I love to read, but sometimes it’s a drag going to the big bookstores. I love the quaint feel of smaller local store so much more. I live in Raleigh, NC and we have some incredible stores. You get a lot more help and personal attention I feel. Also, in smaller stores, they tend to have rare and older used books which on their own have charm and a cheaper price

Here are a few of my reviews on some in my area.

Dancing Moon is a really sweet store. What’s great about this store is that they also have a great audio and video selection. Its a pretty cool store because they also offer spiritual healing and massage by appointment. They have rooms for rent for book clubs and classroom type environment. It has an amazing vibe and excellent selection.

My second recommendation is Quail Ridge Books and Music. Again, it’s an amazing store but what’s different about this store is that they also host events and bring in different authors, artists, and speakers. This is great if you want that small town feel of sitting at a warm bookstore and hearing your favorite author speak. Not to mention that on occasion they have wine tasting. LOVE IT!

Now, if your looking for textbooks I have the place for you. It can get super expensive if you go to a bigger chain and most of them don’t have exactly what you need.  So for this I will recommend two of them. First is Edward Mckay Used Books with four locations in North Carolina. They have a huge selection of text books and the prices are more then reasonable.  Another great store for textbooks is Hillsborough Street Textbooks. Great store and they have extended fall semester hours and are very helpful.

Alexis Bonari is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She is currently a resident blogger at First in Education, researching areas of online education. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.

We all piled into Leslie’s mini-van and stormed Coalesce Books.  This store is vintage coastal California.  The entire aura was a warm golden brown, there were books everywhere, the strong aroma of incense, colorful signs wherever my eye wandered, and a community bulletin board that advertised all types of events including the evening on sustainable living that the store hosted the night before.  Coalesce Books is a combination new and used bookstore.  The new books are on shelves in the front, but the strength is in the wide selection of used books.  It is one of the best organized used bookstores I’ve come across in a long time.  Often I enjoy wandering around a bookstore looking to see what I may stumble upon, but this time we were a party of six, too large for long term browsing.  At Coalesce, there was a sub-division for almost every genre making meandering easy, even a ”pirate” literature shelf, which I guess is 1990s for “vampire” literature.  I asked one of the employees if the store kept any Twilight books in stock, she laughed, they can hardly get them in let alone keep them.  I know my daughter isn’t willing to part with her well worn set any time soon.

The atmosphere is friendly, I joined a conversation about the appropriate age to read Ayn Rand.  As I’ve mentioned before, for a work of serious literature over 500 pages to be worth my time, it’s star has to shine for quite awhile.  Last summer, I read Bleak House. I won’t be reading 2666 any time soon.  Ayn Rand’s works aren’t Dickens, but their consistent critical acclaim passes this test.  That being said, I have heard over and over that if I didn’t read Any Rand in college, I’m too old.  The time frame for her books is newly post-adolescent.  I stood with two strangers discussing the merits of trying to tackle The Fountainhead.  One woman finally picked it up, felt its heft and agreed, we’re too old to read it.  Another example of what I love about bookstores, the ability to have fun conversations.  When was the last time you asked the patrons in the local diner their thoughts on Ayn Rand?

When you drop by, leave time to meander up and down Main Street, it’s full of cafes, cute stores and art galleries.  Behind Coalesce Books is a garden and chapel built years ago as a Cal Poly student project.  We arrived during a farmer’s market full of crafts and food–free produce samples and a sweet bookstore, what could be better?

Coalesce Books

845 Main St.

Morro Bay, CA 93442

T:  805.772.2880

Teri, the owner, changed the configuration of the store from the Book Barn days.  Rather than the shelves standing flush against the wall, they’re perpendicular, giving her room to add a cute little cafe corner in the back.  I visited The Book Barn several times and never knew there was a second floor.  Dudley’s opened up the top floor and it is a huge lounging and event space.  The comfy couches and rocking chairs are perfect for spending the day reading with other bibliophiles.

In just a short time, Dudley’s is as much a community center as a used bookstore.  The white board event calendar on the back wall is packed.  In addition to author appearances, there are weekly groups (employment transition, Spanish and knitting) along with monthly book groups and jam sessions.  The Celtic band plays regularly along with other local musicians.  The pictures on the website testify to a full blues and folk band that had the audience up and dancing.

When I talked to Teri, she said “I have a terrific landlord!”  Something I’ve never heard a bookseller mention, in fact it’s usually the opposite.  When she was looking for a place to open a used bookstore, the landlord offered her rent at less than half the cost of the other locations.  When the economy hit the skids, he voluntarily reduced the rent by 10% and said Teri could call him if she had any questions.  Her response, a million thank yous.  That’s a landlord that’s committed to the community and providing a place for them to gather and exchange ideas.  Which is exactly what Teri does.

