The Other Change of Hobbit
A Science Fiction & Fantasy Bookstore
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| Bookstore | |
| Industry | bookselling |
| Genre |
Science fiction Fantasy |
| Founded | May 1977 |
| Founder | Dave Nee Debbie Notkin Tom Whitmore |
| Headquarters | Berkeley, California |
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Area served
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San Francisco Bay Area Internet |
The Other Change of Hobbit (sometimes abbreviated TOCOH) is a science fiction and fantasy bookstore, formerly located in Berkeley, California and then El Cerrito; it no longer has a physical location. It was founded in 1977, the same weekend that Star Wars opened. It has been the site of numerous author appearances. The founding partners were science fiction fans Dave Nee,Debbie Notkin, and Tom Whitmore. The store is named after the Hobbits from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.
The store database has over 20,000 titles.
Nee, Notkin, and Whitmore had formed The Portable Bookstore in 1974 to sell books to members of the science fiction fan organization named after the fictional Elves, Leprechauns, Gnomes, and Little Men's Chowder & Marching Society. As they sold books at Westercon in 1976, Sherry Gottlieb, founder of A Change of Hobbit (then in Westwood, later in Santa Monica, California), suggested that they open a store in Berkeley. Gottlieb's store was known in fandom for its events—such as hosting Harlan Ellison in its window, writing a story—and Gottlieb offered the store's name to her Berkeley colleagues, so long as it was a little different.
The store opened in a retail arcade off Telegraph Avenue in May 1977, the same weekend that Star Wars opened in theatres. The store moved to Downtown Berkeley in 1993, at 2020 Shattuck near Addison. The Shattuck Avenue store, operated from April 1993 to April 2010, was in a three story building built around 1905. The second floor, known to the staff as Shelob's lair, was the store office. The main street level was the bookstore and Nee's toy collection. Downstairs in the basement storage were thousands more books. The store window displayed Poul Anderson's typewriter and desk, donated by his wife, Karen Anderson, after Poul's death in 2001. For several years, the window also held Whitmore's Hugo Award for co-chairing Worldcon in 2001.
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Wikipedia