Final chapter for Amicus Books

Amicus Books will close March 1 after five years in business, marking the last chapter for new-book sales in Yuba-Sutter.

Owners, James and Kara Davis, on Tuesday announced the shutdown of their downtown Marysville bookstore and literary arts center. Amicus Books' departure will follow the demise of the B. Dalton Bookseller chain, which will leave the Yuba Sutter Mall Jan. 16 — leaving the Internet and large chain stores as the Mid-Valley's only channel for buying new books.

Independent Amicus Books opened in Yuba City in April 2005 and moved to its Marysville location, at 413 D St., in March 2006. In addition to selling new and used books, its literary programs served local writers, authors and publishers, setting it apart from the likes of Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble Inc., which also owned B. Dalton.

But in announcing the end of their 3,500-square-foot bookstore, the Davises admitted they could only fight the forces of technology and discounting for so long.

"Today, via the Internet, there is a mega-bookstore in virtually every home," James Davis said in a statement. "The hope was that community members would see the value in having a literary arts center, and support that idea with their purchases and donations of books. Although many have responded to that hope positively, it has been a slow but inevitable decline."

The Davises said they plan to launch a new literary organization later this year but gave few details on how they plan to underwrite it without revenues from book sales. Kara Davis, reached at the store, declined further comment.

The shutdown marks a setback in attempts to keep Marysville's historic downtown vital for its businesses, but the true loss to Marysville runs even deeper, supporters of Amicus Books said after the announcement.

"Amicus offered a unique experience, more than just a bookstore," said Mayor Bill Harris. "There's nothing like it — still isn't — so I thought their chances were good. I'm really surprised the couldn't make it work, saddened too; it's a loss for the whole community."

"Yesterday I was driving back from the library and went up D Street, and I thought about what a wonderful thing they have tried to create for our community," said Cynthia Fontayne, a Los Angeles transplant and volunteer chairwoman for Big Read campaigns at the Yuba and Sutter county libraries. "Having this literary arts center, having teens work on their 'zine there, having the book clubs, sponsoring authors to come and talk — they have put hearts and minds into the venture. It was one of the reasons I decided to come to Marysville.

"Amicus was one of the things that convinced me this was a place worth coming to and working to develop … Dang. This makes me sad. What a blow."

The immediate future was unclear for the cultural groups Amicus nurtured and hosted. Those groups include the Better World Book Club; Literary Lounge, a support group to help local writers get their work published; and the staff of the youth-oriented magazine Intrepid Press.

Despite the uncertainties caused by Amicus' coming closure, one book club member held out cautious hope that literary groups would not be orphaned.

"I feel quite sure those things will continue," said Mary Rowntree, an aspiring poet and writer. "It's definitely as important to (the Davises) and to me."

Yuba-Sutter's last remaining store dedicated to books is the Book House, a Yuba City establishment selling only used volumes.

The two counties soon will join an unenviable list of communities lacking new-book outlets — a slate topped by Laredo, Texas, whose soon-to-close B. Dalton is the last bookstore left in a city of 250,000. Barnes & Noble announced in October it would retire the last 50 branches of B. Dalton, a mostly mall-based chain that once included 798 stores but had steadily shriveled for two decades.

Even as the Davises set up shop in Marysville in 2006, the owners conceded theirs was more a community project than a profit-making one.

"We don't know how long this will last," Kara Davis told the Appeal-Democrat that June. "But we are going to do all we can with this time."

Contact Appeal-Democrat reporter Howard Yune at 749-4708 or hyune@appealdemocrat.com.