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When I was in Portland, visiting Powell's was nice, and I've found a few others in random places. If you come to Jacksonville, after you leave the Ruby Tuesday's by the airport, be sure to check out Chamblin Bookmine. This store was a haven for me back in the 80's. My family moved school districts mid year, so I had the choice of changing schools or riding my bike ~5 miles to my old school to finish the year out. Chamblin was at about the halfway point on the ride home, so I would stop by some days and browse around. If you've ever gotten lost just exploring new subjects, you know what I mean. Art, physics, math, history, yada, yada, yada. Years later they moved to their current location which is basically warehouse/maze of books and subjects (the one on Roosevelt, downtown is nice, but not like walking the stacks). What do you have locally?
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Apr 2, 2023 05:00
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probably just this little used book shop in Claremont NH because they have a great trade-in/sell your books system, plus it's really well-organized/curated, and when I was looking for a copy of "Homicide - A Year on the Killing Streets" (if you have not read that you should make it a priority) they had it because it's one of the best true crime books ever written and they tend to make sure they've got the hits as well as other good choices in each genre I love a used book shop where the people running it don't forgo the critical hits to exclusively put up the stuff they enjoyed, if that makes sense.
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Apr 2, 2023 13:13
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Nothing very special where I live now, but for those in Seattle, Magus Books (used books) is a real treat. Took it for granted when I was there and miss it badly now that I've moved away.
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Apr 2, 2023 20:19
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the original renaissance books in milwaukee rocked, just hundreds of thousands of books in a increasingly-dilapidated building to get lost in
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Apr 2, 2023 20:32
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The only good thing about doing site visits around DC is the Second Story Books warehouse up in Bethesda, which is some whimsical fantasy novel rear end poo poo with bookshelves teetering overhead at 30 degree angles propped up by load-bearing Crime and Punishments taped into the superstructure but also has an extremely choice selection of every bizarre old book that has ever existed, at this point when I visit i pretty much pick a shelf at random and can expect to get an armload of good stuff out of it Honorable mention to Station North Books in Baltimore, which IIRC I last walked out of with an illustrated Ramayana from 1890, a treatise on cyber-theology, a really exhaustive how-to guide on chemical warfare, and a deer haunch the owner threw in for free. I really hosed up cooking that haunch but that one was on me.
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Apr 3, 2023 10:44
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Jabberwocky in Newburyport, MA. It’s a tourist town that no one can afford anymore, but it has a few old stores left, and Jabberwocky is my favorite. It also has a nice kids toy store next to it.
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Apr 3, 2023 13:39
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Not a lot down here in Adelaide, SA these days, unfortunately. The best place these days is probably QBD for most stuff and new releases. For any South Australians here though, there's a little bookstore in an arcade near the Adelaide train station. It's not in Google maps last I looked, but the owner has a whippet that goes to work with him, plus they have a good selection of old books - and a surprising selection of graphic novels, too.
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Apr 4, 2023 06:42
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Then there's Brahen Antikvariaatti and Alfa-Antikva for the old books, the former focusing on books, including actually old books, the latter focusing on records and pop culture meaning you can get absolute bargains. And a christian bookstore next to all the Kurdish barbershops down the street. I think the university bookstore closed when bougies got a majority in the student corporation board (why would two universities need a cheap and reliable source of course books and stationery nearby? How does my uncle profit from that? Anyway poor people shouldn't be able to study.) HTH e: Oh the best. Akateeminen. But Sammakon has the best loyalty card. 3D Megadoodoo fucked around with this message at 12:15 on May 12, 2023 |
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May 12, 2023 12:10
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Library book sales and I'm not joking, all the ones I went to are gone other than b and n
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May 12, 2023 12:41
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Tumble posted:probably just this little used book shop in Claremont NH because they have a great trade-in/sell your books system, plus it's really well-organized/curated, and when I was looking for a copy of "Homicide - A Year on the Killing Streets" (if you have not read that you should make it a priority) they had it because it's one of the best true crime books ever written and they tend to make sure they've got the hits as well as other good choices in each genre This sounds like a cool place. My parents live near Claremont, so I'll check it out the next time I"m there. One of my favorites is Penny's Bookshelf in Milford, CT. Like half the store is trashy romance novels (great if that's what you want), but the rest of the store has a good pile of SciFi and fiction. I managed to find most of the Aubrey-Maturin series the last time I was there.
