Buckley’s Mix

Great Bookstores

Posted October 8, 2009, 19:10 ET Comments Off

Everyone has a list of favorite bookstores. But my list is of the best bookstores.

What are those, you say? Let’s start with a theory. We always need a theory. Mine is that, in the age of Amazon, there is no reason to visit a bookstore unless the bookseller can pick out interesting books one might otherwise miss. He is an informational intermediary, in the language of economists which I love.

On that basis, the best bookstore of which I know is the Seminary bookstore at 58th and University in the middle of the University of Chicago. Second place goes to Schoenhof’s on Mount Auburn in Cambridge MA. Third place goes to Nicolas Hoare on Wood Ave in Westmount Que.

Other little gems, the bookstore in the Milwaukee airport (!), Warwick’s in La Jolla, Nicolas Potter in Santa Fe.

Perhaps the worst bookstore in the world in Powell’s in Portland. Gems side by side with schlock, without discrimination. And the Strand bookseller on Broadway in NYC is little better.

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