ITT: You rate your city's bookstores

Stockholm here.

Akademibokhandeln Mäster Samuelsgatan: Pretty nice at heart.
Bok-Skotten: RIP.
NK: Comfy but a bit touristy. Has a nice music and DVD-section, though.
Hedengrens: Patrician.
Rönells: Patrician antiquarian.
H-sons fickbokhandel: RIP Stockholm's last porn book store.
Hallongrottan: RIP Stockholm's only queer book store.
Åhléns City: Don't even bother.
SF-bokhandeln: Your one stop for everything sci-fi and fantasy.
Alvglans, Staffars serier, Seriegrottan, Serieslussen & Comics: Good comic book stores.
Vattumannen: Everything alternative meme magic.
Proklama: Christian bookstore.
Gummessons: RIP Stockholm's oldest christian book store.

Denver: 3 "tattered cover"s a couple are ok, the downtown one is all hype and no balls.
Barnes and Nobles: hot dads and pesudo pseuds
All the rest seem kinda ghetto.

>Literally commie thrift store

8/10, extremely nice people, very cheap books since everyone who works there does so voluntarily and they don't believe in profit, will almost always try to sell you books by Marx and Lenin, occasional snide comments if you buy something by decidedly anti-commie authors.

>Hipster thrift store

3/10 mostly shit, overpriced, fine for meeting cuties although they're almost always pseudy. Also a coffee shop with extremely pretentious and overpriced coffee for the trust-fund bobo's while they read their Bukowski and Kerouac.

>Thrift store run by old crazy man who smells like stale tobacco

7/10, he's a lazy fuck who prefers smoking cigarettes to organizing his shit, all his books are the equivalent of 2$ but not in any order, there are mountains of shit but occasionally you'll find a box full of pristine hardcover classics for 2$ a piece.

>Literally every commercial bookstore in my town

0/10, exclusively crime fiction, ghostwritten memoirs by C-list celebrities, shitty cookbooks and self-help.

Powell's/10

Yeah, I'm not fond of the downtown one either and I'm meh about the one out south. I like the one on Colfax though
My favorite used store is West Side Books, where I've seen a lot of stuff mentioned here that I've seen nowhere else

Pretty good place - I always leave with something. Disconcertingly large theology section though.

>>Literally every commercial bookstore in my town
>0/10, exclusively crime fiction, ghostwritten memoirs by C-list celebrities, shitty cookbooks and self-help.
I complained at the local BAM about them not having IJ every time that I went in there for months. Last time I went in there they had 4 copies. I read it years ago and don't intend to buy another copy. It'll rot there.

where do you go in Toronto? Eliot's is good but overpriced and Monkey's Paw is good. BMV?

>Austin, Texas

>Half Price Books
7/10 - giant selection. comics, music, and

>Brave New Books
Alex Jones Sponsor/10
used expensive technical books for $1 each/10
sells fluoride free toothpaste/10
sells Kratom and has a Bitcoin ATM/10
is the bookstore incarnation of pic related/10

NYC. 10/10. The Strand is incredible.

>Miami

Good number of stores, big and small, new and used. lots of thrift stores too.

Senpai u left out basically every decent bookstore, get it together

>Bookpeople
Nice, big selection, although so big its basically a chain. Also downtown so not the most convenient location if you drive, and books are relatively overpriced. 7/10

>12th St. Books
Nice and comfy interior, although its pretty much exclusively leather bound antiques that are too valuable to actually read, and the selection isnt quite as big as I'd hope. Owner is a great guy. 8/10

>Malvern Books
Best store by far, has a great (although not extensive) selection, chill staff, and reasonably priced books. You can find stuff here youd only otherwise find on the internet. They even have an untranslated classics section. If anything they just need a bigger location for more books. 9/10

Dont really go south of the river much so can't say anything about the stores there.

i live in a small town but it has three bookshops

waterstones- high street chain but the people that work in this branch are pretty friendly

a secondhand bookshop- run by two old women, one is really friendly and chatty but the other one is a bit of a nazi. once i picked up a book from their bargain box and when i mentioned it at the counter she said "are you sure?" YES OF COURSE I'M SURE YOU GIMLET EYED HARRIDAN

an antiquarian bookshop full of really rare stuff- antique leatherbound books, rare first editions etc- it's like a flippin aladdin's cave (well if aladdin's cave looked a bit like Black Books) and a bit intimidating but they have a sale shelf outside that regularly has folio society etc books for £3 (lotsa dreck too mind)

Charlottesville, VA-- top notch for used, and I've booked on both coasts-- from Cambridge (MA) to Berkeley (CA) nothing compares. I do regret not having been in Tejas, however, to check out Larry McMurtrey's operation before it closed. I've heard it was fantastic.

