Court Street Bookstores – Brooklyn, New York

I like it when Leslie travels, I like it more when I’m with her, but regardless of who she’s with, she finds bookstores.   Her daughters, who receive new books, and I, who learn about great stops, are direct beneficiaries of her adventures. Here’s a sampling of the bookstores she recently in Brooklyn (Book Court, Community Bookstore and Pranga Bookstore):

I LOVE Brooklyn.  During our latest trip, we spent much time discovering, yet again, a new Brooklyn. The borough dates back to the 1600’s when the Dutch settled it.  The population exploded in the 1880’s when the Brooklyn Bridge was completed. It’s gone through it’s ups and downs over the last hundred years, but in the last two decades most areas of Brooklyn have undergone major changes.  Brooklyn is “hot” again and just gorgeous. (By the way, the nickname for Brooklyn is “The City of Churches”. There are magnificent churches, of every denomination throughout the borough with stunning architecture and appointments including Tiffany windows).

One of my favorite neighborhoods is Cobble Hill.  It’s a neighborhood where there are scores of unique, reasonably priced, privately owned shops all within walking distance of each other.  Court Street runs the length of Cobble Hill and hosts three bookstores within a mile of each other.  Each is quite different. Nestled in between the book stores are other wonderful retail stores and restaurants or storefronts where one can get Brooklyn egg creams, Italian ices, fabulous pastries, Brooklyn style pizza, frozen hot chocolate  - which is just heavenly – Italian hoagie sandwiches, just baked bread and other gourmet goodies! Reading and eating are my two favorite past times, especially since you can do them concurrently.

Book Court

Book Court is the bright community oriented bookstore that every area needs to be a true neighborhood.  It has a terrific selection of staff picks, along with well chosen fiction, non-fiction and books about Brooklyn and other local sites. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, one of my bigger challenges is finding age appropriate books for my pre-teen girls. I’m a fan of any bookstore that can point me to books for them that are new to me.  Three cheers for Book Court, they suggested new reads for both of my around-the-clock reading daughters.

Luckily for the Court Street neighborhood, Book Court is expanding its role as a community anchor by expanding the store.  A plan is in the works to expand the store to allow for more books, a cafe and an event room.   I look forward to visiting it again when the expansion is completed, or if I’m lucky, even sooner.

Book Court

163 Court Street

Brooklyn, New York 11231

Tel.:  (718) 875-3677

Truly, books everywhere

Community Bookstore

Community Bookstore is truly the most unique bookstore I’ve ever seen. It is a large store by indie standards and offers just about any book, new or used, that you could possibly want. Best sellers and current fiction are available at fairly substantial discounts. This is the place to find literary treasure.   It is truly disorganized. Books are everywhere – scattered among overflowing bookshelves, stacked on the floor in the middle of the aisle and stacked on tables. I’m sure there was a method at one point, but there no longer seems to be a rhyme or reason to how things are arranged. Unfortunately, I did not meet the owner (he may know exactly where everything is), but I did browse around and found some very interesting finds at bargain basement prices. There probably are, among the stacks, some real gems waiting to be uncovered. Digging through the books in this store is worth it if you have the time. The store has a loyal following – it was busy both during the day and in the evening.

The owner, rumor has it, owns the building and doesn’t need to keep the store open all year round. In fact, it is closing this week for the rest of the summer and will not reopen until the owner returns from vacation sometime at the end of August, or beginning of September or ___?

Community Bookstore

212 Court Street

Brooklyn, New York 11231

Tel:  (718) 834-9494

Pranga Bookstore

Have you ever walked into a quiet bookstore with classical music playing and evoking a wonderful aura? That’s Pranga Bookstore. It’s in the garden apartment and first floor of an old brownstone. It’s light, airy and has a small, but lovely selection of books. Children’s books and used books are on the upper level. The bottom level, where I spent most of my time, is dedicated to a lovely selection of current fiction, and non-fiction, but also the nicest choices I saw during my trip of local interest books. There were numerous unique books on both Brooklyn and New York City.

Pranga Bookstore

354 Court Street

Brooklyn New York 11231