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May 12, 2023 14:23
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silvergoose posted:Library book sales and I'm not joking, all the ones I went to are gone other than b and n
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May 12, 2023 23:22
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London has lots of bookstores, I guess. I imagine compared to like Akron OH or something at least. I don't have a single best but I do appreciate a good bookstore. But it's not easy for them to keep in business so a lot of them are not like the ideal cozy beautiful personable place you imagine when you imagine a city with a lot of bookstores in 2023. Like some of the coolest looking places are "rare" booksellers which basically mean procurers of collector objects for rich people, not random fuckers blowing in and looking around. There are nice little picturesque type shops in suburbs like Greenwich and Hampstead, but I know the central ones best. This is not exactly arcane knowledge, but it's where I am right now. • Foyles is a big flagship 6-story monster on Charing Cross Road, it's like a flashback to the days of random-rear end strip malls in like Stockton California having huge Borders stores, but the selection is better than that implies. While Charing Cross is a famous strip for bookshops, aside from Foyles, all but two of the cute little secondhand booksellers on that road are gone, replaced by the fashion shop that made pharell williams weird huge hats and cosmetics retailers and poo poo. Depressing. • But there's an alley just off Charing Cross Road, called Cecil Court, that has a load of tiny specialized sellers. Like a guy who only does first edition 20th century lit, another with every Rupert annual and lots of old kids stuff, another shop with a lot of artsy ziney stuff. The last time I went to that last one, Tenderbooks, I got: - a fat little book of illustrations of manmade beehives throughout history and - a tiny photo book packed in a real Shuangxi cigarette box, featuring 80s and 90s photos of multi-cigarette stunt smoking poses taken for Chinese weddings, like brides and grooms braiding 50 cigs together and puffing them, all of which were recovered from a dump outside Beijing? I think? Taken as a whole, that alleyway is a pretty cool "bookstore" with its 6 or 8 tiny bookshops, map shops, "rare" book shops which I find hard to parse as a random browser but it's cool they exist, and so on. • Also Daunt books is nice, beautiful inside but as a "travel bookshop" it's kinda specialized in how you can browse it. While I think geographically a lot, like setting is important to me when choosing what to read sometimes, it's not the only way I want to browse. But the building is so cool. • There's a nice comic/graphic novel store in Soho, Gosh. I poke around in there when something catches my eye but I have to assume it's a cooler experience for real graphic novel sickos and freaks. You know, with the really veiny eyes and the sweat drops down their foreheads.
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May 13, 2023 00:13
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:The only good thing about doing site visits around DC is the Second Story Books warehouse up in Bethesda, which is some whimsical fantasy novel rear end poo poo with bookshelves teetering overhead at 30 degree angles propped up by load-bearing Crime and Punishments taped into the superstructure but also has an extremely choice selection of every bizarre old book that has ever existed, at this point when I visit i pretty much pick a shelf at random and can expect to get an armload of good stuff out of it Sounds kinda like Wonder Book in Frederick which is also a haphazard mess with books stacked in the aisles.
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May 13, 2023 05:20
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The only bookstores left around my city are a Waterstones, which is a big chain store but admittedly better than most chain bookstores in that they still sell and seemingly care about books even if they do insist that an attached cafe is a necessary part of selling books There used to be more indie bookstores but they're all gone now, apart from one tiny little one which I went into and was disappointed to discover that they were just selling most book-themed merch and the books themselves were a tiny little shelf of some generic bestsellers and YA
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May 13, 2023 10:18
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Baldwin's Book Barn in West Chester, PA, enormous barn converted into a used bookshop that has four floors of shelves stuffed wall to wall with books of every conceivable subject. There was a section just for whales in one corner. They also have cats there and up front are a bunch of really rare and older books for sale in displays. Place rules massively.
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May 13, 2023 17:19
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Ottawa has a fair number of independent bookstores. My favorite is probably Perfect Books on Elgin. Not very big, but a great selection and solid staff suggestions. Just a good store. For used bookstores, the best is just outside of Ottawa in Stittsville. It’s called Re-Read Used Books. They have a wide selection, especially science fiction and fantasy, and are very reasonably priced. They also maintain an online inventory which most stores don’t seem to do. They also have a nice cat. Other than that, I like our library sales quite a bit, and actually the St Vincent de Paul charity shops have a ton of books and are very inexpensive (.50$ for pocket books up to 4$ for big art books).
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May 13, 2023 20:58
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I like library sales, but most of them take all the expensive books out for Amazon or Ebay. I think they should salt the shelves with a few of them to keep interest up.