Overpriced but still good.

I haven't heard of West Side, I will have to check it out. Thanks man

Salisbury, MD

Not awful. Half of the city is black and they don't read, so more books for me in the three story bookshop

>Bendigo
Noice selection of classic literature at the second hand book shop

>tfw live in North Jersey
>Have to drive to NYC or south jersey to get anything good
My county has some pretty good libraries though, so I can't complain

tattered cover is a glorified barnes and noble that killed a lot of good competition. you seriously think that capitol hill, mutiny, kilgore, and west side are fucking "ghetto"?

I'm from north jersey but go to school in south jersey, and it's just as shit as far as I can tell. Where do you go down here?

Whitcoulls - Books for stay-at-home mums. Going out of business
Paper Plus - YA and children's books
Unity Books - Knowledgeable staff and great selection, quite expensive
Time Out - Bookstore - Knowledgeable staff, limited but good selection
Jason Books - overpriced for 2nd hand, have to sift through their selection but some really good stuff there
Hard to Find Books - Haven't been here but probably quite good
The Women's Bookstore - I have too much male privilege to justifiably enter this store
Dymocks/Borders - Bankrupt lmao

Boston/Cambridge

Brattle Book Shop: On nice days they'll cart their clearance section outside and occasionally you'll be able to find some great stuff in there for a dollar or two. Their shelves inside are a pretty solid collection, the best being fiction. Other sections like philosophy, religion, and history are somewhat inconsistent, but I've gotten some great deals on older hardcovers that randomly show up. 8/10

Commonwealth Books: More of a rare/antiquarian focus including old prints of things like maps and etchings for botanical textbooks. A somewhat bizarre philosophy section consisting almost entirely of old scholarly books and obscure names in philosophy, but occasionally you'll find a gem. (Got a hardcover of "Short History of Decay" by Cioran with the cover Oneohtrix Point Never appropriated for "Fall into Time"). Includes sections for more niche books like cartography and aviation. Browsing is always interesting because most times you'll find something you've never heard of. 7/10

Raven Used Books: GOAT. Just moved to a new location that's a lot bigger than the previous basement space, but still rather small overall. However, the owner has excellent taste and packs the shelves with the best works of various academic fields. Philosophy is actually the biggest section in the store, a perfect mixture of old classics and current research. Great to browse and see what's going on in the philosophical world. 10/10

Harvard Coop: They have almost everything, but so expensive. Best just to see what they have out to show what's popular and order it online lol. Their fiction section spans the entire second floor balcony and the sections for the various academic disciplines are well-stocked. The strength of the store is that it's very comprehensive, but it doesn't really have anything you couldn't find online, so it's not as fun to browse. Still, a great resource. 7/10

Harvard Book Store: New books on the first floor, used books in the basement. Their main focus seems to be new releases, so considering the publishing world today I wouldn't call that a good thing lol. The best thing about this store is probably that they have a sign up that says "Burroughs, Bukowski, and Kerouac, are kept behind the counter. Please inquire if you wish to purchase these authors." Used section downstairs is alright, but rather bland. 5/10

I live in Knoxville, and we literally only have three:

Barnes & Noble: you know what you're getting, I usually just go here

An old decrepit Books A Million that I swear gets smaller everytime I go, and I honestly have no idea how it remains open, also I'm pretty sure it's haunted

McKay's: A shitty used book store that is only good for picking up the hipster qt's that frequent it. Also once I found a copy of Mein Kampf that was signed by some German guy that I meant to look up later to see if he was famous but forgot to.

All the BMVs
Elliots
ABC
Greg miller
Seekers
A good read
She said boom
A couple book stores in the junction
Some shop in Kensington
Some shop on spadina

Fuck where aren't there book stores in toronto

I'm from Atlanta but I have a cousin who lives near Chattanooga and I actually like the McKay's over there, it seems a lot better than the Knoxville one!

