Midnight Special Bookstore

Founded in 1970 as a co-op in Venice,[3] the shop "was run predominantly by volunteers" until around 1985.[5]

In 1980[5] it moved from Venice to 1350 Third Street [9] (also known as 1350 Santa Monica Mall[10]) in Santa Monica, then in 1992[5] moved again to 1318 Third Street Promenade.[11][12] For more than ten years, the mall's landlord charged the shop less rent than other tenants were paying,[13] but with a change in management and success in attracting upscale tenants, the mall operator asked for an increase that would "more than double"[2] the rent. For this reason, the bookstore moved out of its Third Street location in March 2003.[4] Its stock was kept in storage for eight months. In November 2003,[8][14][15] the store reopened at 1450 Second Street[16][17][18] in Santa Monica, then finally closed around June 2, 2004.[1] Its owner cited weak sales and continuing financial difficulties as the reason for closing:

Unfortunately, the delay was too great and our debts grew with the delays. Only local outlets of major chains can afford the losses that come with opening stores; even though our sales were steadily growing, it was not fast enough to keep us going until we could sustain ourselves.[1]

Authors who appeared at the shop:

• Cecilia Brainard[19]
• Octavia Butler[5]
• bell hooks[5]
• Paulo Coelho[5]
• Slavoj Žižek[5]
• Eduardo Galeano[5]
• Viggo Mortensen[5][20][21]
• Dave Eggers[5]
• Elaine Brown[5]
• Lalo Alcaraz[5]
• Walter Mosley[5]
• Trinh Minh-ha[5]
• Edward Said[5]
• Junko Mizuno[5]
• Margaret Randall[5]
• Maya Angelou[5]
• Tariq Ali[5]
• Michael Ventura[22]
• Paul Krassner[4]
• Tavis Smiley[23]
• consumer advocate David Horowitz [24]
• Bernadette Devlin

Among other people who made appearances at the shop were filmmakers Robert Greenwald[22] and Oliver Stone,[5] actor David Warshofsky,[22] Elaine Brown of the Black Panther Party, UCLA professor Khaled Abou El Fadl; and musicians Dave Marsh, Jello Biafra, Frank Zappa[5] and Ray Manzarek.[25]