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Let's say it's a Saturday in January and you have no commitments, no place to go, no one to see. You're free as a bird! So what does one do in Minnesota in January, you ask, other than go ice fishing? Well, go used book store hopping of course. So here's what you do: take this issue of Whistling Shade, grab a map, and get in your car or perambulate to your favorite bus stop. We're going to hit the books, baby, and it's going to be fun! And it won't even cost you much ... if you can resist temptation.
Now, take a look at the stores on our tour here, and pick the ones you want to visit, or heck, take the whole day and visit all 15 of them. Each store is listed with an address, a general description, and the average hardcover price as calculated in a ridiculously unscientific way by our Whistling Shade staff members. Also, we came up with a grocery list of books to look for, so readers could have a kind of rating system to go by. Sort of like a treasure hunt. Our mystery list of 11 books was:
1) Seamus Heaney (anything)
2) Heinrich Heine (anything)
3) Boris Pasternak (any book of poems)
4) Edna St. Vincent Millay - A Few Figs from Thistle
5) F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Beautiful and the Damned
6) Ray Bradbury - The Martian Chronicles
7) Milan Kundera - Life is Elsewhere
8) John le Carré - The Constant Gardener
9) George Eliot - Felix Holt
10) Jane Austen - Northhanger Abbey
11) Soren Kierkegaard (anything)
So that's the deal. Now go have fun. Oh--one last thing before you're out the door ... I'd like to thank the Whistling Shade staff members who agreed to lead our little tour: Weston Cutter, Rhonda Niola, Anthony Telschow and Eli Weintraub. Good luck and happy hunting!
The best of the three stores I shopped in is in the bourgeois-bohemian hotbed Linden Hills, on the west side of Minneapolis. Rag & Bones Books distinguishes itself both by its selection and by a passage through its wall into the neighboring coffee shop. If there's a scent that's better than the aromatic mixture of freshly roasted coffee beans and book dust, well, I didn't happen upon it in these travels. I found more of the books on our list here than in either of the other stores, including a hardcover copy of Boris Pasternak's My Sister, Life and Other Poems, translated by Olga Andreyev Carlisle. That one cost seven dollars, as did a hardcover copy of Kierkegaard's Works of Love: Some Christian Reflections in the Form of Discourses. I bought a hardcover copy of The English Auden for fifteen dollars, and several paperbacks for a couple of dollars apiece. - AT
Number of books on WS list: 5/11
Yes, they've moved. Yes, the new place has hardwood floors and an easier display and more comfortable (overall) environs. Yes, there's a basement. Despite all that, Booksmart may be most valuable for what may sound like a criticism: it's a perfect snapshot of Uptown reading habits. I can think of no bookstore so telling of its market and clientele as this place. That's not at all to say it's bad: on the contrary, it's heartening as hell to walk in and find so many BookSense books on display, wall-displayed first editions of Zadie Smith and Jeanette Winterson, and recent arrival bins full of not only recent arrivals but recent BOOKS. This is a great and friendly general bookstore. - WC
Number of books on WS list: 3/11
Ah, the dear institution. This is where to go when it's raining, or when you've a compulsive need to feel like the boy in A Neverending Story, in that strange, somewhat musty but absolutely magical world of books. The labyrinthian layout of the store, to me anyway, only enhances the fun of the search for this book, that author. Their art selection is spectacular, their fiction is literally tremendous (and their first edition/advance reader copy selection is spellbinding), their poetry, history, and philosophy selections are all well above average. As if that weren't enough, they're friendly as hell and they have that wonderful staple of bookstores everywhere: a great bargain table, right as you walk in. Think you don't need a $4 copy of Alan Furst's last novel? Think again. - WC
Number of books on WS list: 5/11
The first time I was ever in Station 17, my friend Kati grabbed my arm and hauled me to the back of the store, exclaiming, "Eli, you have to see this. There are books in the bathroom!" That's just one of the many things that makes this place amazing. One of the other big ones is the owner. David Gatewood greets everyone who comes in with a cup of hot mulled cider with nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, and clove, I think it was. While I was there, he took a call from a disabled customer whose books he finds, packages, and delivers to her. He's extremely helpful, no matter how weird your questions are, and, in general, he makes you feel like you've walked into, not a store, but the home of a friend with a really big book collection. The breadth of topics covered is greatly appreciated (especially in the history section), as is the fact that the Paganism/New Age section is labeled, not "Occult", but "Books to Expand Your Mind", and the utter lack of pretense: Station 17 isn't ashamed of their wall of romance novels and westerns. The system isnt perfect: having to hunt down James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room in a section labeled "The Black Experience", rather than just finding it in fiction under "B", was disconcerting; the poetry section will be much easier to navigate once the promised alphabetizing takes place; and the GLBT studies and self-help section was a little bit stuck in the '70s. Still, these are quibbles. Station 17 is a gem. - EW
