If there’s one thing I love, it’s a good used bookstore. Happily, one of my favorites made Bookstore of the Week at the LA Times today: Brand Bookstore. Brand Bookstore is just a few doors down from our optometrist, and has a wonderful selection of books, and a reasonably good selection of used LPs (include a pretty good selection of used cast albums — that’s where I picked up the album listed in my music, for example, as well as musicals like “Blitz!” and “A Dolls Life”, the music from the TV series Fame, the final Weavers album, and a obscure Big Daddy album.
I have another favorite used bookstore: Cliff’s Books in Pasadena. Cliff’s is around the corner from the Pasadena Playhouse, and practically across the street from Vromans (one of the largest independent bookstores in Los Angeles). Cliff’s has a very eclectic and large collection… and is open to midnight! We would often wander their aisles before the Playhouse. [I’ll note that while researching this post, I uncovered a new used bookstore: The Battery Used Books in South Pasadena.
It is important to support these establishments: the used bookstores, the independents. This is especially true these days, where we’re losing the big chains left and right (Barnes and Nobel has closed in Encino, and Borders is closing in Westwood Village). If the independents and used stores aren’t supported, they close (or at least close their storefronts), leaving us at the mercy of the chains. Let me give an example. Jerry Blaz was a long-time contributor to mail.liberal-judaism, the mailing list I used to run. He had a used book store (“The Bookie Joint”) on Reseda that closed. He’s survived by moving to the Internet.
As a last item on bookstores, let me mention another favorite independent. When we hit the Steve Allen Theatre, we love to have dinner at Fred 62 on Vermont, and hit the wonderful independent bookstore Skylight Books just a few doors down. I’ll also mention Books 5150 in Chatsworth, not that far from our house. This is a used bookstore tucked in the back of a shopping center.
Of course, when I go to a used bookstore, I don’t just get books. I often look for used LPs and CDs. I thought I’d mention a few of my favorite stores for used music shopping. The 800lb gorilla (well known to the Berkeley and San Francisco folks) is Amoeba Records. However, their Hollywood location is a pain to get to. If I’m on the westside, I like to go to Record Surplus on Pico—I’ve been getting used records their for years: $50 can get me 8-10 albums, many of them the obscure folk, rock, and cast albums I enjoy. Out here in the valley there is CD Trader down on Ventura in Tarzana and Second Spin, also on Ventura but in Sherman Oaks. Near home there is Orphaned CDs, but I find them to rarely have anything interesting in their stock. One place I’ve always wanted to explore, but never have, is Canterbury Records in Pasadena, near the Pasadena Playhouse.
Perhaps I have such a love of music and music stores because I haunted record stores in my youth. Growing up in West LA, with my parent’s office at Wilshire and Barrington, I was in walking distance from two great stores: Music Odyssey, which had new records downstairs and used records and pinball upstairs, and Licorice Pizza, which always had the newer stuff. My college days were when Westwood Village was a busy place, with multiple record stores including Tower Records, Warehouse, and Penny Lane records. [and let’s not forget Westwood’s bookstores, Pickwick (later B. Dalton), University Books, and A Change of Hobbit, in addition to the UCLA Bookstore, which is the only survivor, combined with the B&N at Westside Pavillion, which didn’t exist in my UCLA days]
So what are your favorites (in LA, if you live here, or whereever you live)? What is your favorite independent bookstore? Where do you go these days to find used books or used music?
