan Scioli in 1971, the Community Bookstore is one of the city’s oldest independent booksellers. After thirty years, Catherine Bohne became Ms. Scioli successor and made the bookstore a place of solace and refuge during the weeks following 9/11.

In 2007, struggling against the arrival of a neighboring Barnes and Nobles and the rising popularity of Amazon, the bookstore nearly closed. Fortunately, with the help of local investors, including neighborhood resident and longtime customer and actor John Turturro, the bookstore persevered. 

Now under the leadership of Goldstein and Valdez, the bookshop continues to preserve the traditions that solidified the bookseller’s place as a local treasure.

“Susan [Scioli] had the vision and the courage to open a bookstore in 1971, when Park Slope was still a risky place to do business,” said Goldstein. “Then she built the store’s reputation as a literary haven: where book lovers knew they could find the best literature and salespeople who loved to talk about it. Those are traditions we strive to continue.”

After the reading, Valdez and Goldstein invited attendees to an after party at the Community Bookstore, where guests were encouraged to help themselves to refreshments.

The mood was festive, as locals could mingle and enjoy the warm atmosphere that has made the Community Bookstore a staple in the area for so many years.