After serving as an iconic storefront on Moody Street for a decade, Back Pages Books closed abruptly on Tuesday as owner Alex Green pursues other projects.
“I had increasing opportunities to be part of the book world overall, including as a writer myself,” Green said in an interview. “It’s very hard to balance the time it takes to be a writer and running something as labor intensive as a bookstore.”
Green said the financial struggles of owning a brick-and-mortar, independent bookstore in the 21st century “was absolutely a component” of his decision.
“It’s a book store — you don’t go into these things to make a lot of money,” he said, noting that loyal customers helped Back Pages through some of its darkest days. “We had up years and down years. I definitely felt those pressures.”
Green said he was leasing his 289 Moody Street store month to month and is not sure what will become of the space. He has already sold the remaining inventory to another bookstore.
The closing comes 10 years after Green opened the Back Pages in 2005 at age 22, then one of the youngest owners of an independent bookstore in the country, he said.
“In these ten years, over 40,000 transactions took place at our counter,” Green said in an email. “Hundreds of thousands of books passed into the hands of readers here.”
In 2009, Green also started a small publishing business alongside Back Pages, putting out books such as Howard Zinn’s “The State of the Union: Notes on an Obama Administration.”
Back Pages was also known for its community talks, drawing speakers from local writers to nationally-known authors, poets, and journalists, among others.
“The magnitude of things we pulled off was really great,” Green said. “One of our events got 700 people in a high school auditorium. This was not for the wealthiest people in Boston or a group of politicians, but for regular people.”
In an email sent to customers, Green encouraged locals to visit other independent book shops — or to even start one of their own.
In the email, he said Back Pages Books was “a place away from home or work where people could escape from the world awhile and disappear into the universe of books. My great joy was being present to help people navigate that universe, and that is the distinct, beautiful, irreplaceable quality of bookstores.”
Jaclyn Reiss can be reached at jaclyn.reiss@globe.com.