Book lovers’ story finally comes to an end

Mary-Alice Currie spent Sunday boxing up 45 years of her life. Spread all around her, the used books she and her husband spent decades collecting and selling need to find a new home.

The independently owned and operated bookstore closed its doors Saturday evening, creating yet another vacant building where a mom-and-pop shop used to be. Saturday shoppers made their final visits to the Apollo Book Shop on Westminster Avenue in Costa Mesa, one of the last used bookstores in the city.

Costa Mesa resident Steve Byrne began shopping for photographic and literary treasures at Apollo Bookstore soon after it opened. The hard-to-find books and magazines that Apollo carried even helped spawn a tradition -- for his loved ones’ birthdays, he hunted through the floor-to-ceiling stacks in search of a National Geographic magazine from the year the person was born.

“Yes, I will miss this place,” he said. “It’s quite the institution.”

Saturday Bryne just happened to come by, looking for a National Geographic for his godson, who was born in 1984, and didn’t know it was the bookstore’s last day.

“There’s just not enough people walking through the door to pay the rent,” Currie said Saturday, as Byrne -- one of her last customers -- perused the small store.

Mary-Alice and her husband Lin Currie had been discussing the closure of the shop for some time. Competing with internet booksellers helped seal the fate of the small shop housed in a 1950’s modular house.

In a July interview the Curries told the Daily Pilot that their final day of business had not yet been determined. However, after Lin’s death in October, Mary-Alice set Jan. 13 as the date for the store’s closure.

“It’s just not the same in here anymore,” Mary-Alice said, fighting back tears. “I decided it wasn’t worth my working alone.”

For Byrne, the bookstore had been a favorite spot to come and relax, while looking for nothing in particular.

“There’s something about it — it’s quaint and cozy, and it’s so rich with things to look at,” Byrne said. “I can spend hours in here.”

Daughter Sue Currie brought a couple of boxes with her to begin packing the hundreds of books piled on the floor after the final day’s sale. Sue, 54, reminisced with her mother about the day the family decided to buy a book shop.

“We were driving home [from looking at the building] and he said, ‘Well, do you think we should buy the shop,’” Sue Currie said. “Of course, I said yes. ‘Well,’ he told me, ‘tell your mom to get the money out from under the mattress.’”

The store originally opened on 18th Street, but moved to it’s present location on Westminster Avenue in 1990.

Although the store is technically closed, Currie said she won’t turn away people who amble into the store without noticing the sign on the front door stating that Saturday was the shop’s last day of business.

“I had signs up all over the place and people just didn’t see them,” Currie said.

The Currie’s 15,000-book collection was nowhere near all sold on Sunday afternoon, but that shouldn’t be a problem, Mary-Alice said. She plans on continuing to take part in the bookseller community for a while with visits to local book fairs, to find homes for her overstock, but will be out of the building by the end of the month.

Mary-Alice will then do some catching up — with her house, her four children and nine grandchildren, and “just life,” she said.

“I’m 78 years old and it’s time to call it a halt,” Mary-Alice said. “Slow things down a bit.”