Dudley’s Bookshop Cafe

135 NW Minnesota Ave.

Bend, OR 97701

T:  541.749.2010

Bedfellows exuded a welcoming calm from the moment I entered.  I flew in to see the store before the concert started, but immediately relaxed in the presence of one of the owners, Christine Bell, and the quiet atmosphere.  Keith went in search of a book from the American Guide Series to add to our collection and found a copy of the first in the series, Washington, D.C. (we think it’s the revised edition after the “story” that Pres. Roosevelt read the first one and said he liked it, but it was too long).  I was looking for an edition of short stories by Alice Munro (on the recommendation of Megan, one of our readers) but got stuck at Maugham and ended up with two books of essays.

The books are in beautiful shape and, as a result, the store is a pleasure to wander around.  Bookfellows carries both new and used although proportionately there are more used books.  Christine mentioned that their new book stock increases and decreases in response to the health of the big box sellers around them.  Years ago when Crown Books moved to the neighborhood, they found sales of new books decreased so they concentrated more on used books.  With Crown gone, new books sales increased and they responded.  They found the same dance occurred with arrival of other big box stores.  Currently, new book sales are strong.  Next to the cash register was a shelf of new paperback books containing several Murakami titles.  These were books that the store just can’t get enough used, so they stock new copies and highlight them.  I’ve been hearing that Murakami books are flying off the shelves in several bookstores; the kids gave me two Murakami books for Mother’s Day and I’m looking forward to learning about this author.

I noticed a strong collection of science fiction (with nice signed Ray Bradbury books), mystery, espionage, thriller, and literary fiction.  Non-fiction was smaller, Christine said that they do not carry self-help books and are choosy about which non-fiction used books they will accept.

Bookfellows has a nice selection of events in addition to author appearances.  George Clayton Johnson leads an informal writing seminar on Wednesday evenings through most of June.  A dramatic reading of Ulysses occurs next month.

Next time we attend a Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra concert in Glendale, we’ll leave earlier to allow more time for wandering the aisles of Bookfellows.

Bookfellows Fine and Rare Books

238 N. Brand Blvd.

Glendale, CA

T:  818.545.0121

I felt the eclectic, cool vibe at {open} from the moment I walked in.  The front foyer holds a collection of old communication items:  typewriters (really old, the kind where the keys jammed together if you typed too fast), a dial phone (I explained to Kelsey that phone numbers with zeros were irritating because you had to wait for the dial to go all the way back to zero), real record players, and cameras that weigh more than the modern laptop.  The space opens up into bookshelves full of used books with a music section in the back and artwork along the walls.

I spent quite awhile wandering through the shelves because they were inviting.  I talked with one of the owners, Shea Gauer, about his book buying philosophy and the books on the shelves are chosen for their subject matter and their aesthetic appeal (the rest are donated to a thrift store).  It works, the look of the bookshelves pulled me in, I wanted to examine every spine on the shelf.  My  idea of a good used bookstore is one where I trip on books that surprise me.  Some books are more appealing when they’re a little worn.  For me, it was an Old Modern Library edition of The Education of Henry Adams by Henry Adams.  If I saw the same book on my grandmother’s shelves, I wonder if  I would be as interested in it?  Probably not, but that’s the beauty of a used bookstore, they make old things appealing again.  {open} has beautiful complete sets of books including Winston Churchill’s works, Balzac’s writings, and O.Henry’s stories.  There is children’s section with original Nancy Drew and Bobsey Twins books.  Unfortunately, my kids are still in the new and flashy stage, worn cozy books aren’t quite as appealing to them, yet.

{open} also recycles old books in a unique way giving then a new life.  When Shea finds a book with a nice cover and maybe an interesting illustration but really no sellling appeal onesoever, he cuts off the front and back cover, the title page, maybe a few other pages, adds blank sheets, binds them all together and the resulting journal is truly unique.  We bought one, but I think I’ll drop back there for some fun Christmas gifts.

Music the Old Fashioned Way

As I wandered through the shelves, a young couple was deciding which record albums to buy.  Not CDs, the real 33 rpm record albums.  {open} has two turntables, truly nice ones, and headphones to listen to the albums before buying them.  This couple sampled various works by the LA Phi from decades ago and settled on a recording of the L.A. Phil playing gypsy music, who knew!  {open} holds regular music concerts and performance art events, it helps bring in extra foot traffic.

Everyone is an Artist

Our joint decorating effort!

