The Midnight Special Bookstore was an independent bookstore in southern California. It catered to a leftist clientele.^[3][4] Its merchandise and events emphasized current events such as the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War,^[5] the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,^[6] the Chinese democracy movement^[7] and U.S. intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq.^[8]

Founded in 1970 as a co-op in Venice,^[3] the shop "was run predominantly by volunteers" until around 1985.^[5]

In 1980^[5] it moved from Venice to 1350 Third Street ^[9] (also known as 1350 Santa Monica Mall^[10]) in Santa Monica, then in 1992^[5] moved again to 1318 Third Street Promenade.^[11][12] For more than ten years, the mall's landlord charged the shop less rent than other tenants were paying,^[13] but with a change in management and success in attracting upscale tenants, the mall operator asked for an increase that would "more than double"^[2] the rent. For this reason, the bookstore moved out of its Third Street location in March 2003.^[4] Its stock was kept in storage for eight months. In November 2003,^[8][14][15] the store reopened at 1450 Second Street^[16][17][18] in Santa Monica, then finally closed around June 2, 2004.^[1] Its owner cited weak sales and continuing financial difficulties as the reason for closing:

Unfortunately, the delay was too great and our debts grew with the delays. Only local outlets of major chains can afford the losses that come with opening stores; even though our sales were steadily growing, it was not fast enough to keep us going until we could sustain ourselves.^[1]

Authors who appeared at the shop:

• Cecilia Brainard^[19]
• Octavia Butler^[5]
• bell hooks^[5]
• Paulo Coelho^[5]
• Slavoj Žižek^[5]
• Eduardo Galeano^[5]
• Viggo Mortensen^[5][20][21]
• Dave Eggers^[5]
• Elaine Brown^[5]
• Lalo Alcaraz^[5]
• Walter Mosley^[5]
• Trinh Minh-ha^[5]
• Edward Said^[5]
• Junko Mizuno^[5]
• Margaret Randall^[5]
• Maya Angelou^[5]
• Tariq Ali^[5]
• Michael Ventura^[22]
• Paul Krassner^[4]
• Tavis Smiley^[23]
• consumer advocate David Horowitz^[24]
• Bernadette Devlin

Among other people who made appearances at the shop were filmmakers Robert Greenwald^[22] and Oliver Stone,^[5] actor David Warshofsky,^[22] Elaine Brown of the Black Panther Party, UCLA professor Khaled Abou El Fadl; and musicians Dave Marsh, Jello Biafra, Frank Zappa^[5] and Ray Manzarek.^[25]