Finding Books in New York City
Reflections on my favorite bookstores in NYC and the books I've gotten there
There’s a line in the Beetlejuice musical that goes, “There are two kinds of people in this world: new car smell people and old book smell people. And we are old book smell people.”
I saw the Broadway show several times, and it’s a line that always made me smile. “Old book smell people.” It’s a perfect way to capture the musicalized Maitland couple, who are as cheerful together in life as in death, and love not only the book but also the book’s history. It seems to capture me a little bit, too.
Books hold a mystical power for me. While I have gotten lost in one before, I can also be a slow and procrastinating reader. The power is often in the object, not the content. That book. Some of my favorite books I’ve never even read! Plenty of times they aren’t meant to be read cover-to-cover in the first place, like songbooks, art books, or textbooks.
There’s a John Keats poetry book that I used as angsty escape when I was a teenager, and there’s an abstract algebra textbook that felt massive when I was in college. I have a beat-up Stuart Woods novel taken from my grandfather’s apartment after he passed away, similar to a travel memoir taken from my late grandmother’s home. “I closed my eyes and was in Italy,” she said in one of our last conversations. It’s still on my to-read list, but I treasure it nonetheless.
For books that are less personal, sometimes I am their caretaker until they no longer bring me joy. In 2014, I labored through David Herbert Donald’s Lincoln, a masterful yet tortuous biography. I kept it on my shelf, less reference material and more gold medal. Holy hell, I got through every chapter of that one. Five years later, a coworker said she was interested in reading it, so I happily passed it along and freed up shelf space. I prune my collection often and donate books to local thrift stores and Little Free Libraries. If the book is valuable enough, I’ll sell it on eBay. The only time I throw away a book is if it’s damaged beyond repair.
A book or two is a common souvenir anytime I travel. And a good bookstore is probably my biggest weakness, whether home or away. I’m aware that the Blankman List audience includes many people traveling to New York City and perhaps some people who share my love for books. In this post, I reflect on different bookstores throughout NYC and souvenirs I’ve gotten from each of them.
Barnes & Noble Union Square
The Union Square Barnes & Noble is a geek’s paradise. My retail heaven. Even setting books aside, it has games, music, movies, toys, miscellaneous tchotchkes, along with a café carrying Starbucks coffee and Cheesecake Factory cheesecake. I have found gems among its clearance racks and gifts for literally any occasion. It is more curated than the Strand a few blocks downtown, but with that come places to sit and better organized shelves. New York City is huge with endless places to seek solace and belonging, and when my world feels like it’s crashing, sometimes all I need is a climate-controlled refuge with pretty books and overpriced coffee.
One Matrix moment I had in the city was in 2018 when, over lunch, a new acquaintance was describing her familial relationship to “this artist Cy Twombly,” a hugely influential artist but esoteric if you’re not into abstract art. My eyes lit up. Please tell me everything you know about Cy Twombly. I am 100% into abstract art, and Twombly is among my all-time favorites. As if to prove the point, I then literally pulled his biography out of my backpack. Barnes & Noble is especially useful for specific, recently-published books—such as Chalk, the most substantive biography of Cy Twombly ever published to date, which I wanted to read immediately. So Barnes & Noble is where I went.
The Strand
Choosing one book that I got from the Strand is like Carrie having to choose one shoe from her shoe closet. (Full confession: I had to Google the right character.) There was one year where a solid two-thirds of the books I read came from the sale carts outside the Strand on Broadway and 12th Street. They used to be $1 each but after the pandemic became a few bucks pricier. I’ve found treasures, trash, and everything in between among these carts.
I paid around $5 for Kara Walker’s My Complement, My Enemy, My Oppressor, My Love. This book—which is firmly on the treasure side of the spectrum—accompanied Walker’s first full-scale American museum survey of her work in 2007. This is a perfect example of a book that does not need to be read cover to cover but, at least for now, sits proudly on my shelf, surrounding me with more of the art that I love and admire.
Unnameable Books
I can never quite put my finger on what draws me to a book. There, on top of an unorganized pile and not even on a shelf was Skate Life: Re-imagining White Masculinity. I’d never read a book on skateboarding or masculinity, and I lacked the expertise to follow all of author Emily Chivers Yochim’s points. But sometimes it’s not even about what I’m reading, it’s about when I’m reading it. The act of reading comes with context. Was I riding a subway? Cramped on a plane? Sipping a coffee? What’s happening in my life?
