15 September 04

Questing For Bookshops

An entry for the Ecotone Wiki topic on Places for Books.

These next two weekends we’re busy so any field trip to Powell’s will have to wait for a while. But such an imagined trip leads one to ask where are the truly great bookstores, the ones worth making long journeys to visit? Powell’s is clearly one, but others? Here are a couple of resources that may help.

Evelyn C. Leeper edits an annotated list of bookstores of the world. This list seems fairly comprehensive and is updated frequently.

More selectively, Robert Teeter has a personal bookstore hall of fame. I’m glad to see I’ve been to a few of them.

I’m sure there are other such lists out there, but this is a start.

Posted by at 09:21 PM in Nature and Place | Link |
  1. Back of Beyond Books in Moab is one such. I mean it’s not a Powell’s: it’s actually rather small. But it’s got an amazing desert literature selection. and here’s the thing: it’s in Moab.

    — Chris Clarke    16. September 2004, 11:24    Link
  2. Thank you for the heads up on bookstore lists-back in the early 90’s, I used to travel with a small paperback sold in used books stores-it was a pocket sized guide to used bookstores in California. (It was how I found Bay Books in Concord and Bonanza in Walnut Creek).

    I sent an e-mail to the Evelyn Leeper, to notify her of the closing of Reede Moore in Petaluma.
    I just found out last weekend.

    I was told the owner retired to devote herself to full time bookbinding. Very disapointed-this was where I found some of my favorite poetry books. I had hoped to return and buy a collection of essays by Roethke on the teaching of poetry. I had found it, but passed at the time-AUUUGGHH!

    I also mentioned to Evelyn that we have 3 independents in Davis, one chain, and one university bookstore. If Evelyn is open to an outside review, I let you folks know (and the local poets), and perhaps we can discuss among ourselves our opinions of our local bookstores.

    (Ah, forgot the store in Woodland—and it’s name!)

    — Anita    17. September 2004, 09:13    Link
  3. The Next Chapter in Woodland…

    — virginia    17. September 2004, 12:11    Link
  4. Blackwell’s bookshop in Oxford was my first encounter with a ‘real’ bookshop. For me, the real quality test of a bookshop has always been the range of bird books on offer, and Blackwell’s had shelf after shelf of field guides, scientific accounts and bird folklore – it was like Christmas had come early! Add to that its labyrinthine sequence of wooden-beamed rooms and its location on a cobbled street surrounded by medieval university buildings, and you have the quintessential bookshop.

    — richard    17. September 2004, 12:42    Link

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