Moe's Books — Attraction in Berkeley

Moe’s Books on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley is one of the most comprehensive independent bookstores in the United States. It occupies seven full floors, including a basement, and carries an unusually wide selection of academic and general-interest titles across disciplines. Its strengths lie in its depth, organization, and pricing.

The store has entire sections dedicated to medieval, Renaissance, and Enlightenment Europe; U.S. and Latin American history; Chinese and Japanese history and art; architecture; dance; art; philosophy; sociology; economics; political science; and, of course, literature, especially American and British. That really just scratches the surface. Each section is large enough to support serious research browsing. Books are shelved clearly and logically. Titles often include multiple editions—older university press printings, out-of-print translations, and newer reissues. This makes Moe’s particularly valuable for students, scholars, and anyone working across editions. Moe’s buyers are skilled, selective, and unusually dedicated to buying only the best.

All books are individually priced in pencil inside the front cover. The prices are typically well below market value, even for rare or high-quality academic titles. There is also a dedicated rare books floor with first editions and collectible volumes, accessible without special appointment. The basement includes art books, postcards, and a small selection of games and miscellaneous media.

Staff members are knowledgeable, efficient, and unobtrusive. The store buys and trades books regularly and does so with integrity: good books are valued appropriately, and trade credit is fair.

What makes Moe’s unusual is its location. It is not tucked away or operating on low overhead—it sits in the center of Berkeley, just steps from the university. Its scale and inventory would suggest a more marginal site. Instead, it persists at the heart of a dense intellectual community. That fact alone makes it noteworthy.

Having spent plenty of time on major university campuses and in college towns, I can say there are few if any analogues. Some collections in Paris come close in breadth but are limited to French-language holdings. In New York and Oxford, one finds rare or specialized bookstores, but none with this combination of size, general accessibility, and subject breadth. There might be something like this in Cambridge—either side of the pond—but I do not know and somehow doubt so.

Moe’s is not hyper-curated, stylized, or brand-driven. (Though its reputation travels far). It is functional, extensive, and unusually well-stocked. Its value is straightforward: a large, diverse collection of useful books, available for purchase at reasonable prices, in a location frequented by people likely to read them....

This is specifically for the online purchasing of rare books, not the physical location.

I purchased a rare book on their website directly that I had been looking for. After about a week of not hearing back, I called to check what happened, since my card was charged.

The first person I spoke with told me that my order was confirmed, and that it would ship out the following day, but that there were delays because they hadn't gotten to my order yet since it overlapped with the weekend. OK, fine, no problem, I was not in a huge rush but just wanted to make sure it wasn't canceled, as I had the opportunity to buy another copy of that book elsewhere.

Then the following day, no update, so I called again and someone else told me that they sold the book to someone else online.

Apparently the website hadn't updated the stock correctly or something, and the book had shipped out to the other individual.

As nice as the book store might be, it's really frustrating when buying something rare to have an experience like this, especially because I missed another sale of a different copy of the book after the first person told me my order was confirmed.

Ignoring the fact that the inventory system doesn't even work well with competing online orders, it's rather surprising to me that it took about a week to hear back that my order could not be fulfilled. The first person I spoke with even told me "yes we got your order but someone has to go find the book". I can understand a few days but a week is simply too long to wait especially if it means someone else can still go in person to buy it even after I've been charged...

With that said, the second person I spoke with on the phone was at least clear about what happened, didn't give me the run around, and promptly issued a refund (a non-trivial amount for a book), which I appreciate. Thank you.

Oh well, I will find another copy eventually, but this was a disappointing experience, so just temper your expectations if you buy anything from their web store -- it means very little even after they...

They are very unethical in how they run their business. I dropped off some boxes of books the other day that I was interested in selling. I was told that their buyer wasn't in at the time, but would be there the next day and would look at the books and send me an offer for the ones they wanted to buy. The next morning I received their offer, and I came in today to get my money and take back the books they didn't want. I asked to see which books they wanted to buy, to get a sense of how fair the offer was. The woman at the counter told me that I couldn't see them, because they were already being sorted in order to be sold. What? I replied that they shouldn't be sorted yet, because I haven't sold them yet. I got their offer, but I haven't accepted it yet. How can I evaluate whether they're giving me a good price if I don't know which books they want to buy? Apparently their practice is to take ownership of any books that are brought in and assume that the seller will accept whatever offer they make, without giving the seller an opportunity to decide whether the offer is fair or not. I said that nobody had told me that bringing in the books to be evaluated was tantamount to accepting whatever offer they made, and was condescendingly told that "other people understand when they come in that this is how it works," as though I'm uniquely stupid for not intuitively grasping their duplicitous buying practices. I reluctantly accepted their money, and as I left was again condescendingly told that "next time you'll understand how it works when you come in," to which I responded that, on the contrary, they should change the dishonest way they do business! The money isn't really important to me, but it just felt so dirty and slimy to be treated like that at a bookstore I had really liked. Don't sell...