John Cole's Book Shop (originally John Cole's Book and Craft Shop) was a bookstore in La Jolla, San Diego, California. It was founded in 1946 by John (d. 1959) and Barbara Cole (d. 2004) on Ivanhoe Avenue, and moved in 1966 to the Wisteria Cottage at 780 Prospect Street. The cottage had housed Ellen Browning Scripps' half-sister Virginia, and La Jolla Country Day School, prior to becoming the location of John Cole's Book Shop. Susan and Charles Cole, the daughter and son of John and Barbara Cole worked in the book shop as did Susan's daughter Trilce and Charles' son Zack. Zack sold harmonicas in the book store. Parties were held for numerous authors over the years. The La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art lent sculptures to John Cole's Book Shop which were displayed on the grounds.
John Cole's Book Shop specialized in books about Mexico, and specifically the Baja Peninsula as well as Mexican art.
Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, was a close friend of both John and Barbara Cole as early as the 1940s, lived in La Jolla and regularly signed books for the shop.
The shop closed in 2005, and the cottage is to be turned into a museum by the La Jolla Historical Society.
Famous quotes containing the words cole, book and/or shop:
“You know, Frank, I’m beginning to get a new perspective on this crawling little animal known as man. Why a dog or a cat or a bird is cleverer than any human. They sense me immediately. But these shrewd detectives of yours—. Take away one of man’s senses and you render him helpless.”
—Lester Cole (1904–1985)
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“Thank God we’re living in a country where the sky’s the limit, the stores are open late and you can shop in bed thanks to television.”
—Joan Rivers (b. 1935)