It looks like the story is ending for one of L.A.’s oldest book shops. Alias Books, a fixture along Sawtelle Boulevard in West L.A. since 1959, is closing. The building where the store is located was sold two years ago and plans are in the works to turn the plot into a condo development.
Alias Books specialized in used and collectable books and was known for stocking its charmingly-ramshackle shelves with rare finds as well as the usual bargain classics. Once, the L.A. Times writes, the shop acquired the entire personal library of the L.A. City College’s long-serving librarian, some 150,000 volumes, including signed, original works by the likes of Pablo Neruda and Ted Hughes.
If you want to get your bookstore fix, you can still swing by until March 14. A clearance sale is already on, with inventory discounted by 40 percent. Anything left over when the doors shut will be donated to a local library.
This isn't the last you hear from Alias, though. In 2009, the owner, Brian Paeper, opened a second location, Alias Books East, in Atwater Village. That store is doing well and will stay open after the Sawtelle shop shutters. Paeper is also already looking for the perfect place to open a new Alias shop, which is most likely to be in the West Adams neighborhood.
“I do think that there’s room for bookstores,” Paeper told the Times. “I believe in these places.”
Alias Books is located at 1650 S. Sawtelle Blvd. Shop hours are 11am to 10pm Monday through Saturday and 11am to 8pm Sunday, through March 14.
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