Boo Radley’s

232 N. Howard St.

Just as Tinman Gallery isn’t a bookstore per se, nor is Boo Radley’s, which is located across the street from the Rotary Club fountain on Riverfront Park. Boo Radley’s has to be Spokane’s preeminent novelty gift shop, as it has won multiple awards from both The Inlander and Spokane Coeur d’Alene Living, and probably eventually will from the new Spokane Metro Magazine (not to be confused with Metro Spokane, a wonderful blog that is now sadly defunct).

The first time I walked into Boo Radley’s a few years ago, I was instantly overwhelmed by the cluttered nature of the store. I also loved it.

Yes, it’s the Gangsta Rap Coloring Book.  It’s exactly what it says.  A coloring book.  Of rappers.

This should be required reading for every true American.  On the back cover:

“A must-have paean to the archtypical American male and a bible of everything Chuck.  The Truth About Chuck Norris is easily the most important book of all time.”

I doubt truer words have ever been spoken.

And now, a pair of books you’d expect to find at any other bookstore in Spokane other than Boo Radley’s.  Seriously?  Did they just throw in a couple of Wonder Books to even out the weirdness in this store?

Yes, I am somewhat partial to Boo’s. I own a couple of their t-shirts, including a reproduction Expo 74 one.  This a great place to shop for yourself or someone else. Look at the books there. You’ll be both amazed and bewildered.

Northwest Map and Travel Book

525 W. Sprague Ave.

(City-County of Spokane Historic Preservation Office)

The Symons Block, built from 1917 to 1918 and listed on the Spokane Register of Historical Places, is home to Northwest Map and Travel Book.  It sits on the corner of Howard St. and Sprague Ave., next door to the Lorinda Knight Gallery, and across the street from the former Rookery Block.

But be forewarned—this is no AAA.  This store has a much grittier feel to it.  Walking inside, I was greeted by a friendly salesclerk behind the counter.  In front of me were maps, maps, and more maps.  City maps.  County maps.  Historic maps.  Huge maps.  Small maps.  World maps.  At least a third of the store is a workspace for cutting and laminating maps to customers’ specifications.

There are a ton of travel books as well, taking up a good portion of one wall of the store.  There are travel guides from well-known publishers such as Fodor’s and Lonely Planet, along with more unique and one-of-a-kind books on a certain traveling subject.  The shelves are lined with quick reference foreign language books as well.  I saw books that covered the globe—the Americas, Asia, and Europe.  There was also a section with boating books of all kinds.  There are probably books on other travel sports, but I didn’t look hard enough, I suppose.

This is a great store.  I was the only potential customer in there the entire time, but I hope this store does get business.  It’s a great source to have in downtown Spokane.  So next time you’re in the travel section of Border’s, think twice.  Buy local—and come to Northwest Map and Travel Book. 

Rae’s Book Exchange

6512 N. Division St.

Tucked in between a sleepy K-Mart and a long-forgotten Chinese restaurant in the middle of North Spokane sprawl is Rae’s Book Exchange. It’s essentially the suburban version of Book Traders: just as wide, and about as deep as the main room in the Garland bookstore.

All paperback books (well, most of them) sell for half the cover price.  You can get credit for ones you turn in, but hardcovers and newer books in general are priced as marked.

  

Some older paperbacks don’t sell for the cover price, considering they probably cost less than a dollar when they were new.  Rae’s has a shelfful of old paperback novels, shrink-wrapped for protection. The ones I picked up and looked at sell for about the same price as a new paperback.

There are also collections of books on top of the shelves.  No, that’s not a set of encyclopædias.  It’s a set of dictionaries.  You know you want them.

Rae’s Book Exchange is a forgotten little bookstore in North Spokane.  Go there.

Tinman Gallery

811 W. Garland Ave.

On the same block as Book Traders (and same side of the street) is Tinman Gallery, next door to The Ruby Slipper, which is owned by the same person. Are you seeing a theme here? All we need now is Club Oz and the Garland District will be complete.

