Space Cowboy Books celebrates 10 year anniversary in Joshua Tree this Friday (1/23)

Joshua Tree’s long-standing bookstore Space Cowboy Books celebrates its ten-year anniversary this Friday.

When he and his partner moved to Joshua Tree in 2015, Jean Paul Garnier recalls the town as “more sleepy, no traffic, and less populated”––all welcoming attributes for a couple escaping big city life. But for the writer and lifelong book collector, Garnier says the one thing he felt was lacking in town was a bookstore––the closest one being Raven’s Books all the way in Twentynine Palms. 

“I had a lifelong dream of opening a bookstore, but it always felt sort of unattainable. Working as a handyman at the time, my partner and I met some people at Art Queen who said there was a vacant shed and my partner talked me into it. I thought, ‘this is a crazy idea––I’ve got about three months’ worth of money that I can roll the dice on to open this store. So, we were in that shed in the beginning, and people would walk into the store and say, ‘Science fiction bookstore in a shed in the middle of nowhere? You’re absolutely insane and you won’t last a month!’ And that was ten years ago, this month,” said Garnier.

They started hosting readings, film screenings, and music under the shop’s banner, attracting both local and international writers and readers to the shop and brand. The bookstore quickly expanded its square footage into its current location in Sun Alley Shops, then expanded its operations to include the award-winning storytelling podcast Simultaneous Times (which will celebrate its 100th episode later this year) and an independent publishing house for Space Cowboy Books.

“Part of the dream was to sell used books to earn money to make new books. To test the waters, we started off with a series of chapbooks (DIY-printed softcovers, typically smaller page-counts) which were almost exclusively for local authors. My attitude is: always start with those around you. Help those around you first, and then you branch out if that works,” said Garnier. 

Space Cowboy’s first proper book was an anthology companion to the podcast in 2018, followed by three more volumes. Since then, the press has released a multitude of books from local and international authors, including Pedro Iniguez’s Mexicans on the Moon, a recent winner of the world renown Bram Stoker Award and the equally revered Elgin Award. 

Garnier says that running a bookstore has helped him redefine his relationships with books and the people who have come into his shop over the last decade

 “Relationships are one of the most important things in our lives, and stories are about relationships, yet reading is a very intimate act that we often do alone, so to be able to share this with a broader community a global community has hands down been the most rewarding aspect of the bookstore.”

As his business becomes internationally recognized, Garnier remains committed to charitable outreach: he’s worked with Spark Growth to build elementary school libraries and supplies for homeschooled children, provided books for prisoners, and still offers one free book to all children under fourteen who enter the shop. 

While its focus is on science fiction, Space Cowboy Books also carries all kinds of literature, poetry, and non-fiction, all used or new, leaving something for everyone with the thrill of hunting through its carefully selected stock.

All books and curio will be 10% off at The Space Cowboy Books Ten Year Anniversary Celebration this Friday, January 23 from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m., featuring live music from The Kearns Family (featuring Z107.7’s own Pat Kearns) and experimental junkshop duo Phog Masheen with snacks by Epicurean Fling.

Space Cowboy Books is located at 61871 Twentynine Palms Highway, one block east of Park Boulevard.

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