I've never been to that one, so I might have to check it out next time I'm in Chatt City

r8 from Guatemala City

extra crispy. 200,000 free books gone.

bookthing.org/

Lima, Perú

There are this big chains of bookstores that even have shops at malls that usually aim for people that read basically YA or anything that is heavily marketed and people who like or want to read but lack some kinf of education to know what to look for aside for the more marketed ones and usually ignore other things that are in the store. Some of this shops, depending on each and where they are placed, can have more important things for Veeky Forumss criteria (eg. Mccarthy, the beats, idk).

After those big franchises there are smaller franchises that import more "obscure" things, specially academic stuff, but also tend to be not the best or outdated translations. They also tend to have better stock than the previous ones.

Then there are two bookstores that are in kind of expensive commercial zones that are the ones the bring the more specialized stuff: best translations for philosophy, harder books, etc. But they tend to be pricey for some things but overall books arent that cheap in general in this country.

You can count the bookstores in some of the universitys too, i like mine a lot, but because they give the sport guys free books of their choice there are times when they are kinda empty of the better stuff.

We have a big market for used books tho, there´s a street that have small stores that sell them and they are also present at book fairs. But, as the older editions arent always the best ones in spanish, they also have a lot of shit you have to sort to find good things because they dont have catalogs.

>General indie shop
Beard-man who runs the place is p chill, lets his kittie have free run of the store and keeps it well stocked. Also sells records, VHS, magazines.

>Indie book shop
Old fucker who runs it is a hardass. Rips off sellers even when given books in good condition. More poorly organized than the other indie store, even though it's been around years longer.

>B&N
Glorified pseudy Starbucks

San Antonio, Texas

Imagine Books and Records: Our little hipster bookstore became the hub for the underage punk kids. Shitty selection of books, good choice in records, and fun bands when they have a line up. Just get a handle from the liquor store a block down and drink in the parking lot and be properly drunk like at a real venue.

We also have a few half price books around town that are decent.

There's another little book store I can't remember the name of, but the owners daughters were hot as fuck.

There's a bung I haven't been to because I don't have the time to read anything but law these days. The twig, Cheever, nine lives, and I just found out the basement of the city library has a used book store.

I agree. I also like that one in Old Town Alexandria, but its a bit skimp on good biographies and some good classics like all used bookstores.

Any Sydneyfags here been to Goulds in Newtown?

San Antonian here as well. How the fuck did you not discover the most important part of the city library until recently. I rarely go downtown anyways though.

The

No, I just live a sheltered life. I've only seen tattered cover around.

>town next to Budapest
They aren't exactly bad.
But I buy mostly from online antiquaries.
It's cheaper and they have what I'm looking for.

Overrated desu. The used book store on the corner east corner of the street is nice though. The 12th street store anyway

>Disconcertingly large theology section though.

Why is that disconcerting?

There was a good used books store near me.
I bought some interesting history books there.
Sadly, it closed down.

yes. it is okay. p disorganized and slow turnover. if you are a /pol/tard then it is and always has been run by leftists.

berkelouw books in paddington is good. neat, high turnover, lots of obscure finds, and always a selection of folio books if your trying too hard to be nonpleb.

Elizabeth's in newtown is very shit.

Abbeys on york st is great for scifi and fantasy nerds. Decent nonenglish selection too.

Sapphos in glebe is good. Has poetry open mic. Best fiction selection and good music selection but bad for nonfiction.

Glebe books 2nd hand in glebe is one of the best priced 2nd hand stores in sydney but very small.

Konikunyia has okay selection. Good for art and comics and manga and japanese\chinese language.

If you like poetry, dont come to sydney. No store has any decent selection whatsoever.

vancouver
paper hound: 10/10
macleod's: 6/10
albion: 3/10
people's co-op bookstore: 7/10

I feel bad for you if you call Raven the best. It's honestly pretty awful in terms of selection. Far too small to find anything interesting.

Not bad but far from great

Bath, Somerset
The Oxfam book shop is very cheap and has a good selection, Waterstones is quite standard and large enough. They sold me a copy of The Erstwhile (fantastic book, can't was for the final part of the trilogy) a week or so before it was supposed to be released. A fancy book store at the top of the city centre has an amazing collection -- and non-fiction, prose and poetry, new and old, even some graphic novels. Everything is kept in plastic coverings to it's all in great condition. Bit pricey, though.
There's the little independent used book shop near the
Royal Crescent, which has fun events like poetry readings or tea and coffee discussion groups. Of course there's also a big WHSmiths for paperbacks and classics, along with multiple university libraries and a good public library above Waitrose, all of which have very varied collections. Bristol has even more, and is less than 10 minutes on the train.
All in all I'd give Bath an 8.5/10 for book shops/libraries.