Number of books on WS list: 2/11
If you happen to drive or walk down Chicago Ave. towards Lake St, look off to your right and you'll see some posters of spaceships, unicorns and superheroes taped to the walls. This run-down looking building is the home of mystery and science fiction aficionados. Uncle Edgar's and Uncle Hugo's are located side by side in the same store but they are uniquely different. Uncle Hugo's specializes in fantasy, horror, science fiction, Star Trek memorabilia and interestingly enough, used adult comic books with titles like Cherry and The Fab Furry Brothers Go Abroad. I would be a little hesitant to purchase a used adult comic book, you never know what's been done to it! One book I did find from our list was Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles. Uncle Hugo's didn't have it in hard cover so I settled for the $2 paperback. Right next to Uncle Hugo's is Uncle Edgar where mystery, true crime, adventure, spy fiction and some rare and out of print editions of Raymond Chandler or Mickey Spillane novels can be found in nice cellophane covers. There are even books that are personally signed by the author. I was able to find John Le Carré's The Constant Gardner in hardcover for $5 or $8, depending on the edition. And if you can't find the book, be sure to ask the studious gentleman behind the counter and he will conveniently point it out for you. I have to admit this was my favorite store out of all the ones I visited...maybe it was for the smell of vanilla incense burning in the air or the boxes of Almond Joy, Milky Way or Three Musketeer candy bars being sold at the counter, but I found myself feeling happy over the fact that I left the store with at least one book by Bradbury. - RN
Number of books on WS list: 2/11
Filing the works of Mark Twain under "C" takes a special kind of chutzpah, but that's what they've done at James and Mary Laurie Booksellers. Then again, maybe they've earned the right to that chutzpah. With an impressive number of rare, out-of-print, and first edition books (I knew I was in over my head when the man who greeted me said that a sale in progress was divided into items above or below $100), World War I and II propaganda posters, old maps, and a record collection that made me want to run out and buy a record player (mostly classical, but with a hefty selection of soul and jazz), this store is worth a bibliophile's time. They even have several large armchairs scattered around for sitting and thumbing through a volume or two. Be forewarned, though: its not for the faint of heart or the slender of wallet. - EW
Number of books on WS list: 8/11
If the idea of burrowing your way through endless walls of books piled high to the ceilings turns you on, than this one is an ideal pick. Biermaier's, a small German store located at 809 SE 4th St. in Minneapolis has any book you could imagine--but don't go in there if you are busy. Plan on spending a good one or two hours and you never know, you might find the perfect book you never even thought to look for. There are art books, books of fiction, poetry, history, and World War II; books in Russian, Icelandic, Chinese, Norwegian and German. Of the books on our list, Biermaier's had The Redress of Poetry by Seamus Heaney for $10 in paperback, a book of poems by Heinrich Heine for $15, and a hardcover edition of Edna St. Vincent Millay's A Few Figs from the Thistle for $12. I also found an extensive collection of Soren Kirkegaard's work at Biermaier's: Either/Or, The Sickness unto Death, and The Fear of Trembling, which are available in hardcover or paperback. - RN
Number of books on WS list: 4/11
I found Lien's to be surprisingly neat and orderly. No books teetered haphazardly off shelves or seemed to be overpopulating the aisles; most of them were within arm's reach. The topics range from World War II to Music, Art, Philosophy, History, and Literature. The only book on our list I managed to discover was an 1879 hardcover edition of Heinrich Heine's poetry selling at $75 and still in good condition. In fact it seems like Liens specializes in preserving and selling quality books, and they also offer hand bookbinding restoration and repairs. While I was browsing the shelves, an elderly white-haired man, who turned out to be the bookstore owner, was trying to sell me a restored copy of Longfellow's Evangenline. I was tempted to buy it until I opened the book and saw $95 scrawled in pencil in the upper right hand corner of the page. Only hardcover books are available for sale at Lien's, so if you are looking for inexpensive paperbacks you will be disappointed. - RN
