Fairly small bookstore on Market Street — the cool thing is that nearly every book in the entire store is extremely good, and many of them are ones that I'd never seen before. Excellent selection of left-leaning nonfiction, and a lot of local SF and California history and nature.
Weird art books, political theory, mysticism, esotericism, philosophy, and more. Almost all used, much of it hard to find elsewhere. Going in here is dangerous for me since I consistently find books that I really want but do not have the space for.
Many very good art books and zines.
Abundant selection of zines, along with various leftist/occult/punk/etc books. Excellent.
Excellent anarchist bookstore. Great selection, great vibe, no notes.
Cooperatively-owned leftist bookstore and community space. Lots of different areas of leftist politics, gender, and good zines. They do what they do very well.
Nice little anarchist bookstore on Haight. The selection is fairly good mostly just by virtue of being a anarchist bookstore, but nothing super remarkable.
Small store with mostly used books on a variety of subjects. Reasonable mix of nonfiction and fiction, with a fairly large poetry section. The selection is extremely good, although I don't really have words to describe it (hence the name, I suppose).
Has a bit of everything — used and new, fiction and nonfiction, all sorts of subjects, but all well curated. Good place to look for a specific book or just to browse, which is a rare quality.
Excellent comics, graphic novels, etc. French and English. Very good curation, which is unsurprising, given that they're a independent publisher.
Bookstore / cafe / bar / publishing house focusing largely on poetry, but with reasonable selection of art, politics, etc as well.
Excellent used bookstore — fiction, art, philosophy, politics, and more. The curation is very good — I found lots of interesting books I'd never seen before. Good but small zine section.
Excellent used book store with a fairly eclectic but interesting collection. Good prices.
Lovely small poetry shop featuring a good variety of material.
Excellent store featuring old and rare books, maps, and prints. There's a very fun gallery of maps and other paintings on the second floor. Feels much more friendly and welcoming than most rare bookstores. There's also a more standard used bookstore in the basement, which is easy to miss but quite nice.
Large old and rare bookstore with interesting and fun books on a variety of subjects. They have a lot of books, and are friendly about you sitting there and reading them.
Anarchist bookstore, record store, venue, and community space. Not many books, and all focused on politics, but it's good stuff.
Well curated with a large selection in a cute space that seems to have lots of events. What more could you ask for?
Location visited: Seward Park
Independent comic/graphic novel publisher and store, with lots of zines as well. I don't read a ton of comics, but I still love visiting and browsing around.
Cute little used bookstore, with a good variety of sections. Well curated — even the obscure books look interesting. Small zine section that mostly has GenderFail and Cometbus, but some other gems as well.
Excellent used bookstore — good selection and prices, and the $1 vintage postcards are very fun to dig through.
Newly-opened mostly-used bookstore. The curation seems pretty good — the new book selection was better than most used bookstores, and I found some good used books I wouldn't have heard of otherwise. Also, I got a brand-new copy of Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows for $1, apparently because it was "too mathy" for them, so uh, I'll take it. Probably will move up half a star higher if they stick around for a while.
Volunteer-run Spanish and English bookstore, mostly focusing on Latinx/Black/Indigenous culture and politics. The curation is quite good. Mostly new, but there's a reasonably large shelf of used books as well, with a lot of gems.
Used and new books, largely focusing on activism and politics.
Beautiful art books, largely photography. I am often frustrated by art book stores, but enjoyed browsing here quite a lot.
More books on chess than I realized existed — historic games, openings, endgames, strategy, puzzles, and lots more. A small space (and hard to find), but packed with stuff. The eponymous Fred Wilson was friendly and interesting as well.
I have really mixed feelings about this one — it feels in a lot of ways like a standard new book store, which I don't like much, but the vibe is somewhat different and more welcoming. The curation is reasonably good, but not great — they have a lot of books that I like, but there are also a lot of subjects where they have a mediocre book on the subject and are missing a great book they could have instead. They also carry a few books that I think are bad and should not be sold. I dunno, man.
Used bookstore in a library basement, which seems strange and repulsive at first glance but is actually great, like a library book sale all the time. Reasonable selection and very cheap.
A bookstore full of old cookbooks and cooking implements. A wonderful place to browse through the strange history of cooking.
Little bookshop and cafe in the covered market, but their selection is shockingly good, with lots of books I actually want to read and relatively little bestseller faff, especially considering what one would expect in the location.
