Bookshop Santa Cruz to Celebrate Half a Century

On November 4–6, Bookshop Santa Cruz in Santa Cruz, California, will celebrate its 50th anniversary with a community-wide birthday celebration.

“It is an incredible milestone to celebrate and we are taking this opportunity to thank that community of people who helped us reach this moment,” said Casey Coonerty Protti, who in 2006 took over management of the business from her parents, Neal and Candy Coonerty.

Anniversary celebration festivities will kick off on Friday night with a party featuring the Hot Damn String Band, which will play old-time favorites; a proclamation from Santa Cruz Mayor Cynthia Mathews; speeches; and cake.

Customers will also be able to leave their favorite bookshop memories on an interactive memory wall. Earlier this year, Coonerty Protti asked customers to share bookmarks and other ephemera from the store’s past, photos of customers at the store before it was significantly damaged by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, stories of the bookstore’s role in a relationship with a significant other, or any other special memories.

On Friday, the store, which opened on November 6, 1966, will launch a 20 percent off sale for its Readers Club members; the discount will be extended to the general public on Saturday and Sunday. Customers spending $50 or more during the weekend will receive a commemorative button or bumper sticker with the phrase, “Home is where your bookstore is.” A grand prize of 50 books hand-selected from the store’s 50 Notable Works from the Past 50 Years lists, created this year in honor of the store’s anniversary, will be given away to one lucky customer.

Since the beginning of the year, Bookshop Santa Cruz has recognized its anniversary in other ways.

In May, the store announced a partnership with the Wellstone Center to offer a sponsored, two-week writer residency. The residency sponsorship, which provides the winning writer with accommodations in Wellstone’s Zen Suite and evening meals for 14 days, will be offered annually through 2020.

Beginning in August, Bookshop Santa Cruz dedicated “artful reading” benches at three local playgrounds as a way of saying thank you to the community. The first bench, by artist Bruce Harman, was dedicated in the Grant Street Park on August 11; the second, by Denise Davidson, was placed in Garfield Park on September 22; and the third and final bench, by Terra Dawson, was dedicated on October 25 at San Lorenzo Park.

“We are thrilled that there will now be spots in local playgrounds for families to read together,” Coonerty Protti said at the time of the first dedication. “One of the main reasons we are able to make it to 50 years is because we are located in a community that cares about books. We hope this gift will continue that tradition by having the art inspire the next generation of readers.”

In October, Bookshop Santa Cruz celebrated the release of A Light in the Midst of Darkness: The Story of a Bookshop, a Community and True Love by longtime Santa Cruz Sentinel arts editor and columnist Wallace Baine (Wellstone Books).

The book tells the story of Neal Coonerty and the late Candy Coonerty, who bought the store in 1973 and turned it into a colorful and thriving hub of the Monterey Bay community. It also chronicles the store’s long history, including its survival in the aftermath of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.

“Customers, authors, publishers, local vendors, booksellers, other independent bookstores, and so many others were instrumental in helping us not only survive but thrive,” said Coonerty Protti. “It has been a joy to be a literary hub in Santa Cruz for multiple generations and we look forward to continuing to connect readers with books for the next 50 years.”

See a timeline of Bookshop Santa Cruz’s 50-year history here.