Ah, used bookstores. Say what you will of Borders and Barnes and Noble, but before they arrive on the west coast, we were stuck with B. Daltons and Waldenbooks. Used bookstores were a haven and a saviour for me. They still get more than 50% of the money I spend on books; I’ve used started looking for more expensive books at these stores
Los Angeles, which does, surprisingly have used bookstores, and we haven’t lost many of them. They tend to live in sort of non-descript areas, and are easy to overlook. Mailorder place, mailorder place, mufflers and smog check, bookstore, thai resturant, repeat. Those tend to be small, say 30x30 feet, unairconditioned, 90~100 degrees in the summer, with narrow aisles between the overflowing shelves. Also, they tend to be loaded with great finds.
In the LA area, the mecca of used book stores is “Acres of books”, in Long Beach. The back room used to be a dance hall, and is at least 300x200 feet. The fire department would not allow them to install new electrical wiring (or so the story goes), so the back room is dependent on sky lights. On overcast days, they give you flashlights.
My wife and I were in what I suppose is the downtown of Glendale a few months ago and found 3 bookstores with in two blocks of each other, all of them with those unbelievable tantalizing words on the front “Used. Rare. Out of print”. Thankfully, she is an extremely patient and tolerant woman…
Hey, Snowbound! I practically kept that place in business when I was in high school! I hear they’re opening a second location somewhere in Marquette as well.
And yes, Marquette has a lot of SciFi fans. Nothin’ else to do during those long winters but pretend you’re on another planet.
I just found another one this afternoon, right across from the entrance to the University of Rhode Island. Small place … didn’t buy anything but smelled a lot of literature. There’s a real small place here in Warwick called Fortunate Finds which is great to scrounge around in. I also like Mike’s Cellar Stories in Providence; the only gripe I have about it is that it’s too clean!
There’s a metric TON of them in Boston… you can’t go a block without finding one or two, including the Brattle Book Shop (which I believe bills itself as the oldest used bookstore in the US) and the Avenue d’Victor Hugo on Newbury Street.
Further on up in New Hampshire … does anyone know if Walter Robinson’s Book Barn outside of Jaffrey is still in business?
I’m with Eve, and all you others who love used book stores! Too bad there aren’t all that many in Greater Vancouver.
There was a piece in the NY Times about used books as the biggest Internet-commerce success story, discussed on slashdot.org today:
There’s some talk about how it hurts the small mom-and-pop stores, and a few posts about the smell of old books and the chance to stumble over treasures. The best use of Internet book-buying is finding a book you already want; bookstores are for finding great books you never heard of!
But not as many as there used to be. Not by a long shot. You’ve named the two Premier ones in Boston (and it’s the Avenue Victor Hugo bookstore - let’s not put on airs). Name a third one there.
My home away from home while I was in college in the 80s wasThe bookshelf here in Ogden, Utah. It has since moved INTO A BIGGER BUILDING happily ! This store is the ONLY saving grace for downtown Ogden. I still spend a lot of time there hunting out treasures from the shelves. And just shooting the bull with the people there.
Equally wonderful is Sam Wellers Bookstore in Salt Lake City. They do used book searchs and will ship to your front door. I worship these people. They have found all sorts of things for me that are very out of date! I can spend hours in their basement, which is bigger than my house, and come out of there with an armload, sore feet and an empty wallet:D
I’m not falling for that, Eve. I remember you’ve posted that you give away books. I, on the other hand, still own every book I’ve bought in the last three decades.
As for fine used bookstores, my childhood favorite is the Corner Book Store in Plattsburgh, NY. It’s been in business for twenty five years now and fills three floors of a building (and recently opened a record and video annex across the street).
I loved Sam Weller’s when I lived in SLC. Glad to hear it’s still there. (I understand that Cosmic Aeroplane went several years ago. Too bad – it was my favorite.)
Correction – my mind was fogged. It was The Black Cat in Salem, not The Black Dog.
Among still-active bookshops, I’d recommend The Book Farm in Henniker, N.H. I’m amazed at what I’ve found there.
Another vote for that NYC treasure, the Strand. It manages to be a small bookstore in a huge space. No cats, but lots of local characters. I once had an incredibly interesting conversation with a total stranger about translating musicals into other languages (my second home, Footlight Records, is right down the street). I checked for a book every time I went in there for two and a half years, and finally found a copy (Julian Lloyd Webber’s Travels with my Cello). I’ve since found two more copies, which I’ve given to delighted people.
In Bergenfield, New Jersey, there’s a lot place known as “the bookstore right next to the movie theatre.” Also called The Book Stop, complete with cat. They once got a complete set of Time Magazines from 1943 on.
Man, this bites. None of the used book stores in my area have that atmosphere you guys are talking about. They all look alike…grimy check-out area in the middle, shelves and crates packed with broken-spined paperbacks, owners who still wear polyester suits from the 70s, and not a single white-haired pipe-smoking scholar in sight. No animals with cool names either.
The great thing aboiut Bibliofind and ABE and all is that you’re freed from the onus of remembering every book you’ve ever wanted when you enter a new bookshop.
But for finding an unexpected treasure (and by “treasure,” I mean a book you want to read, not a autographed first-edition MOBY-DICK or something), nothing beats a leisurely browse.
