If you want my business, please carry something I can buy.
Since I’ve been in St. Louis, I’ve been hearing people tout Left Hand Books. OK, so I wandered in there. I had a trip coming up, and I wanted some reading for the airport, airplane, and evenings in the hotel. I was expecting something along the lines of the Tattered Cover in Denver, or at least Books & Co in Dayton - large stores with a wide, extensive and varied stock.
My mistake.
The store consists of two small rooms, in total smaller than the area of my apartment. Before I left so much in Ottawa, I owned more books (and very nearly more bookcases) than Left Hand Books had in either of those rooms. The science fiction and the mystery section consist of about four three-foot shelves, and half of those are hard-cover. The history section was almost entirely hard-cover. Sorry, hard-covers are neither in my budget nor convenient for throwing three or four of them in my bag on a trip.
Look, shitheads, there’s a reason that despite my griping about Borders and Barnes & Noble they continue to get money from me! They have books I want to buy and I can afford to buy!
On the bright side, the resident cat was a cool kitty.
I have no idea if the downtown one is better, I also just learned of its existence.
I’ve never really shopped at Left Bank but a friend I had who traveled on Metro buses and the Link down in the area of Euclid a lot told me he went there all the time and loved it. Boutique book stores are fun for browsing (see also: Subterranean on Delmar) but yeah they are not good for looking for travel paperbacks like you were looking for.
Unfortunately I do not really know of any good bookstores in the STL area. I’m broke so nowadays I request books I want from the library or hit up Barnes and Noble/Borders when I have money. Or plan ahead and use Amazon or similar.
Well, I didn’t realize it was a boutique. From the way people talk about it, I was expecting a huge variety of books. Perhaps I should be ranting at them, “What the fuck are you talking about?”
It’s really a shame when a city the size of Denver and much larger than Dayton has as its primary independent book store one that sucks.
Yeah, they kinda suck, unless you’re looking for the very narrow niche books they cater to. I’ve got a friend who claims their staff is rather rude, too.
Your best bet is to find one of the chain stores with a big selection and with a staff that are avid readers. The Borders at 40/64 and Brentwood (near Whole Foods) is pretty good.
Well, they weren’t totally polite, but I was fairly disgusted too. I bought out their Richard Stark, since I didn’t expect to find any other bookstore on the trip. (Wrong, as it happened.) And, as I mentioned, I really liked their cat.
I’ll try there. I go to that Whole Foods once in a while.
Frank did they rave about how much they loved the store, or how big the selection is? In my experience, people who love Left Bank do so because they can get titles other stores don’t carry – not because there’s a huge selection.
St. Louisans also rave about Straub’s. Great meat and produce, fantastic bakery, blah blah blah. If you ever shop there, you’ll discover the actual stores are tiny and don’t have much in the way of staples, canned goods or variety. Just like Left Bank, there’s a fanatically loyal group of customers, but definitely a niche market.
Well, when all you’ve got is Dierberg’s and Schnuck’s to compare to, I understand that, and so your comparison makes sense to me.
Have I mentioned that St. Louis, in general, sucks? Have I mentioned that St. Louis, in particular, sucks?
The grocery stores are horrible. The book stores are horrible. The weather is horrible. The zoo is pretty good. The museums are horrible. The “wine country” is horrible.
I can’t wait until I’m vested in my 401-k and can blow this dive.
There’s a real good used bookstore on Grand just down from Arsenal. Don’t remember the name, but it’s around the corner from my brother-in-law’s house, so I’ve been there a couple times.
Aww, I miss Left Bank, but I agree that it’s probably not the best place to go if you want a huge selection, or if you’re looking for something specific. If you just want to poke around a few shelves of used books in hopes of getting lucky, it’s nice.
