Half Price Books — Local services in Decatur

I'd heard you could find some interesting things at Half Priced Books and had been meaning to eventually find out. So color me surprised when I happened to be in the area with an hour to kill with the wife.

Now I wasn't expecting much from a used book store that dabbles in video games, comics, music and other collectibles, and what was there met those expectations. The used books were the main focus, and there was as good a selection as used book store could have, but with my limited time, I browsed over the games, comics, and figures. Prices were okay, nothing too over priced, nothing you're gonna get a crazy deal on. Just good old fashioned business. I had a good little time browsing over what I did, and if I'm ever back in the area, I may stop back in and take some more time to scout things out.

Side note: the store associates in general were pleasant enough, but who I assume might be the store manager or team lead, short persnickety guy with glasses, who I happened to greet as he was coming out from the employee area, gave me a sideways glance with no greeting in kind. Must have been busy. He wasn't too busy to be condescending to his staff though. You can hear a lot in this place. Quiet as a library. And he wasn't shy about being heard, flexing his middle management power for the smallest micro managing power trips to get through the...

This is a really great used bookstore. I've been looking for a used bookstore that's organized, reasonably priced, and MARTA accessible since I moved here and I'm glad to say that I finally found one. I primarily buy computer science books, which can get expensive even when buying used.

My purchases so far have been roughly on par with or even cheaper than Amazon for the same titles. They were in better condition than the cheapest offerings from Amazon; there was no highlighting, the covers and spines are clean and intact, and there's no water damage in any of the books I've bought. The customer service is friendly and the atmosphere is nice.

They don't pay much for books if you're selling them; I got $2 for a fairly recent (2015) book in great condition. But if I were concerned about getting the most money from reselling it, I would have sold it on Amazon. I just wanted to free up some space on my shelf and use the credit to offset the cost of something else that...

The name Half Price Books rings fairly true as far as their pricing goes. Their selection also includes comics, vinyl records and video games/ consoles (limited used selection on the games and consoles but some old ones you may not be able to find at other stores) The staff was extremely nice and courteous. The reason I would not give this overall interesting and unique store 5 stars has to do with the layout of the books. The store doesn't have a very efficient system to easily locate books or if they do it wasn't kept up or easy to navigate. When I asked if they had a certain book they looked it up on the computer and said they had 1 copy and gave me the general genre area to locate the book, however if I wanted them to look for it I needed to come back tomorrow to purchase it to give them time to locate it. That tells me that there is an extremely inefficient system in place or one that isn't kept up with. Overall though an interesting store to stop in if your...