Popular Aspen Bookseller and Activist Dies

Katharine Thalberg, owner of Explore Booksellers in Aspen, Colorado, wife of former Aspen Mayor Bill Stirling, and daughter of Hollywood's Irving Thalberg and Norma Shearer, died on January 6. She was 70 years old.

Thalberg and her three daughters from a previous marriage moved to Aspen in 1973. In 1975, she opened Explore Booksellers. Through the years, the Main Street store, located in a Victorian-era house, became one of the town's best-loved and well-known businesses. She later opened Explore Bistro, Aspen's first vegan restaurant, above the store.

Thalberg was born in Santa Monica, California, and graduated from West Lake School for Girls in Beverly Hills. She went on to attend Vassar College in New York and Stanford University in Palo Alto, before earning her bachelor's degree in English literature at the University of California, Los Angeles, according to published reports.

Explore Booksellers remains open and managed by a team of long-time employees, "who were all trained and mentored by Katharine," said store bookseller Mark Billingsley. "We are all devastated," he told BTW. "But we are going to carry on her tradition as she would have wanted."

A frequent voice in local politics and an animal rights activist, Thalberg became the driving force behind the 1989 move to prohibit the sale of fur in Aspen. The "Fur Fight" was ultimately unsuccessful, but gained international attention.

In a tribute to Thalberg, published as a Letter to the Editor in the Sunday, January 8, edition of the Aspen Daily News, village resident Robert Nash concluded, "...If humanity could beckon, candles would strut on our streets. Books in the world stand taller tonight. Dust disappears from their spines. ISBNs are no longer numbers but troopers for meaning. All bookstores kneel in her space where dignity appeared." --Nomi Schwartz