{"id":14820,"date":"2026-05-12T17:40:32","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T21:40:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/?p=14820"},"modified":"2026-05-12T17:40:35","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T21:40:35","slug":"fabulosa-books-the-castros-living-room","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/2026\/05\/12\/fabulosa-books-the-castros-living-room\/","title":{"rendered":"Fabulosa Books: The Castro\u2019s Living Room"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Scott Lambridis<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

A young man from Texas walked into Fabulosa Books<\/a>, looked at the wall of queer titles, and started crying. \u201cIs this all gay stuff?\u201d he asked. When an employee named Becka told him yes, the young man asked if he could hug her. Moments like that, owner Alvin Orloff says, are why the bookstore exists. \u201cPeople are traumatized,\u201d he told me. \u201cIt\u2019s really important for them to be able to buy queer stuff in public and see it all there.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fabulosa Books sits on Castro Street, in the space once occupied by A Different Light, the legendary queer bookstore that helped anchor the neighborhood through the AIDS crisis. When that store closed in 2011, the Castro went five years without a bookstore at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Orloff had been working for years at Dog Eared Books on Valencia Street, one of San Francisco\u2019s beloved literary hubs. I first met him there when he hosted a monthly NYRB Classics book club I was part of. In 2016 he helped open a Dog Eared branch in the old A Different Light location, bringing a bookstore back to the Castro\u2014and bringing with it the kind of literary curation he loved: small presses, forgotten classics, and books that would never appear in an airport kiosk. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, in 2019, at the release party for Orloff\u2019s own memoir, his boss leaned over and made an offer. Did he want to buy the store? Orloff said yes. Then the pandemic shut everything down. \u201cI was leaving the house to go file the papers,\u201d he said, laughing. \u201cAnd City Hall closed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a while, the idea stalled. Castro Street, he says, was \u201cdead, dead, dead.\u201d But two years later, staring down his 60th birthday, he decided to go for it. \u201cNow or never,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve got to become a bookstore magnate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In 2021 he bought the store and renamed it Fabulosa Books. At first, the shop wasn\u2019t especially LGBTQ-focused. But after the 2016 election and a noticeable shift in national rhetoric, Orloff began expanding the store\u2019s queer inventory. What started as maybe 10 or 15 percent of the stock grew to more than half.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe more homophobic society becomes,\u201d he said, \u201cthe more people circle the wagons and reclaim their identities.\u201d Today, the store\u2019s identity is unmistakable. The LGBTQ section greets visitors right at the front door. The space itself is bright and airy\u2014more open than Dog Eared\u2019s famously packed Valencia shop\u2014with local art on the walls and a small corner of stickers, buttons, and postcards for tourists or anyone who wants a keepsake they can slip into a carry-on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fabulosa has to wear two hats at once: the Castro\u2019s queer bookstore and its only general neighborhood bookstore. That means stocking everything from queer memoirs to popular fiction to obscure literary gems. Orloff doesn\u2019t mind the balancing act. \u201cYou can\u2019t take your parents to the gay bar,\u201d he said. \u201cBut you can bring them to the bookstore.\u201d Couples wander in on dates. Tourists make pilgrimages after reading Tales of the City<\/em>. Parents sometimes bring newly out kids. \u201cThey come in slightly freaked out,\u201d he said, \u201cand leave slightly less freaked out.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That moment between Becka and the young man from Texas helped spur her to start Books Not Bans, a nonprofit hosted by Fabulosa that sends banned books to LGBTQ+ organizations in conservative areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The business realities remain challenging\u2014rents, online shopping, the shrinking culture of public literary events\u2014but Orloff approaches it with both realism and humor. \u201cI\u2019m not in charge of whether people want a robust literary culture,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat I can do is make this bookstore as appealing as I possibly can.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some things carry forward. \u201cWe still do NYRB Classics,\u201d he told me. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a shelf.\u201d It\u2019s one of those quiet throughlines from the book club I knew at Dog Eared to the store he runs now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a neighborhood built on visibility, Fabulosa has become exactly what the Castro has always needed.\u00a0 Like it was for that young man from Texas, it\u2019s more than a shop. It\u2019s a place where you can browse, talk books, and maybe recognize someone else who understands why it matters.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Scott<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Scott Lambridis is a novelist based in Bellingham, Washington. A former indie press founder, performance series organizer, olive farmer, and progressive rocker,\u00a0he studied neurobiology at the University of Virginia, earned an MFA from San Francisco State University, and read a book from every country in the world. His debut novel, St. Ulphia\u2019s Dead<\/em><\/a>, is forthcoming from Regal House Publishing on July 7, 2026. Learn more at scottlambridis.com<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Scott Lambridis A young man from Texas walked into Fabulosa Books, looked at the wall of queer titles, and started crying. \u201cIs this all gay stuff?\u201d he asked. When an employee named Becka told him yes, the young man asked if he could hug her. Moments like that, owner Alvin Orloff says, are why […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":444,"featured_media":14823,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[80],"tags":[283,475,471],"class_list":{"0":"post-14820","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-book-bound","8":"tag-bookbound","9":"tag-fabulosa-books","10":"tag-scott-lambridis","11":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Fabulosa-Table.jpg?fit=1005%2C754&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9DpGh-3R2","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":14834,"url":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/2026\/05\/19\/borderlands-books-the-store-its-readers-refused-to-lose\/","url_meta":{"origin":14820,"position":0},"title":"Borderlands Books: The Store Its Readers Refused to Lose","author":"Scott Lambridis","date":"May 19, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"by Scott Lambridis For years, a man named Michael came into Borderlands Books in San Francisco. He lived in residential hotels and worked occasionally as a book scout, finding used books to sell around the city. He loved science fiction, especially Fritz Leiber, and he liked to talk about it.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Book Bound"","block_context":{"text":"Book Bound","link":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/category\/book-bound\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Borderlands-Store-Interior.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Borderlands-Store-Interior.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Borderlands-Store-Interior.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Borderlands-Store-Interior.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Borderlands-Store-Interior.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":14784,"url":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/2026\/05\/05\/keplers-books-building-a-bookstore-around-its-people\/","url_meta":{"origin":14820,"position":1},"title":"Kepler\u2019s Books: Building a Bookstore Around Its People","author":"Scott Lambridis","date":"May 5, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"by Scott Lambridis Kepler\u2019s Books in Menlo Park has the reputation of an institution. Founded in the 1950s by peace activist Roy Kepler, it was once a gathering place for Beat thinkers, Stanford students, and even early performances by the Grateful Dead. 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Staff were rolling carts of sale books onto Clement Street, those irresistible sidewalk stacks I had to convince myself to ignore.\u00a0 Inside, the store feels a little like an oversized San Francisco apartment that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Book Bound"","block_context":{"text":"Book Bound","link":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/category\/book-bound\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Green-Apple-storefront-opening-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Green-Apple-storefront-opening-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Green-Apple-storefront-opening-scaled.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Green-Apple-storefront-opening-scaled.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Green-Apple-storefront-opening-scaled.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/regalhousepublishing.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Green-Apple-storefront-opening-scaled.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":14796,"url":"https:\/\/regalhousepublishing.com\/2026\/05\/08\/tsunami-books-a-beloved-bookstore-moves-to-buy-the-building\/","url_meta":{"origin":14820,"position":3},"title":"Tsunami Books \u2014 A Beloved Bookstore Moves to Buy the Building","author":"Amalia Gladhart","date":"May 8, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"by Amalia Gladhart Over the course of thirty years, Tsunami Books in Eugene, Oregon, has hosted thousands of readings, theater revues, writers\u2019 workshops, and concerts. 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