Bookseller hoping to create 'intellectual haven' at Dharma Bum Books http://www.mercerspace.com/article/96649-bookseller+hoping+create+039intellectual+haven039+dharma+bum+books
09/09/2011 By Diccon Hyatt There was a note that was tucked in Tom Gombar’s copy of Hunter S. Thompson’s book, Generation of Swine, Tales of Shame and Degradation in the Eighties. The note, in Gombar’s handwriting, read: “There hasn’t been a decent demonstration. There hasn’t been a decent concert, there hasn’t been any decent music in the eighties and Hunter S. Thompson hasn’t written a word worth reading.” It’s fair to say that Gombar wasn’t a big fan of the Eighties, or the 90's, or the 00's or the current materialistic decade. Tom Gombar is still in love with the 60's, with the beatniks, with Woodstock, the hippies, and the counterculture of his youth. So in love that, entering his own seventh decade, he decided the thing to do was to start a bookstore where the dream of the counterculture could be kept alive and brought to a new generation. “I’ve been running my mouth off about how America’s values have sort of turned away from the values that were in the foreground in the Sixties,” he said. “We’ve gotten too involved with BMWs and Gucci and I thought, you know, it’s time for me to put my money where my mouth is.” Gombar, who lives in Stockton and works as a corporate lawyer, found the perfect place for his beatnik bookstore at 45 W. Broad St. in Hopewell. What could be less materialistic, after all, than a store stocked not with the latest bestsellers, or e-readers, but with the works of Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg and other beat writers who howled against the injustices of the world and the institutions that supported it? But Gombar’s vision of the Dharma Bum bookstore, named after the Kerouac novel, The Dharma Bums, is not just a warehouse for books. The store is to be a place for people to discuss lofty ideas. “I’d love to have people just coming in here and spending time,” he said. “I’ve got a fairly eclectic group of friends, and I want to create a place they can feel comfortable sitting and exchanging ideas or book recommendations or arguing politics or anything short of fisticuffs.” Operating an intellectual's bookstore is a dream come true for Gombar, who reads two books a week and loves to discuss politics and ideas. He misses his days at American University in the 60's, where such discussion was the norm. “I don’t remember a night that went by that we didn’t discuss social or political issues or weren’t actively involved in some discussion, whether it was in a bookstore or a bar or out on the streets. But there was a constant conversation involving current events and politics and social issues,” he said. Gombar, a Princeton native, graduated from Princeton High School and American University and became a criminal lawyer. He moved on to work for Opinion Research in Princeton and now works part time for Trenton law firm Kamensky Cohen and Associates. He is married and has two daughters. Gombar hopes to model his store on the famous City Lights bookstore in San Francisco and Shakespeare and Company in Paris, his two favorite stores in the world. Gombar said the shop will open for business in September Wednesdays through Sundays. He’s currently looking to buy books from local residents and is especially interested in first editions, and works connected to the beatniks. He’s also planning to sell books by university presses that aren’t available at mainstream bookstores. And Gombar wants people to stop in and talk, even if they don’t agree with his anticapitalist point of view. “We’ve watched the system shake and crumble for the last two years,” he said. “If you’re a Republican, you should be bolstering your arguments.” . -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sixties-L" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sixties-l?hl=en.
