Black Oak Books, which closed its wonderful store on Shattuck in June this year, will be resurrected on San Pablo. The booksellers are renovating the space at 2618 San Pablo formerly leased by Rountrees (hat tip: Jim).
Since the closure, Black Oak Books has been buying and selling books out of a warehouse on San Pablo. A reopening would mark a step forward for bookstores in Berkeley after the serial closures of Cody’s (on Telegraph, Fourth Street and Shattuck) and Barnes & Noble on Shattuck.
In its previous incarnation, Black Oak had a good selection of new titles, but its strength was in secondhand books. I’ll very much look forward to seeing what the new store offers. It will also be another improvement in the neighborhood around San Pablo and Dwight. The anchor of Caffe Trieste (just noticed they don’t use the accent on caffè — what’s up with that?), the excellent Sea Salt, a decent Thai restaurant, Anchalee, and some interesting retailers make this a very lively district.
Photo by Dave Winer from Flickr
