How about a hot DeLillo with your latte?
Need a good read for the beach? A picture book for a kid or a coffee table? Gotta see what's new on the bargain shelves, what's hot in the media racks?
There's no better place to flip through magazines, peek at paperbacks, groove to the tunes, or settle down with a cup of coffee for a leisurely read. Looking for a travel guide? These bookstores can be a trip in themselves!
These national chains are throughout the city and suburbs
Borders (multiple locations)
This national chain is like a shopping mall for pop culture. Awesome quantities of books, CDs, videos, DVDs, magazines – everything a mainstream reader, movie watcher or music lover could want. Best sellers with mass appeal have the most space, although Borders does promote some emerging writers on its most prominent tables. Book-signing events occur frequently. And the stores' friendly cafés encourage shoppers to settle in with a good book, a choice of coffees, and a snack.
www.bordersstores.com
Barnes & Noble (multiple locations)
With its posters of literary greats gracing the walls, Barnes & Noble always feels a bit more "literary" than Borders. And although books, CDs, DVDs and magazines are abundant here, Barnes & Noble carries fewer knickknacks. Many of the stores offer regular events, like Family Coffee and Story Time in Lincoln Park, or readings and book-signings by popular authors in Skokie. The new store at Jackson and State is the perfect place for DePaul students to gather for study sessions.
www.barnesandnoble.com
Locally-owned bookstores worth the trip
Barbara's Bookstore (multiple locations)
Described as the thinking person's alternative to giant bookstore chains, Barbara's Bookstore is a small, independent chain offering quality literature, author readings and signings, children's story hours, and a dynamite new performance space for literary, artistic and public events. Gene Hackman, Emeril Lagasse, Margaret Atwood, David Sedaris and Bill Clinton are some of the authors who have appeared in some of the store's smaller venues.
Founded in 1963 and still at home in historic Oak Park, Barbara's now has four locations in Chicago, including its largest store next to the UIC campus and two small but concise Barbara's Bestsellers for when you need a hot read in a hurry. Staffed by knowledgeable readers who regularly write short recommendations of their favorite books, Barbara's Bookstore is the kind of shop where genuine book lovers can lose themselves for hours.
www.barbarasbookstore.com
The Book Table (Oak Park)
This is a small shop with a friendly welcome for book lovers. Large comfy chairs in the middle of the store are an invitation to sit and read. Currently popular books are stacked on the floor, contributing to the store's informal atmosphere. Some rare books and photo books are prominently on display, but this store feels very much like a smaller version of Borders or Barnes & Noble. With mainstream fiction and nonfiction given their due, the display tables showcase titles with authors of a more literary bent, such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Tom Wolfe, and Saul Bellow.
www.booktable.booksense.com
Bookman's Alley (Evanston)
Frasier Crane would love to browse this shop of rare books and signed editions. A good portion of the books are for serious collectors and acquisitive booklovers building a library. It's worth a trip, though, for the artfully disheveled décor, which suggests you've wandered into the home library of an eccentric intellectual. The eclectic assemblage of chairs, tables, artwork and books includes memorabilia that wittily signal the subject of a section. Looking for a mystery? Check out the Maltese pigeon statue.
City Bookshop (Lakeview)
This latest addition to the Lakeview book market is made to order for the youthful neighborhood inhabitants. It’s a simple shop, where gently-used books line the walls and movable cubes are available for sitting. But that’s it. No bells and whistles, because the owners know all that really matters are the books. And these books are not just in great condition, they're wisely priced – between $1.99 and $4.99 for a library hardcover Steinbeck. There is much to captivate nostalgic readers, including old hardcover copies of The Hardy Boys, and Bobbsey Twins that just may become collectors' items. There are plenty of copies of books by popular authors, like Nick Hornby, and loads of books on pop culture and music that show the store really knows its customers.
57th Street Books* (Hyde Park)
A few steps down from the tree-lined street, you stumble into a quiet little neighborhood bookstore. But like a storybook, the store grows magically with every step, revealing room after room filled with an amazing selection of books stacked in the store's signature wooden bookcases, inviting chairs and tables ready for reading and story telling. You can spend hours wandering among the riches, picking books off the shelves like berries.
Knowledgeable staff members can help you find what you're looking for (even where to buy the bookcases). Specialties here include literature, mysteries, African-American titles, children's books, cookbooks, and travel. If you like your books autographed, your music fresh, your poetry live, don't miss the store's famous author and performance events. Hyde Park babies are said to cut their teeth on the store's sturdy children's books. And those few steps down are sometimes a small customer's first steps.
* This is a branch of the Seminary Co-op Bookstore and membership benefits apply.
Myopic (Bucktown/Wicker Park)
Rare and new books are on sale here, but the largest selection is in the used category, which takes up most of the two floors of this Wicker Park shop. The new section is small and limited to books that sell well, such as The Devil in the White City and Consider the Lobster. The selection of rare books is also small. Rather than first editions, it leans toward curiosities, such as a children's book co-authored by Kurt Vonnegut.
Myopic is worth the trip alone for its oddest and most expensive item, a bag that allegedly contains Charles Bukowski's last breath. The used books are varied, and organized into categories you won't find in most Borders, such as Geek, Drugs and Conspiracy. There's also a wide selection of foreign language books, including German, Polish, Czech and Russian as well as the expected Spanish, French and Italian. And for anyone looking to get involved in the city's literary scene, Myopic hosts weekly poetry readings.