Independent bookstore in Chinatown mostly selling new fiction about immigrant identity and experiences (largely Asian). I think it's good and important, and the curation seems quite good, but I don't read enough fiction to really say too much about it.
Fancy and beautiful art books. A little too close to snobby, but still beautiful. Expensive, however.
Largely fancy art books, but a small, reasonably-curated selection of other books as well.
Used books, mostly fiction, but other subjects as well. The zine selection is quite good, and they have some old magazines that are interesting to flip through.
Small new bookstore in a coffeeshop featuring BIPOC and trans authors. Lots of fiction and poetry.
Bookstore specializing in old books, mostly focusing on United States history, baseball, and politics. There's a lot of really interesting stuff here, but much of it is interesting in the sense of “Oh wow people sure believed some really fucked up stuff,” so browser beware.
One of the better cookbook stores I've been to, lots of selection and interesting things.
Better than average for a new bookstore, although it has some of the usual faff. Large kids section.
Location visited: Summertown
Everything is £5, which is really nice to see. Not the best selection, but I'm willing to accept that.
A fairly normal new bookstore. There are lots of staff picks, and the staff seem to have fairly good taste, which is excellent to see.
Seems like a nice little indie bookstore, but it's hard to imagine choosing to go here instead of going around the corner to Left Bank Books.
Used books in precarious piles, mostly fiction. A good vibe and relatively good selection for a used bookstore.
Cute used bookstore run by a old retired couple in my hometown. The selection is just okay, but it's cute and I have a lot of nostalgia for it.
Used books and vinyl. Huge variety of subjects, not all of which are very interesting to me, but most of which are clearly very interesting to someone. Requires a lot of digging around to find anything, but there are some good gems. The space is cluttered and overflowing with books in a very cozy sort of way.
Gets some points for the shock factor of just how large it is, but come on, you can't have good curation when you have this many books.
Bookstore selling mystery novels and related genres. Not my jam, but I'm glad it exists, and the decor is good.
Very small Black, feminist, queer bookstore and cafe, largely new. The selection and curation seems pretty good, especially given the space available. Has a large children's book section.
I really like this place, but it's much more a coffeeshop than a bookstore, and I'm rating it as a bookstore. Has mostly periodicals and art and architecture books, although there's a smattering of other topics as well. The selection is very small, but there's interesting and beautiful stuff. I was frustrated by their "no photos of the books" policy.
Overpriced but beautiful art books.
On a purely aesthetic level, I want so deeply to hate this place — podcasting is and should remain a slightly shameful thing, and it's a new bookstore, but… they have (and highlight) a surprising number of really good books. It's not amazing, but it's way better than I'd expect for a bookstore of this style.
Used bookstore with a lot of interesting obscure books. There is also a abundance of annoying books that I don't like here, but the interesting ones do counterbalance that. Small, but it's possible to spend a lot of time browsing. Bumped this rating down half a star upon revisiting, since both the ratio of good to bad books and the prices have gotten significantly worse than I remember.
This space seems really cool and I want to like it, unfortunately many of the books are just bad. Mostly used, with a few new.
Large kids and teens bookstore. I don't really know how to properly evaluate it since I don't know any modern children's books but it seems fine?
Very small but interesting selection of design and typography books, largely published by Standards Manual itself. However, the books do not have prices listed, and I'm certain that they would be brutally expensive were I to ask.
Disorganized used bookstore with a lesbian and radical bent. I imagine it'd be somewhat hard to find anything specific here, but there are many fun surprises for a browser.
Small bookstore with a nice selection of all sorts of things, but their politics and children's sections seem particularly good.
Fairly standard charity bookshop, but I found some real gems here.
Location visited: Oxford
Very old rare bookstore, focusing on religious books. If that's what you want, it seems great, but it's not for me.
Pretty normal independent bookstore. I like the space, and I'm nostalgic for it, since it's in my hometown, but it's nothing special.
It gets some points for being so old and ~historic~ but here's the thing: the beats were and are not that good, so I'm not really that interested.
Small, mostly used bookstore + cafe. Some interesting books, but nothing to write home about. They have a fairly wide variety of genres.
Pretty normal used bookstore. I wasn't terribly impressed with the selection, but it was alright. A reasonable children's book section.
I like Housing Works, and really want to like their bookstore, but… the selection is just not that great.
Used books on a variety of topics, but there is a particularly large food / gardening bent. Also sells pickles. Their art / photography books were pretty interesting, but I found the rest of the store underwhelming.
Yet another bookstore/cafe that is more cafe than bookstore. I like the space a lot, but the books just are not that well-curated.