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May 17, 2023 03:43
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Sir Mat of Dickie posted:Nothing very special where I live now, but for those in Seattle, Magus Books (used books) is a real treat. Took it for granted when I was there and miss it badly now that I've moved away. hell yeah, Magus opened a second location, it isn't as good as the first but love to see a used bookstore expanding the lady who owns Twice Sold Tales recognizes me by sight and says I sell her good books, but she also says she won't hire anyone under 30 because young folks are too lazy, so who knows how to interpret all that
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May 17, 2023 08:19
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The Book Barn in Niantic, CT, is our local treasure. They actually have three different stores spread throughout town, to accommodate all of their stuff. The main store is in an old barn and associated outbuildings, they have cats wandering around and goats you can pet, in addition to absolutely shitloads of affordable used books (they estimate their stock as something like 500,000 books). Their downtown store has a 10x10 room absolutely filled with old sf and fantasy paperbacks, I can spend so much time there just looking at covers. (not my photos)       if you're ever passing through ct on 95 and want to stretch your legs, this is a great place to do it! E: also really lucky to have RJ Julia a few towns over, which is a fantastic and long running independent book retailer in a really nice historic store. They host lots of events and also have a great online presence (https://www.rjjulia.com/).   they run the bookstore up at Wesleyan also which is really nice, if much more modern:   I guess I'm really lucky compared to a lot of people! Its sad how many places are devoid of bookstores other than borders/B&N/etc. free hubcaps fucked around with this message at 11:18 on May 18, 2023 |
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May 18, 2023 10:20
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Wesleyan has a small selection, but their kids area has one easily-watched entrance/exit, a feature I’ve come to appreciate in book stores.
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May 18, 2023 13:07
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Illiad is the place to go if you’re in Northern Los Angeles. The community recently rallied around it after an arson attempt. It has lots of everything, vaguely organized, and is a browser’s delight.
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May 18, 2023 16:31
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Golden Bee posted:Illiad is the place to go if you’re in Northern Los Angeles. The community recently rallied around it after an arson attempt. It has lots of everything, vaguely organized, and is a browser’s delight. i will be checking this out as i have not heard of it. thanks.
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May 21, 2023 06:24
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A Wizard of Goatse posted:The only good thing about doing site visits around DC is the Second Story Books warehouse up in Bethesda, which is some whimsical fantasy novel rear end poo poo with bookshelves teetering overhead at 30 degree angles propped up by load-bearing Crime and Punishments taped into the superstructure but also has an extremely choice selection of every bizarre old book that has ever existed, at this point when I visit i pretty much pick a shelf at random and can expect to get an armload of good stuff out of it As a Montgomery County resident, I should note that there are also a couple of great Friends of the Library used bookstores, one in the Wheaton library itself and one in Rockville. Wonder Book in Gaithersburg is a bit more of a trip out, but it's good as well.
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Jun 2, 2023 23:37
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jesus, that’s an actual thing?  I always thought TBB’s name was some nonsense just to get an alliterative name (like batman’s shameful secret or the creative convention) anyway the best bookstores in my area is Tronsmo in Oslo, an independent bookstore that has a wide selection of literature from all over, their own section for comics and graphic novels and a pretty solid nonfiction section as well, they even got a mention in some big American newspaper in a list of the world’s best bookstores. my second favourite, if you happen to be in Oslo, is a small second-hand store called Cappelens forslag. they have a lot of obscure, lesser-known cult classic-types of literature, a lot of beat poetry and old sci-fi etc. these guys got some attention in 2020 for driving around in hazmat suits delivering books on your door to stay afloat. I got a free coffee mug from them when I bought a copy of The Contortionist’s handbook 
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Jun 4, 2023 10:33
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I’m in the second largest city in Georgia and we only have one measly used bookstore (run by admittedly very cool people) and a 2nd and Charles. When I need my used bookstore fix I drive thirty minutes north to a podunk town in West Georgia that happens to have a kickass store (Blue Train in Hogansville). One thing I definitely miss about living in Yankeeland is that people actually read books up there (or at least buy them and pretend to).
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Jun 29, 2023 06:13
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are there any worth a drat anywhere in Florida? I will go on a road trip for a good one
Help a goon out! Lots of books - horror, nonfiction, classics and more for sale.
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Jul 5, 2023 21:59
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If you can travel back in time there used to be a great one in Boca.
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Jul 5, 2023 22:12
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