Tacoma Book Center — Attraction in Tacoma

This is a great bookstore for unusual finds. There is library smell everywhere.

The closest comparison I can make to a place I've been lately is Scarecrow Video. Scarecrow has a different mission of course, more focused on film, preservation, and its lending library experience. But I got the same feeling of intense curation, nooks and crannies going on forever, titles shelved high to the ceiling, and variety.

I found a book that I had only ever read on reserve in the University of Washington drama library. I found different books on sumi-e, the tea ceremony, the poems of Robert Service, the next volume of a science fiction series I've been reading, and the first volume of a different one I've been trying to replace after my garage flooded. I could have bought a lot more but I restrained myself.

Can you?

The only caution is that this is not a discount book store like Half Price Books. You should expect to pay market prices, even for old books. But it's another great location in the Western Washington book scene. Worth the...

I'm sure I've written a glowing review for this business in the past, but today was, sadly, not up to standard. Took a bag of books in and asked if they were buying. One individual, whom I will refer to as Scary Hipster, said 'only when the buyer is here'. I waited for a follow-up then finally said 'when is the buyer here?' Then the second party, whom I'll refer to as Balding Aunt said 'all the time'. Taking the books out, she said we're not taking these kind. I placed them on the only open surface I could find, since every other surface was stacked high with books. She said don't put them on the printer. (The what?) Fine. She offered $2 for four books and said I could try to get rid of the rest at Half-Price. I donated a couple others to her and said "$2? You can keep it" and left. While leaving I said 'Say thank you', to which she replied, 'Uh-huh'. I donated the rest to the library for their book sales. I used...

the staff were helpful and the shop was relatively cute however.. the selection wasn’t the best and there were books strewn everywhere, and not in a good way. there were boxes all over the floor and books shoved into books and crannies, it would’ve been a cozy library but was just kind of unprofessional for a book store.

the biggest thing however was i came in with 25+ books all in almost brand new condition some even limited condition and i was offered $20 in cash or $30 in store credit. like what the hell. i can totally understand the price tag IF my books weren’t in great quality but i’ve only read 3 books out of the entire box i took in and even they were in excellent quality. to be honest i was a bit insulted. all of the books together would’ve retailed over $300 so unless you’re in a hurry to sell your books i would not recommend selling to them whatsoever. they are incredibly cheap so if you can sell elsewhere...