Fahrenheit 451 Books
former bookstore in Laguna Beach, California
Fahrenheit 451 Books was a bookstore, formerly located on 509 South Coast Highway in Laguna Beach, California. It was described by the Los Angeles Times as a "literary landmark" of the region. It closed in 1994.
Early years
The bookstore, which also included an art gallery, was established in 1968 by Dennis Madison and Lyn Chevli, owned in her name because she had a state reseller's license. After their divorce, it was sold in 1972 to Gordon & Evie Wilson. The bookstore had legal battles with the City of Laguna Beach, charged with selling obscene literature including early underground comics by R. Crumb, Joyce Farmer, and Chevli. Philip Hackett ran the Poets' Corner reading house there during the early 70's with support from Marta Mitrovich.
New owners
The bookstore's fortunes changed for the better when, in June 1976, Fahrenheit was bought by Lorraine and Norman Zimmerman, and their friend, Mike Kopp (the Zimmermans became sole owners from the fall of 1978). After extensive renovation, the new owners opened the bookstore to the public in October 1976. With about 10,000 titles confined to a 650 sq.
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This entry incorporates text from “Fahrenheit 451 Books” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.