By: Scott S. Smith, Sandra Wells and Christian Smith
We believe reading books is a way to travel into new worlds and come back changed for the better. And when we do physically travel, we always read up on the destination’s history and culture to enhance the experience. To both ends, supporting independent bookstores is important, vital to neighborhood economies, and each is fun to browse. We previously highlighted West Hollywood’s Book Soup, Laguna Beach Books, North Hollywood’s Iliad Books, Burbank’s Aerobooks-Autobooks (where we once ran into Jay Leno), Sideshow Books and Chevalier’s Books south of Hollywood, and The Last Bookstore in downtown L.A. Here are some of our new discoveries:
Arcana: Books on the Arts
https://www.arcanabooks.com/ is in the Historic Helms Bakery District of Culver City and specializes in out-of-print and rare books, as well as anything you can imagine, but can’t find elsewhere, on art, photography, design, architecture, cinema, fashion, and music. But there are sections on tattoos, wildlife, oceans, typography, food, and more you might not expect with its focus. This is a serious collector’s paradise and some copies need to be unlocked before examination. Some titles you would be hard put to find elsewhere: See You at San Diego: An Oral History of Comic-Con, Fandom, and the Triumph of Geek Culture (see photo), Separate Cinema: The First 100 Years of Black Poster Art, The Children’s Guide to Astral Projection, The Birth of Rock and Roll: The Illustrated Story of Sun Records, Pattern and Flow: The Golden Age of American Decorated Paper 1960s to 2000s, and Interiors: The Greatest Rooms of the Century.
Skylight Books
https://www.skylightbooks.com/ in the hip shopping-restaurant neighborhood of North Vermont at Hollywood Blvd. hosts events for authors local and national and has lots of unusual, mostly new, titles and classics in their fields, even Translated Poetry and Literature. For its largely progressive fan base, there are Reading Lists on topics such as Trans Lives, Anti-Imperialism, Climate Change, and Stop Racism Against Asian and Pacific Islander Communities. There is also an Arts Annex with comics/graphic novels, magazines and zines, as well as books on photography, art, design, fashion, film, and music. Some that caught our attention: Breathing Fire: Female Inmate Firefighters on the Front Lines of California Wildfires, Speculative Los Angeles (the first in a new series of science fiction and fantasy visions of the future for localities), The Body Keeps Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, and On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe (see photo).
Taschen
https://www.taschen.com/en/stores/beverly-hills is a world-renowned publisher of large hardcover books about art, architecture, photography, music, and history, with its first store in the U.S. in Beverly Hills (designed by Philippe Starck) and an outlet in the Farmers Market at Fairfax and 3rth St. in Hollywood. On entry to the Beverly Hills location, one is struck by the signed limited edition prints on aluminum of eye-popping celebrity photos by Annie Leibovitz. Then there are the truly enormous volumes (the Sumo series) on subjects such as Elton John and the paintings of David Hockney. One about mythology needed to be handled only with white gloves (see photo). Other titles we found ranged from Sneaker Freakers: The Ultimate Sneaker Book and The Star Wars Archives: 1977-1983 to Ice Cold: A Hip Hop Jewelry History and Great Escapes Latin America: The Hotel Book. There is no other chain of high-end bookstores quite like it.
Books on the Boulevard
https://booksontheblvd.com/ pioneered the San Fernando Valley’s internet book sales in 1995, when Amazon had just started, and it has kept its store location in Sherman Oaks open for all those who love browsing used books in a real store. It specializes in hardcover non-fiction and fine literature and no one could spend an hour there without wanting to leave with a big bag of books. Here are some of the unusual titles we came across: How to Make Divorce Fun, Forbidden Archaeology’s Impact, Jazz Dance, Dog Tales: Classic Stories About Smart Dogs, Letters of Lewis Carroll Vols. I and II, Scientific Instruments of the 17th and 18th Centuries, The Making of the Wizard of Oz, all seven volumes of Emanuel Swedenborg’s Apocalypse Explained , and The Art of Maurice Sendak (see photos)
Claremont Forum Book Shop
https://www.claremontforum.org/ is a nonprofit used bookstore inside the Atrium near Claremont University which supports the Prison Library Project so the incarcerated have books to help them survive and thrive. The store also carries art and handmade products by locals, such as coffee mugs with names of books like The Satanic Verses and Huckleberry Finn. Some unusual titles that caught our fancy: The Bilingual Brain (see photo), Stem Cells for Dummies, Einstein and Religion, Latinos: A Biography of a People, Study Hall of Justice (DC Comics Secret Hero Society 1), and Journal of Henry David Thoreau Volumes I-VII 1837-1855.
Nan’s Pre-Owned Books
https://www.nanspreownedbooks.com/ in Grover Beach (near Pismo Beach on the central coast) has thousands of used volumes, most in very good shape and many seem virtually unopened, all at a good discount to the original price. We don’t generally mention specific fiction titles because that is of less interest to us, since we are always eager to absorb new information and insights about the less imaginative world, but if novels are your passion, this is Mecca. Browsing nonfiction randomly, these were some of the many that stood out: Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No, to Take Control of Your Life (the results of a 30-year scientific and clinical study of relationships by two doctors; see photo), Cesar Chavez: Autobiography of La Causa by Jacques Levy, Triumph of Spirit: Autobiography by Chief Penny Harrington (the first woman to become police chief of a major U.S. metro area), and Crossing the Continent 1527-1540: The Story of the First African American Explorer of the American South by Dr. Robert Goodwin.