Friday, November 21, 2014

Book shopping in Southern California

Cat at Gatsby Books, Long Beach, Calif. Photos by Peter
Rozovsky, your humble blogkeeper.
Secondhand bookshops may not be the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of Southern California, but there are some good ones here. Gatsby Books in Long Beach, welcomes crime writers in to give readings, and I bought a handsome book on Long Beach architecture in its local-history section.

Booktown USA in Anaheim offers antiquarian books, a big mystery section, and shelves full of Western and men's adventure books, which one does not often see these days. I bought titles in the Executioner and Destroyer series, a Pocket Books edition of Donald Westlake's The Hot Rock, and a nice old hardback called Pictures of the Gold Rush, and I got change back from a twenty-dollar bill. You might well stop there on your way to Disneyland or the Mexican border. No cat there that I could find, though.

And, because one must keep up one's strength while buying books ...

(For more independent bookshops, go here. For more In-N-Out Burgers, go anywhere in Southern California. You can't miss them.)
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Don't let me forget Dave's Olde Book Shop, in Redondo Beach, where I bought Line of Fire, by Donald Hamilton.

© Peter Rozovsky 2014

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9 Comments:

Blogger seana graham said...

Was this the bookstore right across from the the Hyatt? I wanted to go in, but never quite found the time.

November 21, 2014  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

No, I visited the one across from the Hyatt Sunday afternoon, but that was not it. Gatsby is in Long Beach, but a good, long drive from the Hyatt.

November 22, 2014  
Blogger Rick Robinson said...

I've been to the one in Anaheim, and when you were there, you were close to Book Carnival in Tustin, which is an excellent mystery new/used store.

I sure do miss In- 'N'-Out Burger! Haven't had one since moving to Oregon, except for a trip to LCC last spring.

November 22, 2014  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

I'll keep Book Carnival on my list, though I may I have bought something from them at Bouchercon, where they had a table in the book room.

My meal at In-and-Out Burger was pretty damn good.

November 22, 2014  
Anonymous Shelley said...

Hard to find a better graphic than In n Out.

November 22, 2014  
Blogger Unknown said...

Long live the independent bookstores. We have none in my Redneck Rivera hometown, but we have a great used bookstore that somehow survives. We I given a choice, I would always prefer the used bookstores.

November 22, 2014  
Blogger Unknown said...

"Were I given a choice" is the correct phrase. Damn my increasingly senile mind, my cataract-clouded eyes, and my arthritic fingers -- bad recipe ingredients for blogging and comment.

November 22, 2014  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

Shelley: Yep. There's is lots of good mid-20th-century design all over Southern California. And all those neon signs!

November 23, 2014  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

R.T., I prefer to think that your fingers can't keep up with your mind. And I visited two more bookstores Saturday. This will likely constitute the substance of Sunday's post.

November 23, 2014  

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