As I opened the front door, I fell onto a scene of people on the lower level actively involved in an art demonstration put on by a local artist.

Walking up the stairs leads to the gallery’s bookstore, which is half a floor above the main level. Above the shelves of books sit works by a regional artist; this month it’s George Flett, whose medium is the ledger. I believe he was the one putting on the art demonstration I walked into.

While the bookstore does have an art section, it isn’t the main part of the store nor do I think is it the point of the store. The art leads people to the books, and vice versa. At the simplest, it’s just a tiny independent bookstore. Think Auntie’s, on whatever the opposite of steroids is.

This is not the kind of bookstore you can go to for a specific item. It’s definitely a browsing store. But that doesn’t mean you won’t find something interesting.

The book selection here is very eclectic. There are art books, books by currently-featured artists, and books you may have never seen before.

Titles mostly by current artist George Flett and Sherman Alexie.

One half of the bookstore is the kids’ section. This is an amazing book. The words are the only part of the book that isn’t black. The pictures are raised off the page so you can feel them, like a blind person would—and yes, in addition to white words it’s also in braille.

Seriously, how long will it be before we run out of human activities for our anthropomorphic mammalian friends to do? I was perfectly happy stopping at mooses (meese?) and muffins.

Yes, it’s the famous Elements of Style. And yes, it now has pictures. To help you write, of course.

Unfortunately, the interior of the book is not nearly as colorful as the cover. Only words inside.

This is a great place to visit. So next time you’re in the Garland District and you want to browse somewhere other than Book Traders, head on over to Tinman Gallery.

Book Traders: Chapter Two

907 W. Garland Ave.

With the snow mostly receded from the sidewalks and streets, the Garland District is once again navigable and walkable, thus I felt it was necessary to make a trip back to Book Traders.  Last time I went there it was closed due to the nonstop snow.

But business was as usual when I visited today.  At one point there might have been ten customers in the building.  The two storekeepers were kept busy today.

The buildings on Garland Avenue aren’t that wide, but they stretch back a long way, and Book Traders is no different.  The store is split into two main sections.  As you enter, the front section has fiction split into different genre nooks on the right.  Nonfiction is on the left.

Walking up a ramp leads you into a slightly elevated room, which has more nonfiction on the left, and children’s books beyond that.  Science fiction is on the right as you walk up.  The rest of the room is taken up by romance titles.  And it’s a big room.  It seems to go back forever.

Romance books are stacked on the floor.  Romance books are stacked horizontally over vertically-stacked romance books.  Romance books are stacked on horizontally-stacked romance books over vertically-stacked romance books.  Ladies: take them.

This has to be my favorite part of the store: the giant hanging heater.  As I stood at least 10 feet away from it to take this picture, I could feel the hot air blowing out.  If I had all day to spend here I could totally curl up next to the heater and read.

In addition to tight book stacking in the back room, the front room is full of boxes of books stacked on top of each other.  There is a ton of overflow at Book Traders.  I don’t know if that’s because business was uncertain during the snow storms and they have a surplus of unsold stuff, or if they might just be hurting due to the recession.

While the prices aren’t as cheap as you’d find at other places, the selection is vast, so head on over to Book Traders and relieve them of some of that overflow, and help your local economy in the process.

Auntie’s Bookstore

402 W. Main Avenue

Not until the beginning of Downtown Spokane’s economic and cultural renaissance did I really find a reason to travel to the Lilac City’s urban core, and by then, it was down to few bookstores.  The main remaining one, however, was not a chain store; B. Dalton’s had long since disappeared from Main Avenue.  While many buildings were razed due to urban “renewal,” the Liberty building was not, and as a result, Auntie’s Bookstore has been in its current location since 1993, moving from 313 W. Riverside.

The largest independent bookstore in Spokane, Auntie’s is located in the Kemp & Hebert Building (later renamed The Liberty), which was built in 1908 and is on both the National and Spokane Register of Historical Places.  It also houses Uncle’s Games and a small café.  It’s a great example of mixed-use development downtown on a fairly empty block.

