Book Passage opens store in Sausalito

February 6, 2017 Updated: February 8, 2017 2:00pm

“The little fishing village of Sausalito” is how Jack Kerouac described the idyllic Marin County community in the 1957 novel “On the Road.” Long since a magnet for houseboat dwellers and art lovers, the city of 7,000 inhabitants now has another draw: a bayside bookstore.

Sausalito Book Passage by the Bay has just opened its doors, becoming the independent bookseller’s third location, joining stores in Corte Madera and the Ferry Building in San Francisco.

In the heart of the city’s commercial district, at 100 Bay St., Book Passage occupies an 1,800-square-foot space that had housed a gift shop, Tides of the Bay. Its inventory will be roughly 70 percent new books and 30 percent cards, journals and other merchandise, according to Cheryl Popp, one of the shop’s managers.

“The residents are euphoric that we now have a bookstore again,” Popp said. “Not only is it a bookstore, but it’s a Book Passage, which has a great reputation.”

Popp, whose background is in journalism and marketing communications, has lived in Sausalito for 25 years. The former president of the city’s Chamber of Commerce, she said she had been “hounding” Book Passage’s longtime owners, Bill and Elaine Petrocelli, for more than a year to open a “much-needed” bookstore. The city’s previous bookshop, Habitat Books, closed five years ago.

“I’ve been a prolific reader since I was a child,” Popp said, adding that helping to run a bookstore is “like a dream come true.”

Given the bookstore’s location, at the edge of Richardson Bay, a block from the ferry dock (and thus a boat ride away from Book Passage’s San Francisco branch), Popp said the store is thinking of organizing a book club on the bay. “We’re definitely looking at water-related activities,” she said with a chuckle.

“Everyone thought that with Amazon and digital books, traditional bookstores would have gone away,” Popp added. “But they have not. People like to hold a book in their hands, and they think of a bookstore as a community center. They add a lot to the fabric of any community.”

Sausalito Book Passage by the Bay is only the latest independent bookstore that has opened in the Bay Area in recent years. Others include Books Inc. shops in North Berkeley and Santa Clara, and a second Dog Eared Books store in San Francisco, in the Castro district. Among the stores that have closed are Modern Times Bookstore in San Francisco and Black Oak Books and Shakespeare & Co. in Berkeley.

John McMurtrie is the San Francisco Chronicle’s book editor. Email: jmcmurtrie@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @McMurtrieSF

John McMurtrie

John McMurtrie

Book Editor

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