UTTER CRAP

>tfw no sydney Veeky Forums bookshop meetup

Because Theology is the philosophical equivalent of pseudoscience.

how?

eh i would be down but idk if i could handle unironic "patrician" types.

>unironic "patrician" types

what do you mean?

Is Transubstantiation real?

In short: cryboy elitists

yes

what's so bad about elitism?

I find it annoying

I can see why, but modern society seems so interested in leveling everything to the lowest common denominator, that any sense of hierarchy standards are deemed archaic and "bigoted". This mentality affects everything, and reduces things towards formlessness.

Although modern "elitism" is generally artificial and purely material, traditional qualitative elitism is what ensures literature of high standards. That's not to say dissent from mainstream forms are unwelcome, it's merely that "dissidence" shouldn't occur merely for the sake of it, nor should be crutch upon which poor quality and/or originality leans.

I'm in South Jersey and pretty much go Philly for books. Mainly the University of Pennsylvania bookstore and The Last Word for used books. There is a Barnes and Nobel in Marlton but I only go there for 'any pleb store should have this' books. Rarer stuff I go to Penn campus.

no it doesn't.

trad lit is full of formal dissent. form never was and never will be an indicator of quality .

this is why elitism is annoying. opinions passed as authoritative fact.

Dublin

In the actual city itself you're basically covered for modern editions by Hodges Figgis on Dawson street and Chapters on Parnell street.

There's also a few used book shops and antique shops dotted around the place that you can find some mad shit in. The one I most frequently go to is Ulysses Rare Books, mostly for their selection of antique maps.

But, in general, you'll probably find whatever book you're looking for in one of the chains. Easons and Dubray have stores everywhere.

Qualitative dissent, not dissent for its own sake.

>this is why elitism is annoying. opinions passed as authoritative fact.

This is why egalitarianism is annoying. every fact is just an "opinion" and all opinions are somehow equal.

we live in one of the most educated peroids ever. pop media from music to advertising is more complex then it has ever been.

it's not that all opinions are equal, its just appeals to tradition in general and yours in particular are not factual.

Dont you talk shit about imagine kid, Hurd is the fucking man. I bet you order fucking pancake platters at the "mexican" restaurants you go to, fuccboi.

All hipster shit, same crowd that goes to local coffee shops.

Can't get into real venues, huh?

Is alchemy real?

Who /mcnallyrobinson/ here?

i should have pointed out that my main criterion was that a store be enjoyable to browse and have a selection of good books that i may not have heard of before. if i'm looking for a specific book that's still in print, i'll buy it online, but when i go to a bookstore i'm looking to browse the shelves and find new stuff. so even though the Coop has everything, it's pretty much what you'd expect and that's just not as fun. since im mostly interested in philosophy and fiction, raven is the best for that. if you're looking for history or sociology or something, yeah, there are much better stores.

What's it like in DC?

Fuck off, we're full.

do you even have electricity

this

Yeah, that's what I figured. The other user made it sound like he knew of some good shit down here, but I guess I'll just stick to the university library until I have to enter the real world.

>San Antonio
>"real" venues
Good one friendo. If I wanna see a "real" show I'll drive to Austin.

nah

faggot

where did you get this picture?

From your mom's bedroom window

yo, talk to me more about this Erstwhile/Vohrh series please

i genuinely just wanted to know

You're welcome. I should also have honorable-mentioned Black & White, in particular the one in Arvada

I don't live in a city. I live in a village. We have about two used book stores that I can think of off the top of my head, and if you head along to the shopping centre there's two chain bookstores competeing at opposites ends.

None of them sell anything special, although one of them stocks painting supplies, which occasionally draws me to them. But there's a stationary store that sells art stuff cheaper across the parking lot, so the appeal is only there if I've gone in to browse the book selection. The used book stores are kind of neat. They don't sell anything awesome, just a dozen used copies of Bryce Courtenay's works and airport novels, though you occasionally come across a gem, like this illustrated book on sex positions from the 70s that was not the kamasutra. I didn't buy it, but it was neat to flick through.

>Waterstones
Pretty meh.
It's about what you'd expect from a chain bookstore. Lots of pleb stuff. Some good stuff. The poetry and plays section is pretty good though. I'd give it an all around 6.5/10.
>E-Cig City - the vape shop that's also a second-hand bookstore.
10/10
There is absolutely no logic to their stock and often you find total gems in there.

