The closing of Logos more than seven years ago was the most devastating blow to local culture in my more than half-century in Santa Cruz. One of the greatest secondhand bookstores I’ve encountered in my travels, its airy industrial architecture and vast, eclectic inventory of everything from genre pocket paperbacks to rare literary collectibles made it a most welcome hanging-out and browsing space whatever one’s taste in books or music. (Bins of used LPs and CDs took up most of the back of the ground floor.) The hours I spent in Logos some leisurely afternoon, or before or after a movie at the Del Mar or Nickelodeon — another enormous loss since its pandemic shutdown — were some of the most pleasant doing-nothing hours of my life.

Bad Animal Books, wine bar and Hanloh restaurant have since come to occupy an equally if differently unique venue in the local biblioscape and have proved with their success in that mixed-use space that books — even limited to the humanities and tightly curated under that heading — are good business in the increasingly digitized virtual universe and the commercial ecology of mass-market publishing. The combination of food, wine and literature in a highly artistic, warmly welcoming setting is a major asset in downtown’s cultural and commercial ecology.

And then there is Bookshop Santa Cruz, our legacy independent bookstore since the 1960s that has outlasted Borders and adapted to the times — incorporating assorted non-book items and UCSC merchandise into its offerings — without compromising its commitment to what’s new and popular in mainstream publishing as well as a range of remainders, non-bestsellers and a generous selection of used trade paperback fiction and nonfiction. Bookshop’s back door on Front Street and front entrance on Pacific make it a natural thoroughfare to pass through in one direction or another, and its public restrooms are a comforting amenity otherwise scarce in our commercial core.

In my regular rounds I frequently stop to check out new arrivals in Bookshop’s used-book bins or the bargains on its remainder tables. Not that I need more books or am looking for anything in particular, but I often discover and purchase something I feel I must have or might want to read sometime. The variety of books in my reading piles could trigger an existential crisis, but at the same time it expands my selection and enables a random swerve into unexpected discovery.

The randomness of revelations inside the store is equally alluring. To physically pick up and feel and turn the pages of an unfamiliar edition is, for me, incomparably more satisfying than clicking a button online and having it delivered predictably to my door. The wonder of the serendipitous encounter is half the pleasure of browsing in a physical bookstore.

And from what I’ve observed at Bookshop, it appears I’m not alone in my enjoyment of such ramblings. All kinds of people spanning a spectrum of ages and types and lifestyles seem thoroughly engaged in exploring its various sections in search of something interesting to read, or a gift whose value is likely to outlast most other material objects — the gift of a book that has no cords or batteries and can offer its unplugged analog pleasures almost anywhere.

In my unscientific observations Bookshop Santa Cruz serves the community as a kind of public square, a hub of cultural activity distinct from most other commercial settings, concert halls or cafés because its activity is ongoing and undefined. A pedestrian like me with an affection for and attachment to print, to the texture and tactility of the physical book as esthetic object, information container and pleasure conveyor, can find in its spaces room to just hang and to feel part of an anonymous community. Such openminded venues for doing nothing shine a civilizing light in these tenebrous times.

Stephen Kessler’s column appears on Saturdays.