The Other Change of Hobbit is a bookstore that began in Berkeley, California

Berkeley, California

Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...

 in 1977, opening the same weekend as Star Wars

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, originally released as Star Wars, is a 1977 American epic space opera film, written and directed by George Lucas. It is the first of six films released in the Star Wars saga: two subsequent films complete the original trilogy, while a prequel trilogy completes the...

. Specializing in science fiction and fantasy books, it has been the site of many popular events over the years. The founding partners were Dave Nee, Tom Whitmore and Debbie Notkin. Today, the staff has more than 100 years of accumulated experience in reading and selling science fiction.

The store has hosted hundreds of signings, including Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman

Neil Richard Gaiman born 10 November 1960)is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre and films. His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book...

, Tanya Huff

Tanya Huff

Tanya Sue Huff is a Canadian fantasy author. Her stories have been published since the late 1980s, including five fantasy series and one science-fiction series. One of these, her Blood Books series, featuring detective Vicki Nelson, was adapted for television under the title Blood...

, Clive Barker

Clive Barker

Clive Barker is an English author, film director and visual artist best known for his work in both fantasy and horror fiction. Barker came to prominence in the mid-1980s with a series of short stories which established him as a leading young horror writer...

, Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett

Sir Terence David John "Terry" Pratchett, OBE is an English novelist, known for his frequently comical work in the fantasy genre. He is best known for his popular and long-running Discworld series of comic fantasy novels...

, Roger Zelazny

Roger Zelazny

Roger Joseph Zelazny was an American writer of fantasy and science fiction short stories and novels, best known for his The Chronicles of Amber series...

, Anne McCaffrey

Anne McCaffrey

Anne Inez McCaffrey was an American-born Irish writer, best known for her Dragonriders of Pern series. Over the course of her 46 year career she won a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award...

, Harlan Ellison

Harlan Ellison

Harlan Jay Ellison is an American writer. His principal genre is speculative fiction.His published works include over 1,700 short stories, novellas, screenplays, teleplays, essays, a wide range of criticism covering literature, film, television, and print media...

, C. J. Cherryh

C. J. Cherryh

Carolyn Janice Cherry , better known by the pen name C. J. Cherryh, is a United States science fiction and fantasy author...

, Jane Fancher

Jane Fancher

Jane S. Fancher is a science fiction and fantasy author and artist.She currently lives in Spokane, Washington with fellow science fiction writer C. J. Cherryh...

, Katherine Kurtz

Katherine Kurtz

Katherine Kurtz is the author of numerous fantasy novels, most notably the Deryni novels. Although born in America, for the past several years, up until just recently, she has lived in a castle in Ireland...

, Larry Niven

Larry Niven

Laurence van Cott Niven / ˈlæri ˈnɪvən/ is an American science fiction author. His best-known work is Ringworld , which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics...

, Jerry Pournelle

Jerry Pournelle

Jerry Eugene Pournelle is an American science fiction writer, essayist and journalist who contributed for many years to the computer magazine Byte and has since 1998 been maintaining his own website/blog....

, Joe Haldeman

Joe Haldeman

Joe William Haldeman is an American science fiction author.-Life :Haldeman was born June 9, 1943 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. His family traveled and he lived in Puerto Rico, New Orleans, Washington, D.C., Bethesda, Maryland and Anchorage, Alaska as a child. Haldeman married Mary Gay Potter, known...

, Poul Anderson

Poul Anderson

Poul William Anderson was an American science fiction author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century. Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories...

, Karen Anderson

Karen Anderson

Karen Anderson is a professional female squash player who represented Jamaica during her career. She reached a career-high world ranking of World No...

, Gordon Dickson, Octavia Butler, Thomas M. Disch

Thomas M. Disch

Thomas Michael Disch was an American science fiction author and poet. He won the Hugo Award for Best Related Book – previously called "Best Non-Fiction Book" – in 1999, and he had two other Hugo nominations and nine Nebula Award nominations to his credit, plus one win of the John W...

, Michael Bishop

Michael Bishop (author)

Michael Lawson Bishop is an award-winning American writer. Over four decades and thirty books, he has created a body of work that stands among the most admired in modern science fiction and fantasy literature....

, Greg Bear

Greg Bear

Gregory Dale Bear is an American science fiction and mainstream author. His work has covered themes of galactic conflict , artificial universes , consciousness and cultural practices , and accelerated evolution...

, Gregory Benford

Gregory Benford

Gregory Benford is an American science fiction author and astrophysicist who is on the faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California, Irvine...

, David Brin

David Brin

Glen David Brin, Ph.D. is an American scientist and award-winning author of science fiction. He has received the Hugo, Locus, Campbell and Nebula Awards.-Biography:...

, Joanna Russ

Joanna Russ

Joanna Russ was an American writer, academic and feminist. She is the author of a number of works of science fiction, fantasy and feminist literary criticism such as How to Suppress Women's Writing, as well as a contemporary novel, On Strike Against God, and one children's book, Kittatinny...

, Marion Zimmer Bradley

Marion Zimmer Bradley

Marion Eleanor Zimmer Bradley was an American author of fantasy novels such as The Mists of Avalon and the Darkover series. Many critics have noted a feminist perspective in her writing. Her first child, David R...

, Madeleine L'Engle

Madeleine L'Engle

Madeleine L'Engle was an American writer best known for her young-adult fiction, particularly the Newbery Medal-winning A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, and An Acceptable Time...

