Your Favorite Book Source

Over the weekend, Urqh pm'd me about a idea he had and darn it, if it wasn't a good one! (yes I'm as surprised as you are!)

He proposed a place where all us Rogues could post a listing of our favorite book seller's. Places where we have shopped and gotten either great service or something we wanted.

For those interested pease include the following,

Store/shop/site
Name
Location
Telephone number or web address
and any thing you think we might need/like to know.

Thanks

Darrell

 

Are you sure this isn't a clever ruse to steal all our good book shopping spots?

 

Urqh gouldn't be that devious...could he?

 

London's Charing Cross Road ( not the new, 'Foyles', end - the other, cheapo end ). Any Amount, Henry Pordes and ( best of all ) Quinto's are all right next door to each other and another two minutes brings you to the very good 'remaindered' bookstore on the corner of Old Compton Street.

 

Charming....Yep...I do book stalls and charity shops as well as internet etc...But I also find wandering into a good bookshop is half the enjoyment...

This one....My own favourte

Coach House Books01386 552801Email Enquiry46 High Street
Pershore
Worcestershire
WR10 1DP
United Kingdom

Is worth a visit by member if they ever pass thru this small market town. The entrance is a bookshop, nothing great about that...walking thru to counter finds local history, geography, the usual but quite selective on non fiction..

The prize is at the rear....second hand good condition books mostly military history...with ww2 covered more than most of the rest of floor space. Local history, and my new hobby medieval history books old and new...and lots I have had on my list for years and not found. Plenty of chairs around the walls to sit on and browse. No can I help you sir...but will gladly search on your behalf if you ask.

A massive wall full of ww2 classic histories of all nations. Brilliant. Why they don't have a internet site I'll never know..but if you can't find something on your list..mail em...and ask..They probably have it. If they ever have a closing down sale...I'll buy the lot.

 

Follow the link - 213 free books on military history. That's just today. There will be a different number available tomorrow. Some of the books will be on that list every day and others will show up just for a day or a few days. If you change the search matrix to look for 99 cent books, then you'll have a list of thousands of books including some very obscure texts that would be very difficult to find in a book shop.

People are taking out of copyright books and adding them to the pile for the magnificent sum of free, or 99 cents (greedy bastids!). You won't find a lot of good WWII books in those lists because copyrights are active for at least 90 (?) years, but there's a lot of very good 18th and 19th century (and earlier) works out there that can't be found anywhere else.

Amazon.com: free kindle books - -0 / Military / History: Kindle Store

 

Oh well, as urqh has put a gem in, I'll disclose a couple of well-kept secrets : -

Two Jays Bookshop, 119 High St (A5), Edgware, Middx HA8 7DB ( near the RAF Museum )

and

Eric T Moore, 24 Bridge Street, Hitchin, Herts SG5 2DF ( just off the A1 )

These are fine old-style secondhand bookshops from both of which over the years I've had some great 'finds' ( I'll never forget seeing the privately-printed Club Route : 30 Corps In Europe in Two Jays window for a tenner ). Both have several book-cases devoted to WWII subjects......

( Any Forum members seen sneaking in there to grab some of 'my' bargains will be shot on sight... )

 

Don't think a few thousand kindles would look the same on me old bookshelves...but I'll give it a go.

 

The newer Kindles will hold 30,000 (!) books. I find that incredible. You can back them up on a hard drive so if you leave your Kindle out in the rain you'll always have the books. It's an incredible resource. A couple of years back I found myself interested in early African exploration and went nuts downloading old books by people like Sir Samuel Baker. The original paper books would cost $100 each, but it's all free now if you have a Kindle.

 

Like others, I tend to visit local used book stores as well as making use of the internet sources. I've just started hunting down ebooks online.

 

I'm still in a state of shock. While I recover, here's my list:

First off, there's nothing special here. These are all essentially brand-name stores, but some do a better selection than others.

