Friday Night Mixer
A Good Used Book
Los Angeles
August 23, 2024
Certified bibliophiles will know that there are two distinct varieties of used and rare bookstores. Some stock autographed copies and first editions that go for thousands of dollars. Others appeal to novelty seekers, carrying lesser-known paperbacks whose low prices belie their compelling contents. While I appreciate the preservational purpose of the former category (especially after my trip to a rare book convention earlier this year), my wallet is certainly grateful that A Good Used Book belongs to the latter. Lately, I’ve seen the Historic Filipinotown shop all over my Instagram feed — the booksellers are known for sharing pictures of customers with their new finds via Instagram Stories, the perfect formula for word-of-mouth hype in a city that can’t stop posting. On Friday, I stopped by their August mixer to scan the shelves — and, of course, pose for my own glamour shot.
Upon entering the premises, I immediately started judging books by their covers. Let’s be clear: every volume I laid eyes upon passed my assessment with high marks. The homogeneous book jackets that have taken over Barnes & Noble with their much-decried abstract backgrounds were nowhere to be found. Instead, I was surrounded by 20th-century designs that boasted a rainbow of fonts, layouts, and artwork. Pulp fiction bombshells, sci-fi vistas, and one heartwarming illustration of a sleeping cat greeted me as I surveyed my surroundings.
The store was especially crowded — not just with bookworms sipping on complimentary Topo Chico but also with tables exhibiting a variety of literary wares from visiting vendors. These books and zines were brand-new, but the display still made sense: A Good Used Book got its start as a flea market stall, so in some ways the event was a playful reiteration of the past. The selections were delightfully specialized: a table manned by Now Serving showed off colorful cookbooks, while the Secret Headquarters sold comics and Kill Your Idols peddled punk paraphernalia.
Shimmying through the aisles, I was most drawn to the bins in the back of the shop, where books were sorted by genre. All the usual suspects were there, from fantasy to horror — plus some wild cards. My personal favorite was the “movie tie-ins” section, which featured novelizations of blockbusters as well as special editions of screen-adapted novels republished with movie posters or pictures of actors on the covers. A copy of S. E. Hinton’s Tex (1979) with Matt Dillon’s cherubic face on the cover caught my attention, which was soon monopolized by The Catholic Treasury of Wit and Humor (1960), appropriately nestled in the adjacent “humor” bin. (Alas, it was plastic-wrapped, so I can’t disclose any pious wisecracks that lay within its pages.)
In a perfect world, I would’ve brought home a comically large stack … but I reined myself in, lest my nightstand get out of control. When it was time for our close-up, my friend and I flaunted a copy of The Topeka School (2019) that we had agreed to co-parent — an arrangement that I realized would extend the book’s lifespan even further. (How many hands, I wonder, will turn the pages before the binding finally gives way?) Spines might bend and paper might yellow and fray, but a powerful story is timeless — and A Good Used Book serves as proof of this.
