Rare Book Collector, Healdsburg Book Shop Owner, Faces Losing Lifetime Collection

BAY AREA, CA — An eviction has forced an antiquarian bookseller to liquidate a vast collection built over nearly four decades in the rare-book trade, ending another chapter in a career that blended bookselling, literacy work, and community advocacy for vulnerable children.

The eviction notice landed on Todd Pratum, a bookseller whose life revolved around rescuing, cataloging, and distributing books. Now, as thousands of volumes head to market, the forced sale has drawn fresh attention to Todd Pratum's unusual legacy — a legacy that reaches beyond Oakland and deep into Sonoma County, where he once operated a bookstore on Healdsburg Plaza and helped build literacy programs for homeless and at-risk children, according to Oaklandside.

Pratum built a reputation as a Bay Area bibliophile and antiquarian bookseller over nearly 40 years in the trade. He produced more than 120 catalogs, operated multiple bookstores, dealt in rare manuscripts and scholarly works, and cultivated a specialty in hermetica and esoteric literature.

Long before the Oakland eviction threatened his inventory, Pratum ran a bookstore on Healdsburg Plaza during the late 1990s. That store connected him to a relationship that would shape much of his life outside the book business.

According to Pratum's memoir and later accounts of his literacy work, a customer introduced him to Kid Street Theater, a private school founded for homeless and disadvantaged children.

When the school received a donated historic 1912 school building in Santa Rosa, organizers needed volunteers to help move into the facility. Pratum signed up.

That decision launched a partnership with Kid Street founder Linda Conklin that lasted more than a decade.

The donated building contained something increasingly rare in modern schools: a fully equipped theater with red velvet seats, stage lighting, pulleys, color gels, and a professional sound system that had survived for generations.

Pratum later described the space as a hub for student performances, poetry readings, puppetry, and child-created productions. The theater became a centerpiece of the school's educational and literacy programs.

The connection fit naturally with work Pratum later expanded across the Bay Area.

In 2003, he established Pratum Literacy Services after volunteering with homeless students and discovering that many shelters and group homes contained few books, if any. He organized book giveaways, built lending libraries, distributed educational materials, hosted literacy events, and worked with children living in shelters, foster care, and transitional housing. Over the years, he partnered with schools, nonprofits, shelters, and educational agencies throughout the Bay Area, according to his own account.

His literacy efforts eventually delivered thousands of books to children and families. Pratum said he worked with homeless students, group homes, after-school programs, and family shelters, using book ownership as a strategy to improve reading skills and educational outcomes.

The Oakland eviction now places another part of that work at risk.

Pratum has previously described maintaining large personal and institutional collections, including a library of roughly 14,000 books that supported literacy programs and community activities. Funding for those efforts often came directly from book sales and catalog operations, according to a 2024 GoFundMe site.

Each of the 13,000 volumes in Pratum’s eclectic but highly specialized collection are on the market. He recently advertised the entire library on Craigslist for $50,000 — a fraction of its value, he said — despite estimating the collection is worth roughly $2.5 million, the Oaklandside reported.

Pratum, 69, is not choosing to sell the collection he spent decades building. The longtime bookseller is fighting an eviction from the Eastlake apartment he has called home for 20 years, a space that also serves as his personal library. Another 17,000 books remain in storage, the Oaklandside reported.

Although he is contesting the eviction, an unfavorable ruling could force him to leave within days — far too little time to relocate or individually sell thousands of rare and collectible volumes, according to The Oaklandside.

“I’m in a Sophie’s Choice kind of situation,” Pratum told an Oaklandside reporter earlier this month.

He said he is reluctant to unload his life's work in a single transaction, but the uncertainty surrounding the case leaves him little choice but to prepare for the possibility of a sudden move — even if it is one he cannot afford.