Seek deserves to be called something really grandiose, like “a repository of pulp splendor.” Seriously, if you’re an sff fan (especially if you’re the kind who has slightly off tastes and whose favorite authors are generally out of print… not that I’d know anything about this) and ever in the Boston area, don’t miss it. Seek has character.

Old posters and figurines and ’90’s boardgames abound; it smells like the kind of paperbacks that have banana-yellow edges; many of the books are battered within an inch of their lives (and rightly so, since Seek specializes in pre-1970’s fiction). The owners are as much curators as booksellers: series are carefully sorted out of the morass and shelved together, books with particularly loved cover art are wrapped in plastic.

The smiley-face-sticker pricing system is fun (and yes, the prices are ridiculously good), though sometimes the stickers do end up pulling off bits of binding off the spine. (Kakaner & I were also a little alarmed that sorted series are sometimes rubber-banded together, which means that spines and covers inevitably get bent.)

That aside, I don’t know too many other places where I could come away with a stack of eighteen or so Tanith Lee novels (I exaggerate, but not significantly) in one trip. Kakaner and I have been here twice so far, and each time we always end up finding way more things that we’d like to buy than we thought we were actually looking for – odd editions of favorite children’s books, copies of classics with actually frightening cover art (that Zelazny novel… SHUDDER)…

Some more photos under the cut, including some unbelievable monuments of SFF publishing history/nerd conversation pieces:

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“We are internationally known specialists buying and selling important modern books and manuscripts with an emphasis on rare literature and primary works in the history of ideas in English, German, French, Spanish, Russian and other languages. Our shop features the most significant selection of 19th and 20th century Spanish language literature in the world, as well as important holdings of 17th and 18th century English poetry.”

Significantly fancy-pantsier than the bookstores that Kakaner and I usually feel comfortable rummaging through, clearly, but a fun taste of the high life. You enter this basement bookstore through a hushed, minimalistic art gallery (unaffiliated); the bookshop itself is similarly hushed and artsy.

Kakaner thought their prices ran a little high, for the books with which we were more familiar, but we had a good time regardless ogling such volumes as a first edition of Margaret Atwood’s The Edible Woman, another Atwood volume (forget which – K, do you remember?) that contained a handwritten letter of hers, and this J. Sheridan Le Fanu novel…

…with a seriously charming dedicatory doodle for someone named Phoebe:

Continue below the cut for a couple more photos:

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Book-repair station at the Strand in NYC; photo from when Kakaner and I visited together two years back.

One more photo of their upper (antiquarian) floor below the fold:

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“Books are priced as marked by the sticker on the front cover. If you find a book that you want, please pay for it by putting the money in the locked box. Honor System Books has been a part of Cambridge for over 5 years now. Thanks so much to YOU and this awesome community

THANK YOU!!”

Brattle Street, Harvard Square, Cambridge, MA. I’m not sure how often it’s there; I’ve walked by it maybe twice now on good-weather days this spring and summer.

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Really nice space, complete with small couch-y area and prints etc. by local artists. Decent selection of sff, great selection of YA. I forgot to check out the poetry section, which gives me a good excuse to go back ASAP. In general, really carefully organized and curated. Since they have a lot of floor space, they don’t have the slightly frantic, overstuffed feeling that most used bookstores end up having.

Loved all the extra-pretty old books selected for display:

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You might remember that back in January, I attempted a visit to Argosy (Old and Rare Books, Prints and Maps) in New York, only to find that it was unexpectedly closed for most of the month. Two weeks ago, Kakaner and I finally made it there together, this time in some borderline torturous heat and humidity. It proved to be possibly the handsomest bookstore I’ve ever visited:

Everything immaculately labeled and presented, and gorgeously lit. (You can also see the store’s namesake dangling from the ceiling in the above photo – I neglected to take a better photo of it, but it was a marvelous model.) Very rich, very Old World.

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Approaching the target (green banner spotted ahead):

And it is…

…CLOSED WHYYYYY. On top of having beautifully lit and presented displays out for me to stare at longingly through the bars, they even had a “New Year’s Sale!” prominently advertised. Well I can’t abuse my savings account on behalf of your sale if you’re CLOSED, can I?

So my visit to Argosy had to be put off to another time, but I did get to see some fun bookish things when my brother and I ducked into the New York Public Library to poke around.

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Just across the street from Books of Wonder is Skyline Books. We ducked in because a. it was raining and b. it was just across the street from Books of Wonder (duh).

It proved to be kind of dingy and smelled strongly of cat pee (the offending cat was later found under one of the bookshelves), but had some interesting stock and many knick-knacks. Kakaner and I both walked out with purchases.

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This past summer, Kakaner and I, plus another friend, went on a mini-tour of several independent bookstores in New York City. Chief among our destinations was Books of Wonder, which specializes in children’s and fantasy books, both new and collectible. I’d first seen some of their items at the New York Antiquities Book Fair in the spring, which is a subject for another entry, but I’d been enchanted even then by their gorgeous editions and collection of original cover art. Their actual location proved to be just as much fun.

My house will probably look like this one day.

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Our first stop was the Cambridge Salvation Army bookstore, where, if I recall correctly, Kakaner bought one paperback – but for the life of me I can’t recall what. The books were musty and disorganized, but the prices are incredible.

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