Browsing for Books

If Boston is Beantown, Cambridge is Booktown. Though some may not opt to wile away summer hours by browsing through bookstores, if you do, you've come to the right place. With more than 25 bookstores within ten blocks, the Square rivals the University's 11-library collection. And with stores as varied as the Square's myriad of restaurants, both sophisticated bookaholics and novices can find something to surprise and please.

A veritable mecca for booklovers, the Harvard Coop (1400 Mass. Ave), the Square's largest bookstore, offers three floors of paperbacks and hardcovers. Unless your professor forgot to place an order by the deadline, the Coop's third floor is the place to go for textbooks. Reasonably priced, the one pitfall of outfitting your academic needs at the Coop is that books must be returned within three weeks or not at all. For lighter reading, try the second floor's collection of paperbacks and the first floor for bestsellers and oversized picture books.

The Harvard Book Store (1256 Mass. Ave.) stocks an interesting potpourri of books from bestsellers to the latest chic literary criticism. Open until 10 p.m. every night except Sunday, the store also offers a good selection of used books at half of their original price.

If you're looking for a new trashy bestseller to take to the beach with you, there are a number of bookstores around the Square you can try. Words-worth (30 Brattle St.) is well-organized and has the best service of the bunch, as well as a small discount. Right across the street, Paperback Booksmith (25 Brattle St.) stays open until mid-night every day of the week. It stocks a wide variety of general reading and has a different selection of classical music to browse to daily.

Reading International (47 Brattle St.) also stays open late and offers a good place to waste a half-hour before or after a movie at the Brattle St. Theater. On a nice day, you can try the outdoor stand along Church St. for good bargains on recently published books. Penguin Book afficionados can find every U.S. published and many British published Penguins at the Penguin Bookshop (1100 Mass. Ave.).

For less mundane book browsing and adventures in dustiness, venture into dimly-lit used bookstores and wander their narrow aisles in search of treasure. Even if The Book Case (42 Church St.) doesn't have specifically what you're looking for, it's a must for used book fanatics. Boasting the Square's largest selection of used books, it has a basement filled with used volumes and don't miss the sections which are tucked into the little nooks, lining the wall of the main room. On the ground floor, the store has a good selection of funky post cards and junky gifts.

Nestled at one end of the Lampoon castle, Starr Bookshop (29 Plympton St.) is the prototypical used bookstore. It has two floors of classical and scholarly books practically falling off the jam-packed shelves, and the man behind the counter knows everything. McIntyre and Moore Booksellers (30 Plympton St.) is another place to find well-used texts and has large medieval history, literary criticism and philosophy sections.

If you want to play lawyer, the Harvard Book Store Law Annex will give you a taste of the trade with its collection of used law books. Offering a good bargain on cheap used books, Pangloss Bookshop (65 Mt. Auburn St.) presents a cleaner and better-lit store to search in.

But used bookstores are not the only places in the Square for book lovers to browse for more esoteric tomes. If the general reading bookstores don't have that rare book you've been dying to read and you can't find it used, one of the Square's numerous specialty bookstores might be the place. Grolier Book Shop (6 Plympton St.) is a poet hang-out with its selection of almost 10,000 poetry books and if they don't have the collection you're looking for, they'll order it. If you prefer your poetry in the flesh, contemporary poets come here to autograph books and be seen. If you prefer your reading to be in another language, Schoenhof's Foreign Books (76A Mt. Auburn St.) may very well have it, and will also send away for any title you request.

To find out what professors spend their spare time doing, stop by the Harvard University Press Display Room (Holyoke Center). There you can find the latest published by guess who. Right next door, The Thomas More Book Shop (Holyoke Center) stocks religious texts. For less classical religious titles, Shambhala Booksellers (58 JFK St.) the Dawn Horse Bookstore (99 Mt. Auburn St.) and Sky Light Books (111 Mt. Auburn St.) have sixties-style spirituality and occult titles. These stores provide electronic music and incense to enhance the browsing atmosphere.

If you're looking for less spiritual radical literature, Revolution Books (1 Arrow St.) has a collection of leftist and third world books which would do a Greenwich Village bookstore proud. Across the street, Asian Books (12 Arrow St.) stocks a large selection of books on Islamic and Asian topics.

But if all these sound just too academic for summer reading, try the Science Fantasy Bookstore (8 JFK St. St.) on top of the Wursthaus, for your favorite new, used and out-of-print science fiction paperbacks and hardcovers. And if any book at all will tax your brain past its limit, the Million Year Picnic (99 Mt. Auburn St.) and Newbury Comics (30 JFK St.) may be the perfect remedy.