{"id":301915,"date":"2026-05-06T02:59:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T02:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/301915\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T02:59:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T02:59:14","slug":"montclairs-a-great-good-place-for-books-to-close","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/301915\/","title":{"rendered":"Montclair\u2019s A Great Good Place for Books to close"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kathleen Caldwell, the owner of Montclair\u2019s popular A Great Good Place for Books on La Salle Avenue since 2005, announced on social media last week that she was closing the store in the coming weeks:<\/p>\n<p>One of the great joys of my life has been my role at the helm of Montclair Village\u2019s Great Good Place for the past 22 years. I have loved being a part of your community, watching your children grow up, being their safe place, turning you onto that book I just couldn\u2019t put down, and introducing you to the authors who have set your imaginations on fire. Sadly, it\u2019s time for me to step away. Through many tears, difficult conversations, and sleepless nights I have decided to close A Great Good Place for Books in the weeks ahead. I don\u2019t know what my next chapter looks like but I hope many of you will still be a part of it.Thank you for an amazing ride; who knew GGP was everything I never knew I wanted?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ktvu.com\/news\/oakland-great-good-place-books-montclair-closing\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Caldwell told KTVU <\/a>that the business never recovered from the pandemic when more people turned to online shopping.<\/p>\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gofundme.com\/f\/help-kathleen-bridge-to-retirement-after-20-yrs-at-ggp-books?attribution_id=sl%3A686ac85b-16a2-4384-96c4-1c2e4a0165db&amp;lang=en_US&amp;ts=1777858090&amp;utm_campaign=man_sharesheet_dash&amp;utm_content=amp17_tb-amp20_control&amp;utm_medium=customer&amp;utm_source=copy_link&amp;utm_id=97757_v0_s00_e224_tv2_tp1_a1demo0ebc5erl&amp;fbclid=IwY2xjawRnJ9tleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEee6BNtFXkHXn87jfBBN_YHhU2OvV_l4Ci1O1uww9dtpUgrg5L0EQ-pW-PRko_aem_lBkkQBpawrhO21_dgh9V8Q\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">GoFundMe <\/a>set up on May 3 to help Caldwell weather the transition to retirement described her commitment to her  customers and local authors even as she battled health challenges and the disruptions of the COVID years. As of Tuesday, more than $18,000 had been raised toward the $35,000 goal. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"771\" height=\"344\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/GGP--771x344.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1590330\"  \/>A wall of books in Montclair\u2019s A Great Good Place for Books<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kathleen Caldwell, the owner of Montclair\u2019s popular A Great Good Place for Books on La Salle Avenue since&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-301915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}