The Newberry Library Bookstore* (Gold Coast)
This branch of the Seminary Co-op Bookstore is a small, bright shop in one of Chicago's loveliest cultural spots. Along with some eye-catching titles of popular interest, the store specializes in Native American studies, history, genealogy, cartography, calligraphy, and music. It also offers an out-of-the-ordinary selection of cards, stationery and gifts.
* Seminary Co-op Bookstore membership benefits apply here.
Powell's Bookstores (multiple locations)
Powell’s store in Hyde Park is about books, books, and more books. You can smell the books when you walk in. The tomes are tightly packed in this surprisingly spacious store, many stacked so high that even the Chicago Bulls would need a ladder to reach the ceiling-high shelves.
It's quiet here. The lack of music has the effect of making the store feel like a library, except you have to pay for these books. Some of the used books look brand-new but are still priced at a reasonable $4. Powell's also offers some new books at discounted prices. The stacks are well-organized and sections are clearly marked. And just when you think you've seen it all, you'll discover the back room loaded with literary criticism.
This bookstore appeals to the brainy University of Chicago folks in the neighborhood. It's the perfect place to browse for highbrow reading at intelligently low prices. The Lakeview location specializes in art, architecture, photography and rare books, has lots of fiction, children's books, and a coffee bar. The South Loop retail warehouse on Wabash Ave. has a little bit of everything.
Prairie Avenue Bookshop (South Loop)
This is the biggest architectural bookstore in the world, an amazing resource for books on architecture as well as design, interiors, landscaping and technology. It began as the Prairie Avenue Press, devoted to preserving the work of the early twentieth-century architects that made Chicago famous. Now the store's catalog is the intellectual touchstone for professional architects and subscribers throughout the world.
The store hosts occasional book signings, and sells a limited number of architectural artifacts, as well as decorative objects, art posters, and furniture designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van de Rohe, Le Corbusier, Joseph Gonzalez, Stanley Tigerman, Josef Hoffmann and Sam Marx.
Quimby's (Bucktown/Wicker Park)
This is the best place in Chicago for zines, graphic novels, literary magazines and other magazines that are not quite in the mainstream, such as Bust and Punk Planet, and just about any music magazine a person could ever want. The fiction section is mostly geared to hipster fiction – that is, works by David Foster Wallace and David Eggers. And the fiction section is dwarfed by the "Comixxx" section, which is entirely devoted to pornographic comics.
The store's frequent events are lively as well as literary: authors read and respond to audience questions, graphic artists are known to have drawn. This is not the place to walk in for your weekly copy of Newsweek or the latest Stephen King novel. This is the place you go when you want to expand your mind a little, or pick up a gift for an out-there friend.
Selected Works (Lakeview)
Tucked away in the bottom floor of an old apartment building, this no-frills, barebones, used bookstore displays books neatly stacked on the floor and on the shelves. The biggest splash of color in the place is the blue trim around the windows. As in most used bookstores, you won't find many copies of the latest releases, but if you're looking for the works of Saul Bellow or a copy of Catcher in the Rye with notes in the margins, this is the place. It's not all heady material. A few walls of pulp fiction thrillers would tide even the most avid reader over for a summer of beach reading. Rare books and sheet music are also available. And, like most used bookstores, they buy as well as sell.
Seminary Co-op Bookstore* (Hyde Park)
Across the street from the University of Chicago's grassy quadrangle is one of the most famous academic bookstores in the world – the only bookstore in Chicago where you're likely to rub elbows (or elbow patches) with Nobel Prize winners, famous authors, and your Soc Sci prof. But you don't have to be a highbrow to love this lower-level beauty (it's in the basement of the Chicago Theological Seminary). If you know how to read, they've got your number – from the hot new gotta-have books you'll grab the minute you walk in, to the labyrinth of odd-sized rooms filled with hundreds of thousands of titles in an encyclopedia of subjects.
You don't have to be a member to shop at this co-operatively owned store. But three $10 shares buys membership, which gives you 10% discounts on everything, plus 20% discounts during the store's famous "everything goes" annual sale.
*See 57th Street Books and The Newberry Library Bookstore, co-operatively owned branches of Seminary Co-op Bookstores.
Unabridged Books (Lakeview)
Don't have the time to read all of the reviews in The New York Times and feel lost when confronted with the stacks of new releases at Borders or Barnes & Noble? This is the bookstore for you. The staff of Unabridged Books flag their favorite selections on the shelves. This is a perfect spot for all lovers of the novel, where fiction takes a prominent position front and center, and there aren't any bells and whistles or tchotchkes for sale that detract from the sale of books. There's also a wide selection of children's books and gay-themed works.
Photo courtesy of Fifty-Seventh Street Books.
SeeMore Shopping Contributing Writer - C. Magnotta.
We recommend checking with stores for product availability. Suggested prices may change without notice. SeeMore Shopping strives for accuracy, but is not responsible for errors or omissions.
Editorial content is independent of paid advertisers. SeeMoreShopping incurs all expenses associated with reviews. Publ. 10/06.
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