Bookstore / metaphysical supply store. Has books on mysticism, meditation, crystals, esotericism, etc, as well as tarot decks, crystals, essential oils, etc. Not my favorite vibe, but does a reasonable job at being the thing it is.
Cute new bookstore with fairly reasonable but not outstanding curation. Has a small kid's section.
Slightly above average but fairly typical new bookstore. The LIC location has a large kid's section on the lower floor.
Location visited: Book Culture LIC
Bookshop featuring scripts for plays. Also has a coffeeshop and some nice seats to sit and read in.
Bookstore in a fancy art museum, good for what it is.
Woo-woo / occult / spiritual bookstore / crystal / incense shop. One of the more reasonable such shops, in my opinion.
This is a super cute space, but the books are just okay. There feels like there should be a lot of good stuff here, but it's a lot of various “classic” books and not that much interesting or unusual.
Various art books in a very small room. Seems fine, nothing too inspiring.
Used bookstore absolutely overflowing with books. There's a lot of the usual flotsam you get at a used bookstore, but the sheer volume somewhat makes up for it.
Cute used bookstore with a abundance of books. Has a odd combination of books that seem very interesting and books that seem very uninteresting — whatever process they use to pick which books to take seems quite strange.
Books do not nearly live up to the aesthetic.
Mediocre.
I first visited the “Sci-fi, Manga & Games” store, which was extremely small and mostly seemed to sell things like figurines. From there I went to the Broad Street location in Oxford, which tries to impress you with the cavernous basement filled to the brim with books, but the books would need to be better for that to really have the intended effect.
Locations visited: Blackwell's Sci-fi, Manga & Games; Oxford Broad Street
Nice decor but mediocre and confusing selection of books.
They sure have a lot of books here. Fine if you want something specific, but not really a good place to browse. Extremely overrated.
Yet another independent bookstore selling mostly new books with mediocre curation. Was a good place to pick up books when I lived in Soho, and the vibe is nice (there's a cafe attached which I haven't really been to much to be honest), but nothing really that special.
Popular independent bookstore, mostly new. The selection is honestly mediocre, but I hear that they run good events.
Independent bookstore, mostly new. The selection is sort of mediocre, mostly just a lot of what you would expect to be popular for like, residential Brooklynites, but it was a perfectly fine bookstore to order books for pickup and look around in when I lived in Clinton Hill.
Locations visited: Fort Greene; Prospect Lefferts Gardens
This is really more of a bar that also sells some books. The curation seems like it's somewhere between okay and mediocre — it's fairly focused on fiction which makes it hard for me to tell exactly, and it seems to largely be focused on fiction that's popular with Manhattanites trying to be trendy. The bathrooms are wallpapered with pages of Harry Potter, which is thankfully covered by a little bit of anti-TERF graffiti, but not as much as you'd hope.
Independent bookstore with a variety of subjects, mostly new. I didn't find much of interest here, but it's also been a while since I've been. Has a large children's section, so probably quite good if you're looking for that.
Your standard independent bookstore selling new books. Mediocre selection. There's a reasonably sized kids section and teens section.
Fairly normal independent bookstore selling new books. Largely fiction, but a few shelves of other stuff as well. I like their small books rack, but overall I wasn't terribly impressed. It seems like most of their books do not have price tags on them which is pretty strange to me.
Typical small independent new bookstore. I was not very impressed. The books on the table in front were organized by color, which is never a good sign, and the curation was not very good.
Cookbook store and cafe. I wasn't terribly interested in the cookbooks they had, but then again, I'm not a big cookbook sort of person.
Bookstore / cafe featuring books on Black culture, history, politics, etc. The selection is quite small and I think not as good as it could be — I was especially dubious of many of the choices in the self-help section.
Pretty normal new bookstore. More fiction than nonfiction, but there's a mix. Nothing really special.
Normal new bookstore. Nothing really special, a slight tilt towards leftist stuff but not any more than you'd expect from a bookstore in NYC.
New books — the space is beautiful but the selection of books is just okay.
Animal-themed novelty bookstore. Not terribly impressive, but the store cat is quite cute. Also, your illustrated copy of Strunk & White doesn't count as "animal related" just because there's a picture of a dog on the cover!
Japanese import store (?) with a decently-sized manga section. I'm not a weeb so I can't say too much about the curation.
