PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM 93 sugar cookies, handing them out to customers as they waited in a checkout line that stretched out the door. “That whole experience was life-changing and humbling,” Clark says. Of the many events Clark has hosted at its current location downtown, the Harry Potter book releases have been among its most popular. Over the years, the festivities have ranged from scene reenactments to tales with Hagrid in the Gryffindor Common Room to Diagon Alley-themed stalls. Cafe Borrone transformed into the Death Eater Enclave, cheerfully serving macabre treats. (Cockroach clusters, anyone?) And many dressed up—including a memorable Moaning Myrtle costume that involved a toilet seat around the wearer’s neck. “Every time you open a book, you're entering a world, somebody else's world—and you're doing it with your imagination, not with your eyes or ears only,” muses Clark. “When your imagination is involved, it resonates much deeper.” THE NEXT GENERATION: PRAVEEN MADAN Kepler’s current CEO Praveen Madan had not been in the book business long when Clark handed him Kepler’s reins. In India, “public libraries were terrible,” Praveen recalls of his childhood. “We didn’t have great access to books.” ExABOVE: Clark Kepler shakes hands with Roy Barrone, owner of Cafe Barrone next door, and listens to speakers at a rally to save the bookstore in 2005. still stained with oil,” Clark recalls. “And people were also smoking and throwing their butts on the ground.” He also remembers the store’s larger-than-life characters, like its first employee, Gandhi scholar Ira Sandperl, who “probably held court at the bookstore more than he actually worked.” In the ‘80s, Clark took over running the store. “I was at Sierra College when my dad asked me to come work a summer for him,” he recalls. “That summer got extended to 33 years.” During his time at its helm, Clark weathered plenty of highs and lows. There was the store’s devastating closure in 2005—and the community’s herculean efforts to revive it. On reopening day, people came in droves to support Kepler’s. Dawn baked her father’s favorite PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF: KEPLER'S BOOKS
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