![]() And while people far and wide know that both men speak their minds and don't suffer fools, Hamilton and Fugate see their role simply and clearly. The idea though isn't just to ring up a sale and pass back the change it is to engage and cultivate relationships. In an ever-shifting bookselling landscape, creative survival has been crucial to Eso Won's longevity much of that has come from providing a range of titles, along with a deep knowledge in both the stock itself and their customers' range of interests. And too, there's a loyal, core stream of customers who still stop by to discuss, order and buy books - for which both Fugate and Hamilton are deeply grateful. Many, they both know, are just in the habit of ducking in to eavesdrop on a spiky on-going conversation, one that can often ricochet from African folklore to international film to breaking news. There too are local merchants who may race in to make quick change, or even the intermittent drifter who might peek inside the doorway looking to borrow a spoon. ![]() If they're moved to, Eso Won's co-proprietors, James Fugate and Tom Hamilton, might run down a list of the shifting series of players who find their way inside the store on any given day: the regulars who wander in to talk politics the neighbors who pop by perhaps to get the 411 on the Metro project to be built just down the boulevard. As any bookseller would attest, there is an encyclopedia of other crucial factors at play that make a shop not just a "stop," but an essential destination. While its long roster of visiting authors - Toni Morrison, John Edgar Wideman, Octavia Butler, Walter Mosley among them - offers a snapshot and time capsule of African American letters, it isn't only marquee names that hold great import to the bookselling life. ![]() bookstore remains a community hub in the heart of Leimert Park. In its 25 years in the trade, despite a wildly inclement business climate rocked by urban unrest, earthquakes, industry shifts, multiple re-locations and recessions, the Southwest L.A. Stitch together those stray, day-to-day anecdotes with a clever plot, vivid recurring characters and some unexpected twists, and you just might have something solid, something with real longevity.Īs the tale of brick-and-mortar retail goes, Eso Won Books' ongoing story is about as twisty as a plot can get. ![]() Like a good book, a good bookstore's lifeblood is its stories - stacks and stacks of them. ![]()
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