After nine years, independent bookstore Malvern Books will close on Dec. 31.
Manager Becky Garcia made the announcement today on the store’s website and in an email to supporters.
In July, bookstore founder Joe W. Bratcher III, a leader of Austin’s literary arts scene, passed away.
“I can’t tell you how hard it has been to try and carry on in this space without him,” Garcia wrote. “Our little Malvern world has not been the same since, and, as much as we love this store and our amazing customers, Malvern Books simply cannot continue without our Joe. “Malvern Books will be closing on December 31, 2022.”
The store on West 29th Street, in the environs of the University of Texas, specialized in literature from small presses and also functioned as a busy community space for readings, book launches and other events.
In a 2017 interview with Sightlines, Bratcher said: “I decided that I would open a store where small, independent press books, literature (literature being poetry and fiction), were gathered together under one roof and people could come in and hold the books and see them and compare them and just see what’s available.”
Related: ‘At Malvern Books, it’s books first. That makes it radical.’
