The best finds in used books stores thread inspires me to ask, which are your favorite used book stores? This might be valuable for local Dopers.
My favorites:
In San Jose, CA, The Recycled Bookstore on the Alameda. Very clean, lots of good stuff, but they just raised their prices a bit.
In Cranbury, New Jersey, try the Cranbury Book Worm (it’s been about 7 years since I’ve been.) This is an old house just filled with books. Cranbury is not far from Princeton, just past Grovers’ Mill where the Martians landed.
In Lexington, Kentucky, the best used bookstore is The Thrifty Bookworm, which is on Leestown Road near New Circle. I think it sells only popular fiction, with good prices on a big selection of paperbacks, usually just three dollars or less.
All five are within about a 2 block radius, so it’s not like visiting one over the other is really going out of your way. But really, if it’s in Peterborough, nothing is really out of your way… Ahhh! I’ll never escape this blackhole of a smalltown!
cough
For sf/f/horror, The Knotanew Bookstore on Charlotte, has a really high turnover in good stuff,
the Lady who works evenings and weekends is great conversation, and they have cats.
For anything else, the other 4 are bound to have it and they’re all cheek by jowl on George.
In Toronto all the good ones are within walking distance, mostly on Yonge, from the Eaton Centre.
Back when I passed through Boston on a regular basis, I used to haunt Avenue Victor Hugo Books on Newbury St. It’s the best used book store I’ve ever been to, but I haven’t been there for years. I heard recently that they were going out of business. Luckily, it turns out they’re just moving down the street to a new building. http://www.avenuevictorhugobooks.com The second-best used bookstore I know is in Duluth, Minnesota, of all places. I don’t remember the name of the place.
In Chicago, somewhere down Clark Street, is the Aspidistra Bookstore. It is marvelous, if you’re like me and you love rummaging – if you’re the anal, everything-must-be-alphabetized-or-at-the-very-least-categorized type, skip it.
Powell’s City of Books in Portland, Oregon. They used to brag about having a million volumes (not including technical books, they have a seperate store for them), and they’ve expanded since then. And it’s organized. If it’s your first visit there you should pick up a map of the store to find your way around.
I have been to other bookstores in other cities, nothing even comes close to that place.
I’m mad for Dutton’s in North Hollywood, CA. They have another branch or two in the greater Los Angeles area, I think, but I’ve never been anywhere but the one on Magnolia & Laurel.
Well, this might be biased since I was an employee here for a summer, but Budget Books on Adams Ave in San Diego, CA is an amazing used bookstore (whose owner has a specialty in vintage sex books, although every major genre is carried).
Another shout for Powell’s in Portland. (That’s Oregon, not Maine. The two town founders flipped a coin to name the western city, each had chosen the name of their New England home town. We could have ended up with a Boston, Oregon had it gone the other way.)
Have been traveling the 90 miles from Chez Hometownboy for decades now. in addition to being frigging HUGE, they have a coffee shop in the organic style that predates all the Starbucks in the Borders stores, and they started with one store and kept buying the building next door and chopping through the wall to the new space. Now it’s a whole city block with amazing stuff. There’s a big concrete pillar in the science fiction section that every SF author who comes through signs with a Sharpie, and the staff make little handwritten tags that hang from the bookshelves that shamelessly plug their favorite books.
One of my goals in life, if I ever hit the lottery, is to walk through the store followed by a crew of flunkies pushing Costco-sizes shopping carts into which I toss any book that even faintly catches my interest. The flunkies will be kept busy hauling carts back and forth to the semi that waits at the curb…
Here in Texas, it’s Half Priced Books. They’ve got a great selection, especially in the photography department. For some reason, most used bookstores I’ve been to have very few photography books, so it’s really nice to see a place with a large selection.
Plus, tons of DVDs, CDs, movies, and of course, books books books. I’m a little skeptical of their “Buy” polocies, but eh, nothing I’ve given them was worth more than $.50 to me, so it’s all good.
Half-Price Books, based out of Dallas and found in much of Texas, is my all-time favorite–especially their flagship store on Northwest Highway. When I lived in Dallas (and environs), I’d dedicated entire weekends to browsing and shopping there. In fact, when I travel back to Dallas to visit family (once a year or so), I always stop by there first, even before the folks!
