Bookstore 'Bucks' Tradition

Harvard Square is known worldwide for its selection of prestigious and well-stocked bookstores, such as Wordsworth Books, the Harvard Book Store and...Buck a Book?

That's right, the well-known cheap books chain has opened a location in Harvard Square, and, according to its employees, is holding its own.

Buck a Book, which sells some 80 percent of its stock for one dollar and the other 20 recent at about a third of regular prices, opened in the Square last March, according to its manager, Diane Bruzzese.

The trademark bright green Buck a Book awning sits next to the strawberries Record sign and a Garage arrow on JFK St.

"There's room for everyone, especially in theSquare," Bruzzese said, "expect, of course, wethink we are much better than them."

"Them" is Wordsworth Books, the Coop, BarillariBooks, and the many smaller stores in the Squarethan usually sell books about 10 percent less thanthe listed price.

While one person browsing the books in thestore yesterday afternoon said the store'sselection is "poor," others said many of thetitles are interesting, not unknown and, mostimportantly, cheap.

"I've come in three times," Robert E. Young ofArlington said, "and I don't usually go into theother shops."

Managers at Wordsworth and the Coop say theydon't view Buck a Book as a rival because itoffers a different selection.

"I've seen what they have," says John Bennet,an assistant manager at Wordsworth, "and I seethem and other stores as complementary. You cannever have too many bookstores."

"They compete more with the used book market,"Bennet adds.

Buck a Book is a chain of 17 stores, includingthree in Boston, that go out of their way toadvertise their cheapness.

But Bruzesse is quick to point out that all thebooks sold by Buck a Book are new, though not "hotoff the presses."

"I've seen coffee table books that we sold for$1 go for full price in Wordsworth," she says.

She names Chutzpah, by Harvard LawSchool Professor Alan M. Dershowitz, as anexample, but admits that many of the "betterbooks" cost more than a dollar.

And she says that she has filled an order for aprofessor at Harvard Business School and made adonation of books to a man, Drew Hanson, making asolicitation on Harvard Writing Center'snotepaper.

The Coop, which sells some 2,000 titles a day,according to an assistant manager who would onlygive his name as Nolan, doesn't seem perturbed byBuck a Book.

"Bookstores come and bookstores go," Nolansays. "The changes may make us all a little morecompetitive

"There's room for everyone, especially in theSquare," Bruzzese said, "expect, of course, wethink we are much better than them."

"Them" is Wordsworth Books, the Coop, BarillariBooks, and the many smaller stores in the Squarethan usually sell books about 10 percent less thanthe listed price.

While one person browsing the books in thestore yesterday afternoon said the store'sselection is "poor," others said many of thetitles are interesting, not unknown and, mostimportantly, cheap.

"I've come in three times," Robert E. Young ofArlington said, "and I don't usually go into theother shops."

Managers at Wordsworth and the Coop say theydon't view Buck a Book as a rival because itoffers a different selection.

"I've seen what they have," says John Bennet,an assistant manager at Wordsworth, "and I seethem and other stores as complementary. You cannever have too many bookstores."

"They compete more with the used book market,"Bennet adds.

Buck a Book is a chain of 17 stores, includingthree in Boston, that go out of their way toadvertise their cheapness.

But Bruzesse is quick to point out that all thebooks sold by Buck a Book are new, though not "hotoff the presses."

"I've seen coffee table books that we sold for$1 go for full price in Wordsworth," she says.

She names Chutzpah, by Harvard LawSchool Professor Alan M. Dershowitz, as anexample, but admits that many of the "betterbooks" cost more than a dollar.

And she says that she has filled an order for aprofessor at Harvard Business School and made adonation of books to a man, Drew Hanson, making asolicitation on Harvard Writing Center'snotepaper.

The Coop, which sells some 2,000 titles a day,according to an assistant manager who would onlygive his name as Nolan, doesn't seem perturbed byBuck a Book.

"Bookstores come and bookstores go," Nolansays. "The changes may make us all a little morecompetitive