"The book is still the highest delight."

Left: Carolina Book Rack, Greenville, SC.


After my library preachment last Monday, an email pointedly asks me WHAT do I have against Barnes & Noble? Other than the fact that they drive out independent bookstores, not a thing.

The fact is: I've spent many hours huddled up in used bookstore-corners, perusing stacks of true crime, scifi, fantasy, mindless celebrity-bios, forgotten literary classics and wonky political paperbacks. There is something thoroughly magic about used bookstores; that musty-page smell lets you know you're in for shelves of fun. I'll buy a biography of Roger Vadim for a buck, but I won't buy it new. (I guess it's like waiting for movies to come out on DVD!)

Some of my sentimental favorites:

Jackson Street Books - Athens, GA. A landmark in Bulldog country! An autographed poster lets you know that REM shops here, but I've never seen them.

Open Book - Greenville, SC. Your humble narrator's first job in the upstate was for this Greenville institution. New and used books share space with countless chronicles of the Old South.

Downtown Books and News - Asheville, NC. Trendier sister bookstore Malaprops gets all the attention and the hotshot writers (with accompanying Big Events), but funky DB&N is dusty, musty, plays old soul music, offers abandoned copies of socialist newspapers for free, and has old strips of theatre seats you can sit in while you read. After looking at clean new books at well-scrubbed, hardwood-floors Malaprops, walk a few blocks over to DB&N and join the truly cool.

The mother lode was Atlanta's Oxford Books, now sadly defunct. May it rest in peace. Like Malaprops/DB&N, there was a well-scrubbed upscale version, and a funky used incarnation called Oxford Too, at Peachtree-Battle. A day at the double-Oxfords was a Christmas pilgrimage for me and Mr Daisy, a gift we always gave ourselves. The demise of the store(s) pained us greatly.

Politics and Prose - Washington, DC. Almost as wonderful as the old Atlanta Oxfords, but too far away for me to visit regularly. Harumph, harumph.

I'd love to hear about your favorites, and add a link if possible!

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Listening to: The Jesus and Mary Chain - The Living End
via FoxyTunes