I forgot one.
>The Christian bookstore, I don't know what it's called.
Pretty good. 8/10. Lots of different translations of the bible, books about biblical analysis, books about Christian history, books for priests. It has lots of stuff that no where else would have.

>Half Price Books
Anything I should look out for in Malvern?

Moscow - you can buy 99.9% stuff that's been written in Russian and published, but there are literally four places you can buy books in English, one of which gave up and now only sells John Green and the like, one ditched the regular books - although you can buy a complete collection of Faulkner's works in one hard-cover deckled-edges tome for just two thirds of my montly wage! - and two update stock two times per year and even that is not a guarantee.

Fortunately, however governs our public library is meme-addicted. Selection there is poor - three shelves of fiction, three of non-fiction - but they have Recognitions, The Tunnel, 2666 (in an English section), GR (and the rest of Pynchon), IJ, W&M, Europe Central, and a lot of DeLillo. They don't have much else, honestly.

Think you mean 5. If you count Peter Bell books which is open for three hours a day four days a week and the foreign language specialist next door, which is probably the strangest bookshop I've been in. A smattering of classics and language textbooks then shelves and shelves of Christopher Priest sci-fi translations.

Agreed on capitol hill/second story. Capitol is more cozy and "quaint," second story has the better selection and more informed staff. Riverby's has a redhead qt working there whom I think about every time I'm in a bookstore. Idle time is conveniently located if you're also grabbing a beer, but most of the books are pretty beat up and their nonfiction is kind of shit. Kramer's is unnecessarily expensive and at least on weekend evenings is a hive of single people pretending to look intellectual by browsing books while actually making sidelong glances to see who's around, and trying to be seen holding "good" books. Decent book selection though, just expensive and full of pseuds. Some cuties on register but I never buy anything so have not had a chance to chat.

Ever been to lighthouse? Their hours are weird and I've never managed to make it there.

Also just tried potter's house (cafe + bookstore). Nice space but is ruined (imo) by trying really hard to be progressive, "blm supporters" sign on the front window and all that. I was there for two hours and someone tried to hand me a leaflet (lol) for a climate change awareness rally, and at some point a book reading somehow concerning racial tension was announced to be taking place in the back room. Only redeeming quality was the "reading only" tables where computers are prohibited, but some bitch who asked to share my table immediately opened a laptop and talked on the phone for two hours and didn't even buy any coffee.

Dude I'm fucking jelly of you being near Raven. I stopped by while visiting boston and was blown away by their selection, especially philosophy as you said. Apparently they get a lot of overstock straight from harvard, and most of their other stuff is at least influenced by the fact that most of their customers are fairly sophisticated readers.

Overpriced, full of gov drones and women in pencil skirts who are boring as hell and only pretend to be intellectual, but wouldn't date you regardless unless you were a consultant, in finance, or in politics. An ok number of cool young people but you have to really work to find them, and not too many are readers. Pretty much everything good about dc has to be sniffed out and can only be found (a) after months of unknowingly walking by blank doors that turn out to be cool bars or restaurants, or (b) by having your hand held by someone who's lived here a long time. Also this.

>Barnes and Noble
I mean it is what it is--consistently good but expensive
>Gardner's
Tons of used books, all for like $6. That means I can get a nice hardcover for $6, but also a crappy paperback. Since it's all used books, findings vary per visit.
>Fine Books
Like Gardner's but smaller and a bit more reasonably priced. Problem is that it's in a mall and I fucking hate malls

The half price books store around my area is pretty good. I find some pretty good worn out editions there. Coffee store next to it is also nice.

>Riverby's has a redhead qt working there whom I think about every time I'm in a bookstore.

How many guys do you suppose have tried asking her out? I've seen her. She's awful pretty.

>Kramer's is unnecessarily expensive and at least on weekend evenings is a hive of single people pretending to look intellectual by browsing books while actually making sidelong glances to see who's around, and trying to be seen holding "good" books.

Yeah, I agree. Kramer's is obscenely overpriced. But, I must admit, that they generally have the books I'm looking for that other used bookstores wouldn't carry.

>Ever been to lighthouse?
No, I haven't. But thanks for the suggestion. I'll check out soon.

>Also just tried potter's house (cafe + bookstore).
Haven't heard of this one. I don't think I'll mind the crowd that much, as all of DC is infested with cancerous liberal folk. Eventually, you just get used to it.

do you speak russian? im american but currently learning it. whats your job in moscow?