, Leo Dillon, Diane Dillon, Vonda N. McIntyre, Jane Yolen

Jane Yolen

Jane Hyatt Yolen is an American author and editor of almost 300 books. These include folklore, fantasy, science fiction, and children's books...

, Greg Kihn

Greg Kihn

Greg Kihn is an American rock musician, radio personality and novelist.-Music:Kihn is the front man for The Greg Kihn Band, which released several singles and albums that made the charts in the early 1980s...

, Cecelia Holland

Cecelia Holland

-Biography:She was born December 31, 1943 in Henderson, Nevada, and began writing at the age of twelve, recording the stories she made up for her own entertainment. From the beginning, her focus was on history because "being twelve, I had precious few stories of my own...

, Kim Stanley Robinson

Kim Stanley Robinson

Kim Stanley Robinson is an American science fiction writer known for his award-winning Mars trilogy. His work delves into ecological and sociological themes regularly, and many of his novels appear to be the direct result of his own scientific fascinations, such as the fifteen years of research...

, Peter S. Beagle

Peter S. Beagle

Peter Soyer Beagle is an American fantasist and author of novels, nonfiction, and screenplays. His most notable works include the novels The Last Unicorn, A Fine and Private Place and Tamsin, and the award-winning story "Two Hearts".-Career:Beagle won early recognition from The Scholastic Art &...

, Pat Murphy, Sean Stewart

Sean Stewart

Sean Stewart is a U.S.-Canadian science fiction and fantasy author.Born in Lubbock, Texas, Sean Stewart moved to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in 1968...

, Cory Doctorow

Cory Doctorow

Cory Efram Doctorow is a Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author who serves as co-editor of the blog Boing Boing. He is an activist in favour of liberalising copyright laws and a proponent of the Creative Commons organization, using some of their licences for his books...

, David Weber

David Weber

David Mark Weber is an American science fiction and fantasy author. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio. Weber and his wife Sharon live in Greenville, South Carolina with their three children and "a passel of dogs"....

, Terri Windling

Terri Windling

Terri Windling is an American editor, artist, essayist, and the author of books for both children and adults. Windling has won nine World Fantasy Awards, the Mythopoeic Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and her collection The Armless Maiden appeared on the short-list for the James Tiptree, Jr. Award...

, Laurell K. Hamilton

Laurell K. Hamilton

Laurell Kaye Hamilton is an American fantasy and romance writer. She is the author of two series of stories. Hamilton is known for her New York Times-bestselling Anita Blake series, featuring a professional zombie raiser/supernatural consultant for the police as the protagonist in a world where...

, Brian Froud

Brian Froud

Brian Froud is an English fantasy illustrator. He lives and works in Devon with his wife, Wendy Froud, who is also a fantasy artist...

, and John Varley

John Varley (author)

John Herbert Varley is an American science fiction author.-Biography:Varley grew up in Fort Worth, Texas, moved to Port Arthur in 1957, and graduated from Nederland High School. He went to Michigan State University on a National Merit Scholarship because, of the schools that he could afford, it...

. The store has three different boards with all those signatures and doodles on them.

The three partners had formed The Portable Bookstore in 1974 to sell books to members of The Elves', Gnomes', and Little Men's Science Fiction, Chowder, and Marching Society. As they sold books at Westercon

Westercon

Westercon is a regional science fiction and fantasy convention founded in September 1948 by Walter J. "Doc" Dougherty of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society...

 in 1976, Sherry Gottlieb, founder of A Change of Hobbit (then in Westwood, later in Santa Monica

Santa Mônica

Santa Mônica is a town and municipality in the state of Paraná in the Southern Region of Brazil.-References:...

, California), suggested that they open a brick-and-mortar store in Berkeley. This was their incentive to start The Other Change of Hobbit.

Originally hidden away under a parking garage off Telegraph Avenue

Telegraph Avenue

Telegraph Avenue is a street that begins, at its southernmost point, in the midst of the historic downtown district of Oakland, California, USA, and ends, at its northernmost point, at the southern edge of the University of California campus in Berkeley, California...

, the store moved to Shattuck Avenue in Downtown Berkeley in 1993. The Shattuck Avenue store (April 1993 – April 2010) was three stories, in a building built around 1905. Upstairs, better known to the staff as Shelob's lair, was the store office. The main street level was the selling floor with its thousands of books and Dave's toy collection. Downstairs in the basement storage were thousands more books. In one of the display windows of the store were Poul Anderson's typewriter and desk, donated by his wife, Karen Kruse Anderson

Karen Kruse Anderson

Karen Kruse Anderson is the widow and sometime co-author of Poul Anderson, and mother-in-law of writer Greg Bear.She is noted as the first person to use the term filk music in print. She also wrote the first published science fiction haiku , "Six Haiku"...

, after Poul's death in 2001. For several years, the window also held Tom Whitmore's Hugo Award

Hugo Award

The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...

 for co-chairing Worldcon

Worldcon

Worldcon, or more formally The World Science Fiction Convention, is a science fiction convention held each year since 1939 . It is the annual convention of the World Science Fiction Society...

in 2001.

In April 2010 the store relocated to a large, single-story space at 3264 Adeline Street with the thousands of books in its inventory plus Sam and Trouble, the most recent batch of cats.

Its science fiction website is one of the earliest such websites in existence, having come online in January 1995. The store database has over 20,000 unique titles that have been cataloged in the store's history.

External links

• The Other Change of Hobbit official site