Auntie’s is probably the most active bookstore in town in terms of the surrounding community.  In addition to holding frequent book readings, the bookstore is also known for helping the city and county libraries to put together the annual Spokane is Reading event.

Oh, and just as a heads up, Auntie’s also has a new, smaller storefront in the main concourse of the Spokane International Airport.

2nd Look Books

2829 E. 29th Ave.

While a lot of the bookery action is north of I-90, there’s at least one place I know of on the South Hill that caters to the literature-starved denizens of Spokane.  And that is 2nd Look Books.

Let me mentioned that while yes, it was getting dark outside when I took the picture of the storefront, it’s located on a strip mall in the middle of Lincoln Heights, so you should be able to find it.  The store itself is located in the center of the strip mall.

Many local bookstores have come and gone as the times have changed, and walking to the corner bookstore has gone the way of the Caribbean Monk Seal, with Internet sites such as Amazon.com and the venerable AbeBooks.com allowing people to order books without leaving their homes.

It looks like 2nd Look Books is here to stay.  Founded by the late Ann Simpson in 1982, the store claims to have over a mile and a half of bookshelves, which translates to over 100,000 books in over 200 categories.

This is the fiction section.  This is also the entire ground floor.

2nd Look Books doesn’t just have aisles.  It also has compass directions.  And units.  I have no idea what the units are for, but they seem to be really meticulous here.

The basement has gradually been expanded over the years.  Just after descending the stairs you will find a back room dedicated to text books, though I don’t know how good the selection is.  It’s a big room, but I think it caters mostly to homeschooling parents.  On the other side of the basement is a new room dedicated to coffee table books and old leather-bound hardcovers on the side.  But alas, no old leather-bound hardcover coffee table books.

Under new ownership, the book store has received a very noticeable yellow paint job in the fiction section upstairs and on the rear stairwell (yes, there’s more than one), and the former shoe repair nook has been replaced with an additional rest room.

I highly suggest 2nd Look Books.  It’s been in Spokane for decades, so make it a side trip the next time you visit Manito Park or are otherwise on the South Hill.

Cal’s Books

2174 N. Hamilton St.

Cal’s Books is on the corner of a quiet street on Hamilton.  The storefront is a mishmash of styles with a big sign and a giant storybook on the front.  Very kitschy.  Inside, most of the building is occupied by the bookstore.  The main part of the store looks to have nothing but fiction, and the back room has nonfiction of all types, with seats if you want to take a break and read.  Between these two areas is a small but significant DVD section, which you don’t see in bookstores like these a lot.

There always seems to be a few people perusing the shelves when I visit.  Yes, this store is a bit out of the way, and it’s not like Garland where you can go to the Milk Bottle for lunch and then hit up the theater for a movie after perusing Book Traders, but Cal’s is a unique store in a sleepy part of town that time seems to have forgotten.  It’s just there.

Book Traders

907 W. Garland Ave.

Located in a small, nondescript brick building about halfway down the main drag of Garland is Book Traders.  This cozy store consists entirely of used books, though they usually go for just half the cover price.  Books are also available for trade; turned in books get you 75% of the cover price for credit.  With that credit, regular paperback books cost 60¢ plus tax.

I wasn’t able to explore the store today because the owner lives on the other side of town and the freakish winter weather has made it fairly inconvenient for daily commuting, but from what I can remember this is a pretty quiet store.  Whenever I visit there usually aren’t more than a few other people there, but it still manages to survive.  The main room has your general fare of fiction and a wall full of hardcovers—well-known stuff.  Walking up a ramp leads to a back room with more obscure titles, where science fiction and pretty much any other genre seem to combine.

Sure, this place isn’t anything near the scale of Auntie’s or similarly-sized stores in Spokane, but it’s worth a look if you find yourself on Garland sometime.  Besides, all those stuffed animals in the front windows are strangely entrancing …