Number of books on WS list: 4/11
This is the only store that stocked a title by Heine on the day I shopped; seven dollars and change would have covered the cost of a paperback copy of Songs of Love and Grief, a bilingual anthology in verse translated by Walter Arndt. It's also the store that had the best selection of Kirkegaard's work, including an impressive range of editions from Princeton University Press, which ran from old hardcover copies to contemporary trade paperbacks. A lovely brown dog quietly ruled this roost, and I walked out with a copy of Czeslaw Milosz's Bells in Winter. - AT
Number of books on WS list: 4/11
This is an old standby where I've very often found what I've wanted. Not so this time around. I did find a nice hardcover copy of Millay's The Harp Weaver and Other Poems, but that title isn't on our list, and the one of hers that is wasn't in the store. At one point, it seemed as though I wouldn't even see a copy of Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, which was, as you might say, thoroughly (ubiquitously) represented in the other shops. Finally, I found a ratty paperback copy. This is the only WS title I found on the shelves that day, though there were several books by and about Kirkegaard. In most ways, The Book House is the quintessential urban secondhand bookstore, with a pleasantly unkempt main floor, labyrinthine basement and hundreds of shelves stuffed with thousands of titles-- just not the ones on this particular list. - AT
Number of books on WS list: 2/11
Ever imagine what a used bookstore would be like in a mall? Come down to The Bookshop at Har Mar and find out. This small corner store has racks of recent paperback fiction in many different genres, at half the cover price. Plus, you can trade your own books for partial credit. You won't uncover a first edition of Dubliners here, but you'll find plenty of good books for the beach--or to pass the time while your spouse goes mall shopping. - JVV
Number of books on WS list: 1/11
Avg hardcover price: N/A (paperback only)
If you want the bookstore that most resembles the mind of someone obsessed with all things bibliophilic, go to the corner of Snelling and University and walk inside this store. While specializing in comic books and older magazines more than necessarily "literary" fare, they have an art collection that knocks out most competitors and they have the whole second floor devoted strictly to the more literary elements: novels (hard and softcover separated, which can seem hasslesome until you realize that it has the magical effect of doubling the pleasure of the hunt), essays and poetry all share the quiet, windowed and well lit floor. There's a good chance that some more specialty books might stay unfound when visiting Midway, but there's always something to catch the eye. - WC
Number of books on WS list: 2/11.
Avg hardcover price: $9.50 (not at all considering specialty books)
Sixth Chamber is the kind of place you go to when you want your books well-loved. The staff is knowledgeable and personable, and they have the most impressive children's section of the stores I visited. I was also swayed by the two different sound systems playing: one tuned in to KNOW; the other playing (while I was there) a fantastic blues CD of some sort. Any store whose employees have that good taste in at-work listening deserves respect. The books at Sixth Chamber tend more towards the mainstream; they have excellent sci-fi/fantasy, mystery, and drama sections. There is a preponderance of very well-priced paperbacks, which helps explain why so many Macalester and Hamline students spend the money they would otherwise be wasting on beer and cigarettes. A note on the list: a fair amount of Sixth Chambers books are kept in storage in the basement. I have no doubt that they do actually have a number of the books on the list that weren't on the shelves, and I wasn't about to make the staff look up half a dozen books I didn't plan to buy. - EW
Number of books on WS list: 3/11
This relatively new store emphasizes rare books rather than used. There's a decent selection of history, philosophy, and literature, but no genre fiction. The books are pricy, the owner is truculent, and the atmosphere (save for a friendly tabby cat) is on the formal side. - JVV
Number of books on WS list: 1/11
South Saint Paul started out as a small town, and Turn About Books, right there on the main drag, still has a small town feel. The shelves are lined with an assortment of recent fiction, mostly by best-selling authors. The front room offers mainstream, mystery, action, horror, sci-fi and a smattering of non-fiction. A back room is devoted to romance and young adult paperbacks--certainly one of the largest selections in the Twin Cities. Turn About just opened a new store at Smith & Annapolis on St. Paul's West Side, with a slightly more literary offering--I dug up an Ivo Andric novel, for instance, and the writings of Epictitus. Both locations will keep an action/suspense reader enthralled with large collections of John le Carré, Daphne du Maurier, Robert Ludlum, and others. - JVV
Number of books on WS list: 2/11
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