Tattered Cover is in Colorado. The original is in Denver but they have 4 now. Are you maybe thinking of City Lights in San Francisco? City Lights is an iconic store. I loved visiting it.
I enjoyed the Last Bookstore in LA too but it is right downtown in a bit of a sketchy area. Pretty cool inside though. Very Instagrammable.
I really loved going to Barter Books an antiquarian book store in Alnwick UK. They were the ones who rediscovered the “Keep Calm & Carry On” poster from WWII in a trove of antiquarian stuff. It’s a really fab little store with a great little cafe too. Highly recommend if you’re ever in Northumberland.
I also enjoyed going to Foyle’s in London. Had some really great minted pea soup there in addition to many fabulous books.
We are fortunate to have 3 fab independent bookstores in my town. I go to all of them. They’re really good.
I’d like to visit Ann Patchett’s Parnassus books in Nashville sometime and Louise Erdrich’s Birchbark Books in Minnesota. Do y’all know of any other authors who own bookstores?
My most memorable book store store I visited was a used bookstore on the side of the road going west from Phoenix. I was working in the area and thought I’d look for a book on native trees. Well, I found one, but I also found the owner, who was a brown skinny leathery guy who was wearing nothing but a little pouch covering his jewels. Ok.
So I did some research and apparently he was quite famous. I think he passed a few years ago. But he was certainly memorable.
Ryan Holiday (non-fiction author primarily stoic philosophy) owns The Painted Porch in Texas.
Jeff Kinney (Diary of a Wimpy Kid books) owns a bookstore in Mass
I haven’t been to either unfortunately.
Our town’s independent bookstore is great, but we are trying to downsize which includes getting rid of thousands of books, so buying more books is not on the agenda right now.
This is by no means on a par with the great stores above but an excellent place to find romance paperbooks! Admittedly nearly all my books come from the library and mainly ebooks; we wouldn’t have room for more in the house.
Another vote for Strand in NYC. Years ago I had heard about it and their motto “miles of books” and so when I was in NYC I went to visit. It did not disappoint. Made me wish I lived in the area and could be a regular.
Jeff Kinney’s bookstore in Plainville MA, An Unlikely Story, is a wonderful place. He is using it as the cornerstone to rebuild the entire downtown. He gets the best authors to visit and I know people who work at the store and he is a wonderful and generous employer.
Another vote for the Strand and the Book Barn in Niantic - two places with more used book than you can possibly imagine.
When we vacation we frequently check out local bookstores (and libraries). I have been to several mentioned in this thread.
Books are Magic in Brooklyn is owned by author Emma Straub. I have not been, but have seen her speak a couple of times. She stepped in and bought the place when the previous owners were closing it. She couldn’t bare to see her local bookstore (she lives nearby) go under.
I will put up a few London recommendations for book loving tourists: Hatchards in Piccadilly Circus (bookstore to the Crown, from 1797), Foyles on Charing Cross (though it’s become a little more commercial recently), and if you’re into Science Fiction, Fantasy or Comics/Manga the awesome original Forbidden Planet on Shaftsebury Avenue (near Covent Garden). Of course Charing Cross Road and the little alleys nearby are also full of used-and-rare bookstores definetely worth a peek…
Children’s book stores would have to be on the top of my list. I can’t remember the name of it, but there used to be a kid’s bookstore in the mall near me, and my kids loved to go in there. It was fairly small, they would have seasonal displays, and it was just a nice place. My son was slow to start reading, but he got to middle school level within months of starting. He read a LOT, but he only wanted NEW books to read. I spent a lot on books for him.
I’ve been to Powell’s, but we just stopped in while we were on vacation, and it was a different experience than taking time to browse, reading a little, etc. I do remember finding a really good Indian restaurant very near there, back in 2012.
Really deep dive into Native authors and topics ,which makes sense for her and for the area. Also has an excellent selection of children’s books. I was glad we went , it is absolutely crammed full so the size is deceiving. There are also all sorts of notes stuck to the shelves about individual titles, which was super helpful