I didn’t even like this book. I found it so tedious. Yet at the time I needed to read something, anything, and stuffed in my backpack was that godforsaken book I had picked up from Unnameable Books. I was sitting in a train, determined. In the end, the labor of trudging through the intersections of sport, recreation, gender, and media bore fruits. This book became the first of around seven or eight more books that followed, all about skateboarders and skateboarding. They were generally easier reads, and they even led to me picking up a skateboard for the first time in ages. I no longer read many skateboarding books, but I grew to love the study of skateboarding.
McNally Jackson Books Downtown Brooklyn
City Point BKLYN is relatively close to where I live, and it felt like a game changer when the McNally Jackson Books opened inside. City Point is not a cheap place to spend a day, so I need to be a little careful every time I venture there. But it is a place with a little something for everyone, with an Alamo Drafthouse, Target, range of event and retail spaces, and entire food hall in the basement. (My personal favorite is the jerk tamarind mushrooms from Fat Fowl.)
I have a hard time passing up on at least window shopping at McNally Jackson when I’m in the area. It had been a while since I read a skateboarding book, but when I stumbled across an autographed copy of skateboarder and author Kyle Beachy’s The Most Fun Thing, I started the first chapter in the store, couldn’t put it down, and walked away with it as my next read.
Out of the Closet
Out of the Closet is a thrift store, not a bookstore, but the Brooklyn location on Atlantic Avenue has for years been an excellent spot for book shopping. Pre-pandemic—when retail shopping was radically different—Out of the Closet had dozens of bookcases overflowing with books, everything 4 for $1. It took all the restraint in the world to never buy more than a book or two. As of this writing, they still have a comparable deal where you can fill a Target bag for $5, although their inventory has gotten both smaller and more picked through. If you get there on a lucky day though, there remain treasures to be found. One of my favorite finds that I have no intentions of parting with is the obscure, out of print vocal score for Robert Chauls’ 1981 operatic adaption of Alice in Wonderland.
Brooklyn Public Library
Book sales occasionally pop up across the hundreds(!) of libraries around the city. The eclectic mix of deaccessioned books and uncatalogued nonsense is a book lover’s dream. You never know what you’re gonna find, and everything is cheap sometimes bordering on free.
In 2019 I attended a rare sale at the Brooklyn’s Central Library, and my jaw dropped a little when I saw a first year printing of Stephen King’s The Stand for $1. It was a little beat up and missing a dust jacket, but felt like a sign to tackle one of King’s magnum opuses. The book took me literal months to finish but has gone on to become possibly my favorite work of fiction that I’ve ever read.
Bookstores in New York City
To be clear, this is not a list of the best bookstores in the city. Heck, two of the places listed are a thrift store and a library. To the bookish city adventurer, my recommendation is just to type “bookstore” into your favorite map app and visit what’s near you. They are everywhere, with the Strand at Union Square being the only store I’d consider even close to a citywide mecca. (Though the Strand is not without its critics.) For more recommendations, the internet is flush with better sources than me, such as guides from Vogue and The New Yorker.
Moreover, New York City is a retail wonderland, with stores that specialize in freaking everything: cookbooks, romance books, Christian books, Jewish books, comic books, mystery books, rare books, Eastern philosophy books, French books, used books, children’s books, and so on and so on, and that’s not even counting other places that might sell books, like libraries or thrift stores (see above). I once saw a book rack in a plant store.
Yet even then—with an astounding breadth of bookstores of different categories and genres—I still wouldn’t fault you for wanting to shop at the Barnes & Noble at Union Square. Yes, you’ll be surrounded by tourists, NYU students, and last-minute gift shoppers. But you’ll also be in a safe place for book lovers with a huge cafe; piles of games, toys, and magazines; and, of course, miles upon miles of books.
I love rare book finds. I have no space for books in my house, but that doesn't stop me from collecting them like a dragons hoarding its gold. If you ever see anything signed by Ian M. Banks, Sarah J Maas, Rebecca Yarros (specifically Fourth Wing or Iron Flame), or Karen Marie Moning let me know!