A lot happens at Speakeasy Bookmarket
Dyani Brunner moved to Idyllwild in 2021 and opened up shop as a
bookseller in February 2022. She called that first shop Speakeasy
because of its hidden-away location next to Oakwood Village. Speakeasy,
along with partner enterprise Bookmarket, moved into their present space
in the Collective as soon as it opened last year.
“Given our size, it surprises people that we are actually a tiny co-op.
I moved up to Idyllwild towards the tail end of COVID, at a time when a
new life felt especially possible to a number of people, including my
now-business partner Riley Colgate, who had essentially the same idea,
and opened Bookmarket, a tiny used book store, right around the corner
from me, at about the exact same time. No bookshop rivalry formed; in
fact, we became fast friends.”
The move across the street to the Collective was a natural development.
“When the Gioelis purchased this property and started renovations, it
made the most sense to just come here together, rather than having two
stores. What he does is vintage, antique and first-edition books, and
some really lovely giftable books. I keep the focus on newer-release
literary fiction, trying to keep representation front-of-mind in
curation always. We try to stock authors that can speak to varying
cultural experiences, and we try to bring in as many books as possible
from smaller indie houses. Some of the smaller print houses are putting
out incredible work.”
Brunner puts Speakeasy’s eclectic selection in perspective: “When Amazon
first entered the market, back around 1994 and decided to sell books
below wholesale cost at a loss, the big story is that they were able to
take out Borders. The full story is that at that time, there were about
7,000 independent book shops in the U.S., and that number now sits
closer to about 2,500. Given the distribution deals that Amazon has with
the major print houses, those are the books that get showcased and end
up in people’s hands. There’s not the variety that used to exist.
“For these smaller publishers, there’s some really amazing ones we
always carry: Feminist Press, Soft Skull, Two Dollar Radio, Heyday for
environmental books. We were honored that Heyday did a book launch at
the shop for ‘Know We Are Here.’ They tend to find representation
through places like this, that like us might be tiny, but are committed
to amplifying voices of different kinds of authors in the small ways
that we can.”
Speakeasy is finding creative ways to appeal to local and visiting book
lovers. “This is always going to be a tourist town and tourism does tend
to account for a really good share of our business, but I can honestly
say that we would not be in business if it wasn’t for the incredible
community support we receive from Idyllwild since opening up. Not only
in-shop, but through special orders people are placing, people using our
bookshop.org page, as well as choosing to use Libro for audio books
rather than Audible. Libro supports the authors at a much higher rate,
and directly supports this bookshop as well. You go to Libro.fm.”
Brunner notes the advantages of Libro over Audible: “The prices are
competitive; you actually own the book, they don’t disappear if you stop
your membership; it doesn’t support Amazon; authors get a higher
percentage; and a good portion, if you choose us as your bookshop, goes
directly to Speakeasy. It’s these types of things that have kept us in
business. We’re so appreciative of the people who have chosen to go that
route.”
The tiny cooperative also is a social space for book-related happenings.
“Our events also tend to be very well attended, which I’m really
grateful for. We try to do readings pretty often. Most recently we did
local author Tim Parks. He was reading from ‘The Best Laid Plans.’
Currently-best-selling author Amanda Montell — we were the very first
stop on her tour for ‘The Age of Magical Overthinking’, and now she’s
selling out much larger venues. We do readings, concerts, black out
poetry [readers black out text on a printed page, making poems from the
remaining words.]
“Our most fun event is probably ‘field trip,’ which is a book and movie
club, which we put on in collaboration with local director Justin
Daashuur Hopkins and the Rustic Theatre. For this, we pair a book and a
movie together and we host a themed reception here at the shop with
music, and projections and props, and then walk over to the Rustic where
they make us themed drinks, and we watch the movie together. We’ve so
far done Dario Argento’s ‘Suspiria,’ and the 1982 ‘Bladerunner’ paired
with Phillip K. Dick. Our next one, on June 23, is going to be showing
‘Picnic at Hanging Rock,’ with live pan flute music.
“We also host a women’s entrepreneurship book club, and we plan to start
a series of open mic nights set to a theme, with 5-minute time limit, on
that beautiful stage that Kenny built for us all out there … and a
summer concert series in collaboration with Ravenhill and Mountain Poppy
Floral.”
Idyllwild was always Brunner’s vacation place. “It was a place that you
fantasized about living, but it never quite felt possible until during
COVID, when everything shut down. My background wasn’t in book sales; it
was in developmental optometry. I was a visual processing therapist.
That’s a very in-person job that sort of shut down, which allowed me to
think about ‘what’s next, what are the alternatives?’ This is something
that I always wanted to do and Idyllwild felt like a place for it.”
Speakeasy Bookmarket, 54445 North Circle Dr., St F. is open from 9 a.m.
to 5 p.m. Thursday to Monday (Bookshop.org/shop/speakeasybooks).