Location visited: Brooklyn
Typical mall-style new bookstore. I went to the Industry City location which was quite small, maybe the other locations are bigger. Seems to focus largely on popular/bestselling books. It almost got a extra half-star for having a copy of Up Your Ass by Valerie Solanas but even that is not enough to save it, to be honest.
Location visited: POWERHOUSE @ IC
Fairly standard small independent bookstore selling new books, mostly focusing on popular titles. Has a small children's section.
So, the elephant in the room here is that this is a Black supremacist conspiracy theorist cult whose leader (who claims to be a alien from the planet Rizq) is in prison for trafficking and child sexual molestation. However, if you want to gawk at some strange conspiracy theorist literature, this is a good place to do that.
Store selling rare / first edition / etc books. Most of them are not very good books being sold for hundreds of dollars, but there is a bit of interesting stuff.
A Japanese bookstore selling new books and weeb stuff. The ground floor of the NYC location is all English, and largely pretty uninspiring, the upstairs is the “weeaboo containment area,” as one customer aptly put it while I was visiting, and the downstairs is mostly Japanese books.
Location visited: New York
So this is like, I think a bookstore for for a cult or at least a organization that is very cult-like, but unfortunately not a super interesting one. Probably ~80% of the books are by Rudolf Steiner, so if you don't like his style, you're pretty out of luck. Which, like, I guess it's what it says on the tim, but it wasn't what I wanted it to be.
Fairly standard stuffy rare bookshop.
Location visited: New York Gallery
Mostly French. Seems normal.
Weird christian bookstore with some alien/conspiracy stuff as well. Apparently was the location of a popular Netflix show? The cute cats bump up the rating a bit.
Fairly ordinary new bookstore with trinkets and gifts and such. Has a local authors section, which is nice, and staff picks, but no section for those.
Palestinian-owned bookstore in a mall. Has a lot of airport-bookstore type of books, but there are some interesting things as well, including a reasonably large children's section.
Used bookstore with some interesting stuff, but the ratio of interesting to uninteresting was not quite what I wanted.
Cafe/bar and new bookstore. It's very cozy, but the book selection seems mediocre.
Basically a normal new bookstore, maybe slightly above average for the type of thing it is but nothing special.
Pretty standard chain bookstore. Maybe slightly better selection than is usual for that, but it's hard to say. Forgettable.
Location visited: Oxford
Interesting looking books in a aesthetic space, but they're all wrapped up so you can't flip through them before buying, so I can't rate it very highly.
Hey, just because they weren't that great it doesn't mean I can't be sad they're gone!
Location visited: Davis, CA
It's Barnes & Noble. You know. They've got a lot of books, the curation is "whatever we can make the most money selling". It's fine.
Textbooks, NYU apparel, and other miscellaneous stuff you'd expect at a campus bookstore. It's fine.
Look, if you're in Lake Placid and you want to buy a book, here's the place to do it. There was some stuff that was interesting — it's better than, like, a airport bookstore — but nothing really special. Some Adirondack nature guides are probably the most interesting non-bestseller stuff.
This is really more of a metaphysical supply store that also sells some books. The vibes are very Instagram-witch, which I'm… not a fan of. I really really hope NYC has better occult bookstores than this.
Chelsea Market is a yuppie hellscape and this bookstore is no exception.
Typical small new bookstore clearly branching out into various knickknacks in the struggle to survive. The curation seems to be whatever they think they can sell the most of. Has a reasonably large kid's section.
Marc Jacobs' bookstore, selling new art / fashion / music books. Lots of Joan Didion, Andy Warhol, David Bowie, etc. I fuckin hate the NYC art scene, man.
A bookstore in the lobby of the BlackRock office building dedicated almost entirely to books by and about Winston Churchill, with small sections on wine and sports cars. I would rate this at half a star, but the sheer shock of the psychic experience of walking into this place is worth something, I guess.
Small and crowded new bookstore with a fairly bad selection of books.
Location visited: Upper East Side
Normal mediocre new bookstore.
Pretty standard comic book shop in a way that makes me slightly uncomfortable. Gets half a star extra for the cute cafe section in the back, though.
Extremely small bookstore in a little curbside shelter. Associated with the Players Theatre, so there are some plays, general-interest books, etc, but the selection is extremely small and mostly uninteresting to me.
A small rare book shop with a boring collection of leather-bound classics. They don't seem to much want you to be there if you're not some fuckin Wall Street analyst looking to spend thousands of dollars on old books for clout.
I'm not even sure if this really counts as a bookstore but it's very bad regardless.
Location visited: Oxford
Barely a bookstore, mostly a gift shop.