Another One Bites The Dust
Feb. 28th, 2019 09:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dinpikThere were three local bookstores I frequented growing up, two used, one new: Book Bin, Magina Books, Book Nook. I learned a little while ago that Magina Books closed, and that got me thinking about how much those stores meant to me. The malls had B. Daltons and Waldenbooks, but they weren't the same.
Book Nook was the first book store I remember going to; I must have been about eight. The outer wall that backed the parking lot was lined with magazines. Not just the usual magazines, but magazines for painting, knitting, poetry, stamp collecting, film, politics, counter-culture, farming -- you name it. The other walls had those metal holders for books, and there were three narrow aisles.
For years, Book Nook was my store. 'd order books (no extra charge, either). The staff grew to know me by sight, and then by name. I started buying my Marvel comics there. I picked up my first issue of Elfquest (#6) there. They sold candy at the counter, sometimes stuff that was hard to find locally. They had an "adult" area primly closed off so the only way to see the porn was to go around the counter and duck into it. And then there were the books.
One wall of nothing but the latest science fiction and fantasy, covers facing out. This was during the heyday of the midlisters, and I found some jewels back then. On the last visit in 2016 -- the year it closed -- the sf/fantasy selection was a single row.
Book Bin was used books and comics.You could get a book for a quarter with a trade-in when I persuaded my mother to take me up there when i was thirteen after she complained about all the trips to Book Nook(the trade-in cost was a dollar by the time it closed). Romances took up most of the space, but there were good-sized areas for other genres, including Men's Adventure, which was where all the Mack Bolan and such wound up. A teeny children's section, which sometimes would yield up copies of my favorites from grade school. Mostly it was Nancy Drew and picture books. The science fiction section never changed size. Some of the books never changed. There were books I'd seen when I first went there in 1979 that were STILL on the shelf when it closed almost forty years later! There were well-known names and names I'd never heard of. A lot of the latter had blurbs gushing about the book and/or writer. I always wondered what happened to those authors.
I didn't discover Magina Books until I was driving on my own,and working. And I needed to be working, because for the most part Magina's was the most expensive. Most of his books were hard-cover. A few were rare and collectors' item. Very small sf/fantasy shelves, a larger childrens' books area, and a ton of non-fiction. I think most of the books were non-fiction.
There was one exception to the limited sf, though. He would let me sit on the floor and dig through the boxes of books brought in that he hadn't sorted, and it was in these I found all of Thomas Burnett Swan's works. And I mean all. ( I don't have them anymore. I kick myself over that.)
There's a used bookstore right down the road from me. It's good, the people are nice, and I have an account with them --about $50 if memory serves. But it's not the same.
Book Nook was the first book store I remember going to; I must have been about eight. The outer wall that backed the parking lot was lined with magazines. Not just the usual magazines, but magazines for painting, knitting, poetry, stamp collecting, film, politics, counter-culture, farming -- you name it. The other walls had those metal holders for books, and there were three narrow aisles.
For years, Book Nook was my store. 'd order books (no extra charge, either). The staff grew to know me by sight, and then by name. I started buying my Marvel comics there. I picked up my first issue of Elfquest (#6) there. They sold candy at the counter, sometimes stuff that was hard to find locally. They had an "adult" area primly closed off so the only way to see the porn was to go around the counter and duck into it. And then there were the books.
One wall of nothing but the latest science fiction and fantasy, covers facing out. This was during the heyday of the midlisters, and I found some jewels back then. On the last visit in 2016 -- the year it closed -- the sf/fantasy selection was a single row.
Book Bin was used books and comics.You could get a book for a quarter with a trade-in when I persuaded my mother to take me up there when i was thirteen after she complained about all the trips to Book Nook(the trade-in cost was a dollar by the time it closed). Romances took up most of the space, but there were good-sized areas for other genres, including Men's Adventure, which was where all the Mack Bolan and such wound up. A teeny children's section, which sometimes would yield up copies of my favorites from grade school. Mostly it was Nancy Drew and picture books. The science fiction section never changed size. Some of the books never changed. There were books I'd seen when I first went there in 1979 that were STILL on the shelf when it closed almost forty years later! There were well-known names and names I'd never heard of. A lot of the latter had blurbs gushing about the book and/or writer. I always wondered what happened to those authors.
I didn't discover Magina Books until I was driving on my own,and working. And I needed to be working, because for the most part Magina's was the most expensive. Most of his books were hard-cover. A few were rare and collectors' item. Very small sf/fantasy shelves, a larger childrens' books area, and a ton of non-fiction. I think most of the books were non-fiction.
There was one exception to the limited sf, though. He would let me sit on the floor and dig through the boxes of books brought in that he hadn't sorted, and it was in these I found all of Thomas Burnett Swan's works. And I mean all. ( I don't have them anymore. I kick myself over that.)
There's a used bookstore right down the road from me. It's good, the people are nice, and I have an account with them --about $50 if memory serves. But it's not the same.