Couple of weeks ago I picked up a collected works of John Reed and a biography of Djuna Barnes at the remainder shop on Downing Street just south of Bleecker in Greenwich Village…if you had told me before I walked in that I would WANT to read a bio of Barnes, I would have looked skeptical. But not only was it great, and cost me three bucks, but I’ve gone back now to read her 1936 novel Nightwood, which I started in college and never finished, and I’m finding it every bit as absorbing as T.S. Eliot always said it was. Some things make more sense at forty than at twenty.
True, Ike . . . I chanced across that dusty 1860s copy of Douglas Jerrold’s Mrs. Caudle’s Curtain Lectures at Cranky Old Man’s this weekend, and I had never even heard of Jerrold previously. It is proving to be a delight, by the way—I’ve been reading two or three “lectures” each night before bed.
The only trick I will try on bookfinder is to type a keyword like “flapper” or “etiquette” or an author, and do a search; I have come up with some unexpected treasures that way. But give me the actual bookstore any day . . .
I’m still exploring Columbus, Ohio (and if you know other good used bookstores there I’d love to hear about them) but my favorite so far is the Village Bookshop. At least, I think that’s the name. The building used to be a church, complete with white steeple. Alas, no cat, but lots of cool used and remaindered books, sometimes fairly far from the beaten path.
We used to have 5 or 6 fairly good used book stores here, but are down to only 2. There is an enormous one 40 minutes away, though, that we make a trip to every couple months. I collect old true-life adventure books, cookbooks (the odder the better - think lileks here) and mysteries, and always come out with an armload for about $20.
The public library has 2 used book sales a year - one’s this week actually, and that is another big adventure!
I adore used bookstores. There are three good ones near my parents’ home, and Mom and I make the circuit almost every time we visit. No better way to spend an afternoon!
I have just the place in San Leandro, Ca. It’s called Grey Wolf. The owner looks like he’d be right at home in an easy chair with the cat on his lap and a pipe hanging from his lips. I’ve seen a cat around the place, but am not really sure if it belongs to them. It’s a warehouse, and I spend easily $ 30 a month there (about 15-20 books), with a huge Sci-Fi section and tons of just about everything.
** Frog Town Books ** on N. reynolds road, near Bancroft, it’s in the same shopping center as ** Mind Games** Needless to say, I stop.
the other is my favorite. ** Freedley’s ** off Monroe St. near Douglas. It moved into a big old renovated house.(It used to be on Bancroft around the corner from above store.I havn’t seen **Jordan the Cat ** the last few times I’ve been in though. Maybe the move was too much.
Where else but a used store can you get all 4 Harry Potter books for under 20 bucks? Hardcover even?
There’s a wonderful new-and-used bookstore in downtown Toronto that sells only science fiction, fantasy, and horror. It’s called Bakka. Look it up if you’re ever in town. Also First Editions and Eliot’s Bookshop.
While I was in Ames, Iowa, I visited Firehouse Books and Big Table Books. Found a new, Illustrated copy of A Child’s Christmas in Wales ($5.00) and a used Norton Anthology of English Literature ($6.00).
I love bookstores. I love books.
If any of you are in or near Pheonix Arizona there is a wondrous place called CHANGING HANDS bookstore on McKlintock and Guadalupe. Its the oldest and best independant book store in Arizona.
Now if you are on the EAST COAST , and live around Connecticut, travel to the southeast into a little coastal town named Niantic, and visit the best book nook I have ever layed eyes on. It is called THE BOOK BARN it is actually several buildings on this mans property that are filled with used books. There are cats, everywhere, and a resident dog or two. I have taken my family there many times, and spent an afternoon. It is an amazing insightful experience, worth a trip to SE CT…
Heaven for me was the summer of 1985, when I spent two months living in Quincy House (in Mather Hall, the old part). Two blocks or less to Starr Books (in the back of the Lampoon castle), McIntyre and Moore, the Grolier Poetry Book Shop, Harvard Book Store, Pangloss (o.k., a long two blocks, but still) – with a bunch more just slightly further afield. I see from this article that Pangloss is gone, Starr is probably gone by now, and McIntyre and Moore have moved to Somerville. Between the bookstores and having access to the stacks at Widener (with my own carrel to squirrel stuff away in) I couldn’t have been more in my element. It’s been all downhill from there, in some ways.
I should put in a good word for the Dickson Street Book Shop in Fayetteville, Arkansas, which (along with Record Exchange next door) kept me sane through most of my high school years. It compares favorably with used book stores in a lot of larger cities, particularly when you consider that the number of people with worthwhile stuff to get rid of is a lot lower in Fayetteville than in Boston.
Around here (Atlanta) I haven’t found a used book store worth raving about since the demise of Oxford Too. Wimsey’s in downtown Tucker, near where I live, is definitely of the genre, but it just doesn’t quite have the breadth of selection of the best stores. Atlanta Book Exchange, on Highland at Virginia, is probably the best Atlanta has to offer, though I’m ashamed to admit that I haven’t been there in years now. Must do that soon. It definitely has the atmosphere – location in an old house, books piled everywhere – though I don’t recall whether they have cats or not.