On a busy stretch of Melrose Avenue, surrounded by high-end furniture galleries and showrooms, sits a tiny storefront. Walking by, you might miss it entirely—a paper sign adorned with hand-drawn bubble letters reading Hollywood Books is the only indication that it’s in business. But inside lives one of L.A.’s most quietly fashionable bookstores, run by Rebecca Ressler, who, since opening up shop in the fall of 2024, has spent the bulk of her days at her desk in the back, ready to make recommendations.
“Everybody on this block is so warm,” says Ressler, who initially worried the store’s kitschy interiors would clash with the elegant galleries around it. Instead, Hollywood Books has become a hot spot on the literary circuit: it hosted parties for Zoe Dubno’s Happiness and Love and Stephanie LaCava’s Nymph last fall, followed by a signing with Petra Collins in April for the launch of her new book, Star, and most recently celebrated the first issue of Kaia Gerber and Alyssa Reeder’s literary magazine, Library Science, on May 21.
