I worked for Books-A-Million for several years, but now I’m more delighted by the dozens of independent bookstores we still have in my city… one of my favorites, Arcadian Books, is so cluttered with used books it feels like if you’re not careful, you might dislodge a load-bearing volume.
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First, and foremost, I miss Crown Books.
Ours was two doors from my place of work, and I spent many a lunch hour spending my paycheck there.
The lead employee (not a manager, but everyone trembled when she spoke), was referred to as “Worf”.
It was even on her nametag.
She would set aside new books in series that she knew that I was reading, and that she knew would sell out before I got there.
I adored her, and took cookies to her.
.
I cannot post in this thread without a huge shoutout for Nowhere Bookshop, in San Antonio, TX.
Owned by the brilliant author Jenny Lawson, a.k.a. The Bloggess, and her husband Victor.
I have never been to the actual brick and mortar, but I have been a member of The Fantastic Strangelings Book Club since it’s in December of 2019.
(OMG so many books!)
.
These are not affiliate links.
I get absolutely nothing, save for the joy of supporting a small business, if you click them.
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Stone Soup Books in Camden ME is worth the annoying tourist traffic.
Upstairs.
And into a place of non-Euclidean geometry crammed well beyond apparent structural tolerances and fire safety concerns with glorious books.
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We had one of those in the town I used to live in. We called it ‘the allergy store.’
Which didn’t stop us from going there.
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My favorite store in town is Black Hat Books. It’s very small, but the owner’s a character-and-a-half. The prices are reasonable. Also, presumably because the store’s on MLK Blvd., all the Black History/Literature/Art/Music is right there: lovingly displayed when you walk in, and not just pushed into a dusty corner by the fire exit.
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It’s sort of Hay-on-Wye’s thing. There are a lot of antiquarian bookstores especially.
They also used to have their own king.
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Oh, and these folks are still around after using up at least half their nine lives:
KITTIES!
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The Allergy Store? What a name!
I’ve been in NYC for over 25 years. I miss the Lincoln Center Barnes and Noble (though the Union Square one is still going and is really good), and the Borders that used to be in Penn Plaza (I used to work in the neighborhood, and spent a lot of lunch hours there). The Strand is still going, and I like Book Culture on 112th street, which is partially a bookstore for Columbia University students, but has a great remainder section as well. Also, I worked for 7 years at The Drama Book Shop, which is the main theatrical bookstore in town, and is still going. Lin-Manuel Miranda is part owner of the shop now.
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How’s he a character? His personality or how he presents himself?
Amen to that. I spent many an hour browsing through their stores and I still probably have a lot of books with one of their price stickers on it.
I miss the days when most malls would have at least a B.Dalton or a Waldenbooks and sometimes had both! The classier malls might have had a Brentano’s in the mix.
One beloved long, gone book – I hesitate to say “store” because it felt more like a book"home"
Chimera Books in Palo Alto, CA (on Kipling Street, no less). Every room in that house was filled with books. Bookcases, bookshelves, tables, upstairs, downstairs, everywhere you looked – books and more books. But it didn’t feel cluttered or junky like some used bookstores I’ve been in.
Here’s the same building, now worth a couple million, easy.
Old and gray, but fear not, some of us still remember you from back when you were cool.
Later on, another favorite bookstore in Palo Alto was the Borders store in the building that once housed the Varsity Theater (which was the kind of theater that had midnight Rocky Horror showings)
They had their coffee & snack bar in the lobby and there were tables out in the courtyard there where you could read, sip and snack the time away. Inside was two floors of merchandise.
Recycle Bookstore is a San Jose institution now in its 57th year! A lot of my book collection came from them.
They have the requisite stacks and stacks of books any good used bookshop should have –
and they have trained staff, ready to assist you.
That’s Emma. She’s one of the line of cats which have called the store home over the years. She was still there the last time I was in the store last year. But some one else was cuddling her. Please people, when you are in a used bookstore, don’t hog the kitty! Bookstore kitties are meant to be shared!
Emma is usually approachable and likes head skritches.
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One of those older artsy/beatnik/hippie/hepcat guys. 
If you pick up a book, he’ll have a story about someone connected to it.
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The Argosy Book Shop is probably my favorite movie bookstore. The interior was shot at Paramount and the street scene behind was on the east side of the 200 block of Powell Street in San Francisco. Macintosh at 222 Powell. A men’s clothing store.
Then
And Now
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B. Dalton, where you went to be intelligent.
Waldenbooks, where you went to save a bit of cash.
Brentano’s, where you went to be absolutely indulgent.
Yeah…
::::Waves in a northerly direction::::
Howdy, CA Neighbor.
I am in the cultural wasteland known as San Luis Obispo County, where they think “Literary” means someone who tosses their Taco Bell wrappers onto the street.
SLO proper raised the rent so high, that our version of Recycle was priced out of their home.
It was a freaking institution.
Surprising no-one, the building sat empty, for years.
Once again, I weep for humanity.
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If you want a bookstore you can actually get lost in, The Book Loft in Columbus is a fine choice. There are 32 rooms in a labyrinthine layout.
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The cut rate version being the first old guy from Stranded In Space ?
Hey!! I remember The Strand from when I lived near NYC long ago! I might still have a couple of their used books with their stickers on the inside…
I still have a heap of old auction catalogs from Barnes & Noble in NYC, as well. They’d just set them out in stacks near the front and you could grab 'em up for very little. Some were given away, or dismantled, or lost as the decades passed. But by no means all.
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