I’ve also been to Powell’s City of Books in Portland and liked it; however, they mix “expensiver” books with the cheaper used ones, which I didn’t like so much. Great bookstore, but I prefer the Half-Price model.
Larry McMurtry’s store, Booked Up in Archer City, Texas, is a must-stop for anyone travelling in the Greater Witchita Falls Area.
And last, I’ve got to recommend my former second employer back in the old grad school days, Front Street Books in Alpine and Marathon, Texas. You won’t find a better new/used bookstore in a very small town anywhere!
And while we’re on the subject:
Does anyone here know of any good used bookstores in the Norfolk-VA Beach-Chesapeake area? We’ve been looking for the past six months we’ve lived here and keep coming up dry. Help!
All of my favorite Used Book Shops seem to be closing. The one in Melrose, Mass just closed down this month! Most of the ones I used to go to in Cambridge and Salem have long since gone. The Avenue Victor Hugo in Back Bay Boston closed only a couple of months ago (sniff!)
One of the few remaining in Boston is the legendary Brattle Book Shop. The original home burned down about 25 years ago, but it moved next door, and is still going strong.
Web Head Enterprises in Wakefield, MA is still selling used sf.
!! I’m amazed anyone else here knows about the Book Worm. Pepper Mill is from Grover’s Mill, and we’ve been to the Cranbury Book Worm many times. If you like that sort of “house-crammed-full-of-books” used bookshop, there are still a lot of them buried away in the hills and valleys of New England. But you gotta look. They hand out a directory, I think to the New Hampshire ones at the rest stops on I-93.
The Strand in NYC is legendary, as noted, but I’ve only been there a couple of times.
If it’s still there, Sam Weller’s in Salt Lake City has a pretty awesome used bookshop in its lower level. I think I’ve heard it referred to recently on the SDMB. Sadly, the Cosmic Aeroplane is long since gone. SLC had some other good used bookshops, but I think most of the ones I knew are gone.
The last time I lookled, Fat Cat Books was still selling used sf in Binghamton, NY.
Once again Cal I must agree with you. Salem does hold some wondrous used book stores. And with the passing of several iconic book stores in salem, my interests have moved more southerly.
I like The Book Barn in Niantic Connecticut.
Changing Hands in Tempe Arizona.
Basucally, if hey have a dynamic enough philosophy or cosmology section, and plenty of musty smelling nooks, I’m fine.
I resently found a library bound first edition Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, that tickled my bibliomanic tendencies.
I grew up in Cleveland and used to go to Kay’s, on Prospect Avenue, all the time during the 1970s. It was supposed to be the largest used bookshop between New York and Chicago. I think they managed to stay in business so long due to the large porn section on the second floor. Now sadly gone, and the horrible old hag Missus Kay dead a few years back.
In NYC I like The Strand, of course, as everyone else has mentioned, but am also very fond of Mercer Books, on Mercer Street in the Village between Bleecker and Houston. A much smaller store, but I always find great stuff there. Bonus points for having the guts to open up two new venues, Heights Books on Montague Street (music in the cafes at night, and revolution everywhere!) in Brooklyn Heights, and Park Slope Books on Seventh Avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
On Down East vacations, I always spend a couple of hours at least in The Big Chicken Barn, just off Route One, about halfway between Bucksport and Ellsworth, Maine. It’s a huge old farm building that’s been turned over to housing an enormous selection of used books and a comprehensive collection of old magazines of every kind.
Logos in Santa Cruz, CA. Thank god I don’t live there anymore. I used to have to walk past it everyday on my way to the bus stop. I believe that I single-handedly put the owner’s daughter through graduate school.
Kayo Books in San Francisco is the only bookstore I know of devoted (almost) entirely to the flashiest used paperbacks of the 40s and 50s. Look at their categories:
It’s an incredible place to wander around, browse, and then leave with bags full of stuff.
Not anymore, I’m afraid. Aspidistra closed a couple of years ago.
Powell’s on Lincoln Ave. Is my favorite. Huge, with both used and remaindered books, and a separate room devoted to valuable collectible books. I can spend all afternoon there.
