In a post last week I asked what you wanted from this blog, and a few of you were kind enough to answer. To St. Tracy, my first responder, I must say I’m still interviewing potential candidates to serve as both maid and cook for your household so you’ll have more free time to frequent my website. The next qualifying round is a cat-juggling contest, an underrated skill I know you value highly in your domestic workers.
My second responder, John, wondered if I might do profiles on famous writers who also happened to be squirrels. To which I say I’d love to, however, convincing a squirrel writer to take the cigar out of its mouth long enough to say anything on the record is near impossible. So no go, unfortunately.
But John also suggested I write about some of my favorite secondhand bookstores, and that’s a request I can fulfill immediately and with great pleasure. It so happens that my wife and I spent a recent Saturday on a used bookstore tour of North Hollywood, Los Angeles, and Simi Valley, the latter city (in case you don’t live in Southern CA) exists in the southeastern corner of Ventura County and is not just the home of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.
No, it’s also where you can find the amazing $5 Or Less Book Store. Nestled in the middle of a bland strip mall like a diamond in the rough, this place is 10,000 square feet of printed-page bliss (and also used CDs and DVDs a’plenty). Every genre of book is represented, but I usually hang out in the literary/commercial fiction section, which in the two times we’ve been there has been well stocked with exciting finds in really good condition. And get this, the hardcovers are $5 and the paperbacks are only $2. Easy to get carried away here, and as happens to me in any secondhand bookstore, the low prices are a compelling reason to take a chance on authors I’ve never read. In that respect, I picked up A Prayer for the Dying by Stewart O’Nan and The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht, as well as Castle by J. Robert Lennon. I also found myself drifting over to the DVD section and unable to stop myself from purchasing Footloose (the original version from 1984), because there’s nothing like watching Kevin Bacon dance out his angst over the narrow-minded pop-culturally paranoid denizens of small-town America.
Our next stop on the tour was the Iliad Bookshop, a sparkling gem in the industrial funk of North Hollywood, which specializes in Literature and the Arts. This is what it looks like inside:
Don’t let the empty shelves fool you. They’re all usually filled to capacity, and on the recent Saturday we were there they had overflow books in several stacks on the floor and packed tightly together on rolling carts. The Iliad also features, hands-down, the cleanest and grandest customer bathroom you’ve ever seen. Sadly, I don’t have a picture of it, but really it’s a place you just have to spend some time in to fully appreciate its grandeur. The store itself is great fun, especially for a literature geek like myself, a place to slowly shuffle the creaky wooden floor, aisle after aisle, getting lost in the meditative experience that is book browsing. It is transcendent. Very reasonable prices here too and most of the books are in fine condition. Picked up Godless by Pete Hautman, and the Joseph Heller biography Just One Catch, by Tracy Daugherty (hardcover, pristine condition, only $10).
Our final stop on the tour was The Last Bookstore in downtown Los Angeles. The experience to be had here is almost more about the space and atmosphere–towering ceilings, marble columns, art objects made from books, hipster soundtrack–than it is the books (though they do have a solid selection of both new and used titles). They also host readings, musical performances and even how-to seminars on bookbinding and apartment gardening. Did I mention the hipster soundtrack? Anywho, they also have a dark and dank upstairs area that’s like a cool secret attic to creep around in and pluck out a surprise title, all for $1 each. While up there I snagged a well-cared-for hardcover copy of T. Jefferson Parker’s Iron River, and on the main floor I picked up The Dog of the South by Charles Portis, The Ecstasy Business by Richard Condon, and a grungy version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest with “non-reliable narrator” scrawled in pencil on page one. I couldn’t resist.
So there you have it. These three stores are but a small sampling of the many others dotting Los Angeles and its outlying areas. A few others I’d heartily recommend: Libros Schmibros in Boyle Heights; Brand Bookshop and the Mystery and Imagination Bookshop, both on Brand Blvd. in Glendale and literally across the street from each other.
Do you have a favorite secondhand bookstore? Here in California, or wherever you live out there in the world? I’d love to hear about where you go to indulge your habit.
