More than 33 years ago, Peter Ogura was working for a legal publisher in San Francisco, struggling to stay awake during what he describes as a boring job. In his spare time, Ogura dreamed of owning a bookstore. In 1992, he achieved that dream, opening Black Sun Books at the intersection of Hilyard Street and East 25th Avenue. 

After 33 years of being in business, Ogura sold Black Sun to Kel Weinhold, who renamed the store to Outliers Books and is working to turn it into a LGBTQ+ community space.

It all started for Ogura when he was driving down Hilyard Street, passing a “going out of business” sign outside a small shop. 

Ogura decided to stop his car and speak with the owner of the business, who put him in touch with the landlord. When the landlord heard about Ogura’s idea to open a bookstore, he jumped at the opportunity and leased a space to him. So, in February 1992, Black Sun Books transitioned from a dream to a reality. Ogura says the name, Black Sun, is meant to honor the 1979 novel Black Sun by natural history writer Edward Abbey.

“It started with actually building the bookcases,” Ogura says. He spent eight months nailing, sanding and polishing the dozens of bookshelves that lined the walls. In terms of building his book collection, Ogura says, “The kinds of books I carry have evolved over time and that’s a function of responding to the neighborhood.” 

While he was building the bookshelves, Ogura started searching for and buying books to build his collection. After three decades selling books, Ogura says he’d mostly lost track of just how many books he has. “I’m sure it’s over several thousand,” he says. “I did have a system at one time and it still exists.” 

The system he’s referring to is a stack of index cards, each with a book title and author. “After 33 years, it’s highly inaccurate, but for my purposes, it still works in that I use it to track new books that I will reorder,” Ogura says. 

“He has an absolutely encyclopedic knowledge of all of the books in here, of their lineage and of the author’s connection to another author,” Weinhold says. “Someone will walk in and he’ll go ‘Yes, I have that over here,’ it’s just phenomenal.” 

Weinhold says they met Ogura in October 2025 when they walked into the bookstore and told him that if he ever wanted to sell the bookstore, they’d happily purchase it from him. Around two weeks later, Weinhold got a call from Ogura about buying the store.

“To be honest, I wasn’t particularly confident that he would ever call me,” Weinhold says. The first time Weinhold inquired about buying the store, they say Ogura looked at them in what appeared to be disbelief. But after Ogura called them, Weinhold says they were excited and promised to continue conversations with him to ensure the transition went smoothly. Despite the transition being in the works for months, Weinhold says it still feels almost unbelievable. “I’m going to be responsible for a bookstore instead of just scanning it,” Weinhold reflects. 

Weinhold, a former journalism professor, former publisher of the Daily Emerald and one-time Eugene Weekly bookkeeper, says similarly to Ogura, they’ve always wanted to own a bookstore. “Maybe it’s just a background dream for a whole bunch of academics that they’re just gonna buy a bookstore someday,” they say. 

Weinhold says that with Outlier Books, they hope to create a space similar to the now-defunct feminist bookstore called Mother Kali’s. Mother Kali’s closed in 2007, after a labor dispute, mounting debts and the death of longtime manager Izzie Harbaugh in 1999. The name Outliers Books comes from a 2024 documentary Outliers and Outlaws, which follows the history of the tight-knit lesbian community that formed in Eugene between the 1960s and 1980s.

Weinhold says with their bookstore, they want to create a new third space for students, queer-identifying people and all others who wish to seek community through books. A space where people can go to relax, build community and socialize outside of home and the workplace. Libraries and coffee shops are examples of third spaces. 

“I am acutely aware that we don’t own anything anymore,” Weinhold says of the digital age. “Creating a space where people can come and have a thing and hold a thing absolutely seems really important in this moment where everything seems unreal.”

Weinhold says there will still be a lot of books, but they want to open up the space more for things like reading groups or other community events. “I wanted it to speak to the people whose voices are often shoved to the margins,” Weinhold says. 

They add that with the loss of an Asian-owned business, they want to be mindful of keeping some of the titles Ogura had to uplift Asian voices. 

Outliers Books opened April 7 and Ogura says despite Black Sun closing, his love for books will never fade. “I will probably continue to sell books online, but I have many other interests,” he says.

“I started off just wanting a neighborhood bookstore that people might enjoy, but it evolved over time, and it evolved to simply reflect where we are in Eugene,” Ogura says. “I’m very pleased with what we accomplished here.” 

Outliers Books, 2467 Hilyard Street, is open from noon to 6 pm Tuesdays through Saturdays. To learn more about Outliers Books, visit @OutliersBooksEug on Instagram.