In addition to showing artists work on the walls, {open} is creating its own installation piece.  In  honor of its 5th anniversary, patrons can buy one sheet of an old thesaurus for $5 or of an old encyclopedia for $50 and decorate it.  The sheets are hung on the wall behind the cash register and when the wall is full, the sheets will be bound into a book.  Kelsey and I picked the thesaurus page containing “book” and brought it home to decorate.  Our design includes a bit of Kelsey’s fashionista sense and a few of our favorite books (The Hunger Games for Kelsey, Atonement for me, and The Bible for both of us).  You can order your own sheet, decorate it and be a published artist also!

{open] is part of “Retro Row” on 4th Street in Long Beach.  There are used furniture stores, coffee shops and art galleries, it’s a nice place to meander for an afternoon.

{open}

2226 E. 4th St.

Long Beach, CA 90814

T:  562.499.OPEN

1. Membership:  The store offers membership levels from $10 to $40.  Members receive a 7.72% discount, additional discounts during Christmas and sales, 10 used book credits (good for 10 used paperbacks or 5 used hardbacks) and a newsletter.
2. Donated Used Books:  members and non-members alike receive credit for donating and exchanging books.
3. Volunteers:  There is one paid employee, the manager, but otherwise the store is completely run by volunteers.  Volunteers sign up for at least one four hour shift a month.  Some volunteers have worked there for over 20 years.  If I lived in Park Hill, I’d volunteer in a flash!

Park Hill Community Bookstore is on a quaint street in a lovely neighborhood.  Park Hill is a suburb of Denver that looks like it came out of a Frank Lloyd Wright drawing book.  I wanted to stay for hours as soon as I drove up.  The store itself is as cozy as the neighborhood.

Park Hill Community Bookstore is two stories.  The bottom floor houses a small selection of new books, calendars,  and used fiction and children’s books.  Upstairs is a large room with rows of shelves of  mysteries, espionage, romance, and a variety of non-fiction genres.  At the bottom of the stairs was a bookcase full of plays; I wish I had hours to go through those shelves!

If you’re in the area, stop by, the volunteers are friendly and eager to chat with locals and visitors.

Park Hill Community Bookstore

4620 E. 23rd Ave.

Denver, CO 80207

The drag queens are the large black and white photo

When I visited Capitol Hill Books, a used bookstore in Denver, CO, I noticed a collage running down the entire side of a bookshelf.  It was made up of all the things found in used books.  My favorite was an 8 x 10 photo that at first glance is a group of 1940s “pin up” girls, but on closer look is a lineup of drag queens.

Joel Eis, owner of Rebound Bookstore, described in an interview some of the interesting items found in books in his store:  a World War II book with a Dear John letter; stationary with the Union Army logo in a Civil War book; a coffee table book containing two huge marijuana leaves; a $100 bill (flip through the used books you buy, you could find lunch money); and, stacks of airline boarding passes (I use them as bookmarks when I travel, helps me to remember where the boarding pass is located).

In one of my book groups we’re reading the Rabbit series by John Updike.  One of the members is a John Updike fanatic and owns almost all of his books, many of them she purchased used.  She shared with us an old Book-of-the-Month Club summary of Rabbit Redux and a review from 1971 she found in a used copy of Rabbit Redux, it felt like opening a literary time capsule.

What have you found in a used book?  We’d love to hear, leave a comment and share!

Hand to Mouth:  WORDS SPOKEN OUT which generally features a poet but always provides a stage for local musicians and writers occurs the last Saturday of every month.  On nights the store doesn’t have an event, the space is available for rent.  My dream would be to have my birthday party in a bookstore, I don’t think that’s what Rebound is envisioning, but I could dress it up as a bookstore review reading!  Stop by the store and share your ideas over a cup of coffee, after buying a book.

Rebound Bookstore

1611 4th Street

San Rafael, CA 94901

T:  415.482.0550

A Long Island Bookstore

As you know, we love when readers contribute reviews of their favorite bookstores and the farther from LA they are, the better we like them.  Supportive and enthusiastic reader Meagan Cea lives in Huntington, New York and is a sophomore at Queens College in Flushing.  We’re very grateful to her for the following review.  The rest of this post is hers.

In this economy everyone is trying to pinch pennies. A surprising
and wonderful side effect is that, in the effort to save money, more
and more people are choosing books over movies and video games. But for
those with a real habit, reading isn’t necessarily cheaper at 15, 20,
sometimes 30 dollars a pop. That is, if you haven’t discovered a way to
feed your addiction.

Whenever people think of New York, they think of New York City,
Manhattan. It’s only natural. Yet in doing so they forget about another
wonderful little island: Long Island. If by chance you do remember Long
Island and find yourself out in Suffolk County, you just may stumble
upon Huntington Village. Huntington Village, also known as downtown
Huntington, is THE hot spot for any kind of entertainment you’re looking
for: restaurants, cafes, bars, a movie theater, even a jazz lounge. But
the best thing in town is of course, the bookstore.

