Westsider Rare & Used Books

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With tall, old-timey rolling library ladders, a lofted second floor, and decorations like an oversized stuffed raven and a massive Pulp Fiction poster, Westsider Rare & Used could well be mistaken for an especially bookish boys club. Lining the shelves are lightly-used modern fiction volumes in hardcover and paperback, generally at half the cover price, with popular contemporary names like Eugenides, Lethem, Eggers, and Chabon in unusual abundance. The upstairs alcove is replete with modern first editions and art books featuring the work of mild-mannered men like Ansel Adams and John James Audubon, but the store’s real character comes not from its expensive rare editions, but from its oddly uncommon ones. These novelties are typically long out-of-print, and for good reason: There’s a backwards 1971 collection entitled Ladies of Horror: Two Centuries of Supernatural Stories by the Gentle Sex, the bizarrely tabloidy They Died Too Young: Karen Carpenter, and a fantasy novel called E. Pluribus Unicorn. Westside also has strong sci-fi, horror, and mystery sections—right past the extensive collection of vinyl LPs and under the toy tommy gun. — Ben Perkins