World's Biggest Bookstore
The appeal: allegedly (I've never measured) 20+km of shelves covering basically every topic imaginable. The second floor has a very large military history selection. There aren't a lot of rare books here, but I guarantee that you'll find at least 1 book to buy.
20 Edward Street, Toronto, Ontario
(416) 977-7009

Barnes and Noble (Poughkeepsie, New York)
The appeal: Out of all the Barnes and Nobles I have been too, this has one of the best WWII/military history sections. Nothing special, but better than the average 'big box' bookstore.
2518 South Road Poughkeepsie, NY
845-485-2224

A few non-bookstores with a good selection of WWII Literature:

National Museum of the United States Air Force
The appeal: Have you ever wanted to be in a large store that only sold military aviation titles? This is (likely) the only place! There's a wide selection, covering everything from recent bestsellers to obscure studies and technical works. Last time I was there I picked up a very good book on the Horton Brothers that you would be hard-pressed to find in any other bookstore.
1100 Spaatz St Dayton, OH
[TABLE="class: ts intrlu, width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD]937-255-3286
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

The Spitfire Emporium (yes, you read that correctly)
The appeal: A small store that has a strong focus on everything Spitfire-related. This includes a good book collection featuring many hard to find titles. Plus it has a 1:1 scale replica of a Spitfire on the roof.
666 Victoria Street North, Kitchener, Ontario
(519) 745-2661
The Spitfire Emporium

I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for, but I feel obliged to put a 'plug' in for the following sites:

Amazon.com
The appeal: Essentially any book can be ordered early in the week, and you'll have it in time for the weekend. The downside is that you really have to know what you're looking at before you buy -- its hard to 'browse' online!
Amazon.com: Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more

eBay.com
The appeal: I've picked up a few older and/or out-of-print titles here. If you look around, you can find them fairly cheap as well -- I recently got a signed (non personalized, which is significantly harder to find) copy of Curtis LeMay's memoirs for a very good price.

 

The Aviation Bookshop

Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England



http://www.aviation-bookshop.com/hub.htm

 

And Tunbridge being so close to Biggen Hill? Or thereabouts..Least I think I stayed there one Battle of Britain Day after the airshow. I'll certainly look that bookshop up when I'm down there again.

 

As I've said, and others have said before, I just like the feel of a book in my hands. I'll get a Kindle or Nook* or something one day, the convenience does appeal...But I just love books. I love the books filling my two bookshelves on either side of my fireplace and spilling about the various rooms in my house. How will an electronic reading device ever rival that?

So, it's books for me, for now. Anywhere there are books, I look at them. Libraries, bookstores, used bookstores, department stores, I'll even thumb through them at people's houses, if they have any.

However, my automatic go-to place to purchase has become Amazon. Choice, convenience and cost have all conspired to make it my greatest vice.


*Is it just me, or when Lou said he gets most of his book on the Nook, did that sound a little, um, naughty or dangerous? In varying ways which I won't go into...And I believe that everyone here has sufficient imagination, anyhow. Okay, maybe it was just me.

(Sorry, Lou, it just made me giggle a bit when I read it....No offense intended.)

 

Nope...I had visions of Lou with a hood pulled up...Exchanging dollar bills on an icy stairwell with steam rising from the road as he is handed a brown paper bag....Mein Kampf and Pearl Harbor...the conspiracy files....Then he shiftly looks around...walks to end of street...Taxi...taxi...And he's off to coffee, muffins, and unwrapping his parcel in the conservatory, fire blazing in the next room...dog on lap...and opens package...Bugger...someone wrapped a brick up in brown paper...

Lou use a library mate...like the rest of us.

 

Powell's Bookstore in Portland ,Oregon, US. is one fine bookstore. It has a great many military books and occupies a full city block at it's main downtown store, 1.6 acres of books in a nice messy bookstore sort of way. One can spend hours there browsing new and used books.

There website:

http://www.powells.com/