Skylight Books Celebrates a Memorable 10 Years

To duly mark its 10th anniversary, Los Angeles' Skylight Books held a weeklong celebration, beginning on Saturday, October 28, featuring parties, author readings, staff poetry readings, Yucatan burritos, and lots of cake. "We had to be kind of flashy," said Skylight's Kerry Slattery. "It's our 10th, and we didn't want to take it for granted."

At a Saturday afternoon party at the store, which is located between an independent movie house and a 100-seat theater and acting school in a 1930s-era block of buildings in L.A.'s ethnically diverse La Feliz neighborhood, customers and friends, including booksellers Allison Hill from Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena and James Fugate from Esowon Books, were served "two beautiful special Sicilian Cassata cakes, fabulous refreshments, and wine." Readings by authors, including Wendy Werris (An Alphabetical Life, Carroll & Graf), Harlan Ellison (Spider Kiss, M Press), and Janet Fitch (Paint It Black, Little Brown), whose latest novel is partly set in the La Feliz neighborhood, were featured following the party and throughout the week.

Kerry Slattery and Lucy, the store cat.

Skylight Books is also commemorating its birthday by raising funds for the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE). "We're doing a silent auction to raise money for ABFFE," Slattery explained. "We got these amazing donations -- a signed first edition of a William S. Burrough's book, a beautiful photography book by Rizzoli, books from Baker & Taylor."

Skylight has been a store with Book Sense since the program's beginning, as well as one of the first to have a BookSense.com website. "It allows us to have a much more sophisticated website than we'd otherwise be able to," said Slattery. "Now staff members want to make the site even snazzier since they just realized they can write in their own HTML code. They're starting to explore.

"We celebrate our anniversary every year," noted Slattery. "But we wanted to make this one memorable because we realize how precious it is. We can't take for granted our survival as an independent bookstore these days, so it's really important to celebrate the milestones and to let the community know that we appreciate their support." --Karen Schechner