The Book Revue is one of the few independent bookstores on the
island (there are fewer than twenty). Boasting two floors and 17, 500
square feet, the Book Revue is also one of the largest independent bookstores in the country. Although the decor is less than remarkable, it lacks the glossy feel of the major chain stores and has half a dozen chairs and couches scattered throughout the store, not including the large wooden
firetruck in the kids section. There’s even a small cafe in the sunniest corner of the store. Along with its many other accomplishments, the Book Revue is also a popular stop for book signings. Past visitors include Whoopi Goldberg, Bill Clinton, Neil Simon and Orson Scott Card, among many others.

But now to the very best and greatest feature: their discounts.

Unlike the many chain bookstores around, the Book Revue buys and
sells used books. With a little bit of effort, you can find good condition used books for anywhere between 12 dollars and 2. And that’s not even the best part. After a set of new books has been sitting on the shelves for a few months, untouched, the Book Revue has this wonderful little habit of moving them to the discount tables. As a result, at any time of year you can walk in and find six or eight tables of new books selling for 6 or 8 dollars a piece, sometimes even less! This of course does have the dangerous side effect of encouraging impulse buying in order to catch a sale, but I know I’M not going to complain.

Here’s to feeding the addiction.

BOOK REVUE
313 New York Avenue
Huntington, NY 11743
phone: 631.271.1442
fax: 631.271.5890

Much as I loved to write at an early age, I never considered becoming any kind of a reporter because I hate talking to strangers.  (I could never become a talk show host, either, I guess).  That neurotic problem of mine definitely affects the way I judge bookstores: Kim chats up the owners and gets all the back story, while I lurk and shop.  (I have been known to ask questions, but the story has to be empty and the shopowner amiable.)

I approach new stores from a different angle.  At any given moment, I’m usually obsessed with a specific writer or subject, and will, when I walk into a new bookstore, check out their offerings in that particular interest.  I figure it’s like random polling: it gives me a quick idea of how good their overall selection is.  (Of course, that doesn’t work on specialty stores–I wouldn’t walk into a cookbook store looking for a graphic novel.)

So when my family and I walked the several blocks from one of our favorite places on earth–The Bone Room in Berkeley–to a bookstore we vaguely remembered was up the street, I knew what I was going to look for.  Pegasus Books offers a mixture of new and used books, separated out so you know what you’re getting and can, say, buy that new bestseller for a friend’s birthday gift, then go look for something to read for yourself in the used section.

I’m happy to say that Pegasus totally came through for me that day: I was working my way through Alex Robinson’s graphic novels and had just finished one.  Since we were on vacation, I was enjoying spending my evenings curled up with a book (no laundry to fold!  no homework to help with!) and was desperate for another. And Pegasus had exactly what I wanted.  It felt like winning (an admittedly small-potted) lottery.  I mean, I wasn’t looking for a Tom Clancy novel–this was a graphic novel published by a small press.   I found some other things I wanted–all used, and therefore discounted–and my eight-year-old son was thrilled to find a used collection of Thor comics.

I could have spent all day in that store: the selection was varied and eclectic with a lot of good deals in the used book sections.  It’s a beautiful, spacious store with a lot of room to stand and leaf through books.  Unfortunately, we were due to meet friends back at the Bone Room so the rest of the family left while Will and I bought our books.

Now was the time to chat a little bit–my fear of talking to strangers soothed by the familiar interaction of exchanging money for goods–and I found out that Pegasus is actually a mini-chain: there are two of them in Berkeley (we later passed the second one on our way to lunch) and a sister Pendragon store in Oakland.

I also discovered that some of the open feeling of the store that day was due to the fact they were starting to clear off some of the books and move some  of the bookshelves out of the way for a big New Year’s Day event: their annual calendar sale.  Every year on New Year’s morning,  they put out a huge assortment of the new year’s calendars at a discounted price (1 for $3.99 or 3 for $10).  Their stores are almost entirely given over to the calendar sale for several days–apparently there’s a line of people waiting for them to open their doors that first morning.

Another customer–clearly a regular–stuck his head into our conversation at this point and said, “Yeah, well, I just wait for it go back to being a normal bookstore again–that’s what I like.”  No argument here: I love a good bookstore. But if a lucrative calendar sale helps any independent bookstore stay in business, I’m all in favor of it.  Especially if I could zip in and buy my calendars without talking to a single stranger . . .

Pegasus Fine Books
1855 Solano Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94707
510.525.6888
(Fax)510.525.1646
admin@pegasusbookstore.com