Glenn Goldman, Book Soup founder was 58 *

Goldman died today of pancreatic cancer, a disease that was just recently diagnosed. He leaves two teenage sons. As I posted earlier today, Goldman and staffers at the Sunset Strip store had begun quietly looking for buyers after his prognosis took a mortal turn in recent days. Here are some quotes from tonight's L.A. Times obituary:

"Glenn brought a highly individual face to the Los Angeles bookselling business," said Doug Dutton, who closed his own Brentwood bookstore, Dutton's, in May. "He was a man of strong tastes and not shy about voicing his opinions. But even if you didn't agree with them, you admired the integrity and honesty of the man behind them."

Jonathan Kirsch, an author and frequent customer of Book Soup, said: "Every bookstore has its own personality. His store had the hippest image in town." Founded across from Tower Records and the original Spago restaurant -- and bookended by head shops and strip joints -- "Book Soup was ground zero for a certain cool West Hollywood cultural vibe," Kirsch said....

Goldman, a self-described "bookseller to the great and infamous," would not argue with customers who suggested his store seemingly had a built-in crowd control problem compounded by a lack of space for more than 60,000 titles.

"Glenn was a compulsive over-orderer of books," recalled Book Soup staffer Manny Chavarria. "We wouldn't know where to put them all, so we stacked them up in sometimes precarious columns."

In a prepared statement, Book Soup general manager Tyson Cornell said the store will continue. "Nobody here is looking for a new job. The store remains an extremely viable business, and the entire staff wants to carry on the legacy of Book Soup."

* Personal appreciation: "He set the tone, both intellectually -- the store reflected his tastes and interests, in art and film and fiction -- and in terms of personality. The staff is among the nicest I've encountered: smart and a little bit shy also, enthusiastic about the books. And writers love to read there, even though the space can be a bit unwieldy, because they know that this is a place where they'll be treasured, where their work will be treated not as commodity but as art," LAT book editor David Ulin posts at the Times' Jacket Copy blog, which has the Carolyn Kellogg photo of Book Soup's marquee tonight on the Sunset Strip.

Book Soup website: "Glenn's impact on the literary community in Los Angeles is impossible to measure, and he will be sorely missed by many, many people. At this tragic hour we remember Glenn's sense of humor, his generosity, and the sacrifices he made to bring books, his passion, to the people. Glenn was a man who lived life to it's fullest and accomplished more in his 58 years than most people would in 3 lifetimes."