Sunday, Jul 26, 2015

Interview by Scott Laming

If you were a famous Hollywood star looking for a sophisticated gift or, as is more likely for the majority of us, perhaps you happended to be a serious book lover in the LA area, you would eventually find your way to Mystery Pier Books.

Turn off Sunset Boulevard onto a stone path, through blooming flowers, to a charming English cottage that houses father and son bookselling team Harvey and Louis Jason. Booklovers and collectors from birth, they opened their shop and started selling on Augusy 9, 1998. The pair specialize in collectible antiquarian classics, modern firsts (with many signed or inscribed by authors or actors from film interpretations), American and British literature, Books Into Film, Mysteries and the best of True Crime.

Due to the shop’s location and extraordinary collection of modern and signed first editions, Mystery Pier quickly became extremely popular in the glamorous world of motion pictures, TV and music, having sold books to the likes of Bono, Johnny Depp, Oprah, Michael Caine, Jude Law and Julia Roberts and dozens more international celebrities. Literary figures too have graced their doorstep, and now signed photos are on display in evidence of this: Kurt Vonnegut, Nelson DeMille, and Harper Lee are the tip of the iceberg. Louis made a habit of collecting doodles from these frequent visitors and has since published a coffee table book, Louis M. Jason's Literary Celebrity Doodles, which contains the author’s artwork as well as information about the authors themselves.

With all of these celebrity sightings came a wash of publicity. TV and radio stations, national papers and magazines ran features on the shop, which in turn lead to more opportunities. Mystery Pier has since been asked to build personal libraries for LA’s elite, to find and purchase investment literature (such as important firsts for which prices will rapidly inflate - in seven years The Catcher in the Rye, appreciated from $6,500 for a Fine copy in dust jacket to over $12,000 and often more) and has been contacted to sell books as gifts for winners at the Academy Awards, Golden Globes, and other awards.

When asked to recall a favorite bookselling moment Harvey recounts a story of one very memorable visitor to the shop. “The shop bell tinkled alerting us to a visitor. I went to the door to see an elderly woman standing at the entrance; at first impression, she was obviously destitute, perhaps homeless. Carrying two shopping bags filled to the brims with used soda cans, she stood in the doorway gazing inside the shop through the thick lenses of her glasses. Her hair was long and totally disheveled. Her crumpled, torn blouse and much stained, overshirt were covered with dirt. The woman glanced at the titles in the cases with slow admiration and then asked ‘Do you have any Charles Dickens first editions?’ The question absolutely surprised me but I answered that we had three and offered to show her our copy of Nicholas Nickleby. The woman was delighted, it was as if I’d handed her the Holy Grail. While she leafed through the book I walked out to the cash register to give this poor homeless woman a couple of dollars. Her voice turned me around. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’ll take these three.’ I turned toward him she was handing me an American Express Centurion card, the ultra-select black one. This woman has since become a faithful and regular client.”

As it turned out the woman lived in a palatial home in Bel Air and had just been tending her garden (hence the dirt and tattered clothes), and saw Mystery Pier’s sign on her way to her hairdressers (hence the messy hair). The soda cans, which were bound for the recycling center, were her last errand of the day but she was worried about leaving the bags of cans in her un-attended Rolls Royce Corniche convertible.

The woman has since been back several times and has become a regular client. The lesson from Harvey Jason. Don’t judge a book by its cover!