[Janice D. Soderling]

Instead of worrying about putting books back on the shelves, I'll just call it a home for pre-loved books.

http://www.messynessychic.com/2013/0...und-the-world/

[R. Nemo Hill]

There is an amazing bookstore in Yangon, Myanmar, that I so wish I had taken some photos of. Nearly impossible as it was for them to access books (this was almost ten years ago), they stocked (and stacked and stacked) an enormous collection of books they had copied and then handsomely bound themselves (in black and green boards, with a green ribbon marker)—including hundreds of rare, out-of-print editions on Burmese history and religion and folklore. I bought half a dozen, despite the fact that I had to haul them around for many weeks in my otherwise minimal luggage.

Nemo

[Andrew Frisardi]

I love the photo of the cat resting on the book pile. A used book store in Boston, my favorite, had closed shop when I went there last summer. I was crushed. A big fat black cat was always draped over precariously piled books on sagging shelves, the owner was scruffy and surly, the books were impossible to find in any order, and it was heaven.

And then there are the unexpected finds. I remember a story a few years ago about someone browsing in a used book store in Scotland, who found an original manuscript by William Blake, tucked into a book.

Online access is great, but . . .

[Michael Juster]

Yes, I'm with Andrew, I started collecting first editions in used book stores with a 1 dollar limit in 1978 that held for a decade, and finally I allowed myself inflation factors that took me to 3, 7 and then 10 dollars.

I do it for the kind of kick Andrew is describing, but I do have some astonishing first editions that I bought for a dollar: Auden's The Dyer's Hand and Kahn's The Boys of Summer (the greatest sports books of all time). I have a post-Civil War first edition of John Greenleaf Whittier for which I paid three bucks and first editions of Wilbur, Sexton, Roethke, Berryman & many others, some of them signed. I have a couple books from Maynard Mack's library. I have a number of first editions by great poets of the Harlem Renaissance. I have to admit I broke my rules and paid twenty bucks for a signed first edition of Gwendolyn Brooks' Blacks that also had a note from her tucked inside.

I thought I had found a rare gem in Cambridge four years ago at a going-out-of-business sale--a first American edition of Eliot's Practical Cats, but it turned out the publisher flooded the market in the thirties with phony first editions at a jacked-up price. It wasn't worth $1,500, but I could have sold it right away at my $15 cost, but it was too good a story to give up.

None of this on-line, by the way. That kills the fun.

[Seree Zohar]

well, not a jumble by any means but certainly a stunning bookstore in a 700+ year old building...
http://inhabitat.com/gorgeous-church...ch-maastricht/

[Shaun J. Russell]

Some of those sites would be "dream destinations" for me. There's just nothing like a good used bookstore. I've mentioned before how Henderson's Books in Bellingham, WA was a panacea for me when I was in my late teens / twenties in Vancouver, B.C. I visited two or three times per year and came back with some great finds, like first editions of Animal Farm, The Moon is Down, All Quiet on the Western Front, Aldous Huxley's Cicadas etc. Most of the bigger used bookshops are quite money-wise to first editions (i.e.: I paid a pretty penny for a first edition of Auden at Strand Books in New York), but there's something pretty special about finding a fairly rare, or at least uncommon, edition of something randomly at a used bookstore.

Having lived in Virginia for the past four years, I'm always a bit disappointed that there aren't really any good used bookstores in the area. Especially in D.C. I've visited Richard McKay's Books out in Manassas a couple of times now, but despite its size, there is a very sterile feel to the place, and the poetry section is ridiculously tiny (though the literature section is fairly sizable). One would expect several large ones in the greater D.C. area, but so far I've only come across a few small-to-medium sized ones with middling selections (Bryn Mawr / Lamppost, Bridge Books, one in Eastern Market). As such, I do find myself buying a lot of books online these days, but there's really no substitute for spending a couple of hours in a used bookstore.

Incidentally, one of the best I've been in recently is Midtown Scholar in Harrisburg, PA. I'd ordered a few books from them online, then had the opportunity to stop by on the way back from Buffalo after Christmas. They have a large poetry selection, and an even larger literary theory / criticism section, so it's certainly a worthwhile detour if anyone's in that part of the country.

[Michael Juster]

Shaun, Shaun, Shaun! One of the great used book stores in the country is Second Story Books in Dupont Circle. I have been going there for more than thirty-five years, and many of my most valued purchases came from there. It's not as large as some other stores, but the quality is high and the turnover fast. It's a different store each time I visit.

The Fire Department made them clean up a bit a few years ago, but it's still delightfully scruffy amid the DC opulence.

[Janice D. Soderling]

Seree, thanks, I like that the architecture is preserved. I think that is the most pleasing reuse I have seen.

[Gail White]

These are all wonderful and I want to visit each and every one.

I still have a book of erotic poetry by Verlaine that I can't really read, but bought years ago just so I could say that I bought something from the bookstores on the quais of the Seine...

[Janice D. Soderling]

Gail, that is the only one(s) I have been to among these listed. But there are many others I recall with joy, and like you I know what books I bought in each.