Libreria Martinez en Santa Ana: Help if You Can, Buy a Book...

Bookstores are not yet a dying breed--witness the growth in the last decade of Costco-style behemoths like Borders, and you know the widely touted myth of the "death of the book" has been exaggerated. Here at SDSU in San Diego, we have over 700 English and Comparative Literature majors and, the dioses willing, more in the future, even with the budget axe waving like a Texas Chainsaw Massacre revival.

All that said, bookstores (especially independent bookstores) are a rare, special species. Imperfect, invaluable, and all too rare, they are also almost always IMPOSSIBLE to resuscitate and restore. So do yourself a favor if you are in and about Santa Ana: visit Libreria Martinez, prowl around, buy your regalos de navidad early (Santa's droppings, the translator), and help maintain the cultural richness of the real OC--I recently toured the area through the eyes of local historian and smartypants Gustavo Arellano and left convinced that this is one beautiful, thriving, pulsing, and priceless cultural space.

In honor of independent bookstores everywhere, I redid the web gateway for our English and Comparative Literature department--take a look!