One Clear Winner: Ranking the Bookstores of LA

Okay, sure, reading is one of the most fulfilling activities to ever exist, but have you ever gone on a book shopping spree? That’ll raise your dopamine levels up to the ceiling! Which is why it’s so important to know where to hunt for books that are truly worth reading and rereading over and over again. 

The quaintness of the bookstore plays a pivotal factor in whether you actually end up reading the books you buy or not. You can effortlessly order a book on Amazon, but how can you ensure that it won’t just end up on your desk collecting dust for all of eternity? You simply cannot! Any true bookworm knows of how magical a bookstore can feel, so much so that it can immediately inspire reading sprees to an unhealthy degree. I visited four bookstores in the Los Angeles area that all claimed to be quaint to report which ones are actually worth the trip.

The Last Bookstore

453 S Spring St Ground Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90013

The Last Bookstore is a colossal and airy used book and record store in Downtown LA. It has multiple levels and unique entryways into different sections. It offers a variety of genres- from classics to new releases. Since the pandemic, it has gained popularity on Tik Tok and is now widely regarded as LA’s best bookstore. Thus, before visiting, I made sure to watch plenty of short videos documenting its magical grandeur, which gave me the impression that I would walk into a mystical wonderland of books, adorned with eccentric art pieces and scattered with elfish reading corners. 

Frankly, The Last Bookstore did not entirely line up with my expectations and all the hype it receives online. It’s a nice bookstore, I’m not denying that, but it felt as if it were trying way too hard to be quaint, almost forcibly so. Its atmosphere is largely diminished by its excessive openness and emphasis on aesthetically pleasing decorations, like its swirling bookcases and book tunnels, which are set up for the sole purpose of taking Instagram photos and serve no veritable purpose. Furthermore, though a relatively large bookstore, its classics section was honestly weak. I practically forced myself to find a special enough book to buy, a used copy of Nabokov's Transparent Things, which ended up being too expensive anyway. I could have found better used books at Goodwill for a fraction of their prices. Overall, I thought this bookstore tried to feign quaintness for the sole purpose of attracting people who want to post photos of the store, not to actually buy books. Nothing about it stuck in my memory as truly peculiar, and it reminded me of at least five other popular bookstores I’d tried out before. Though it sold mostly used books and was decorated in a mildly kooky way, it still felt too commercialized and unlike a genuine bookstore to be considered quaint or original. 

Therefore, The Last Bookstore only receives a 3/5 Quaintness Ranking from me.

Sideshow Bookstore

1639 La Cienega Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90035

SideShow Books is a small, almost secretive, bookstore that stands alone on a largely bleak portion of La Cienega Boulevard. Its exterior decorations are hand painted and display an array of colorful 2D bookshelves and vintage miscellaneous items. When it isn’t hosting bands to play outside in the cool summertime nights, this bookstore prides itself on its wide range of “rare” used books, spanning from classic literature to books on art and gardening. However, don’t be intimidated by the “rare” title attached to their collection. Their books are vintage at a fraction of the cost of a new book sold anywhere else, with the average cost of a book being only five to ten dollars. Each book at Sideshow is one-of-a-kind and carries that wonderful used-book smell. This book store not only sells amazing books, but also offers warm hospitality. As soon as you walk through the door, you can expect to be offered a shot of espresso in a miniature red mug and asked about your day. You immediately feel like you belong in some underground booklovers’ community. Despite their unexpected generosity, the cashiers, of which there usually is only one working at a time, do not bother you in the slightest. Instead, they let you discover the stacks of books all by yourself, not even interfering as you climb one of their many eight-foot tall library ladders to pick up a book that caught your attention.

Adding to this bookstore’s fantastical ambiance are the eccentric decorations like the random works of stained glass, 20th century music posters, and kooky printouts that are propped up at every cluttered corner. Moreover, this unconventional bookstore attracts the most unconventional of characters, who you can expect to find littering the bookstore’s floors, nose deep in their own little worlds. Here, you’ll meet plenty of people nerdy enough to read for their own enjoyment, if you meet anyone at all, seeing as though the bookstore is pretty unknown to the broader public. Sideshow Books is truly one of its kind.

I rate it a 5/5 on the Quaintness Scale because it’s cozy to the point of being cramped, but not because of a lack of retail space, but because of its excess of amazing books and art. It sets affordable prices, while solely selling books that feel truly priceless. If you’re looking for a good book treasure hunt and have a lot of time to spare wandering around, lost in a trance, I urge you to visit Sideshow Books immediately.

Village Well Books

9900 Culver Blvd # 1b, Culver City, CA 90232

Village Well Books is a Bookstore-cafe located just a couple minutes from campus. Even though it sells a couple classics, it really specializes in new releases and books that get popular on Tiktok’s book fandom, dubbed “Booktok”. Village Well’s ambiance matches its more modern selection. It's adorned with bright colors, rainbows, and mosaics that give off a very millennial, almost juvenile, workspace vibe. You can either sit outside on orange lawn chairs or inside by the scores of college students typing away on their computers. You may have to even fight for a seat among them. Along with books, Village Well sells all sorts of quirky and overpriced nic-nacs and stickers, the type you would also expect to find at colorful Los Angeles gift boutiques. 

Furthermore, its cafe is decent at best. The menu is pretty limited and only sells basic Los Angeles classics like vanilla lattes, matchas, and chai teas, along with a couple of anemic looking sandwiches. If you’re looking for a good coffee to sip on whilst you read or study, go with the cappuccino, for it's their only redeemable drink. However, if you were hoping to find a good black coffee or matcha, Starbucks would be a lot more worth going to in my opinion. Moreover, like its drinks, the books are priced at a very Los Angeles price, ranging from twenty to twenty-five dollars for books that should be only ten dollars. When I went, I made sure to buy the smallest book I could find, Hadji Murat by Leo Tolstoy, but still had to pay a scandalous price of ten dollars for a total of 190 pages. Village Well Books is not a used book store and too modern and pricey to be considered cozy, but it's still a cute study spot, reminiscent of a bite sized Barnes and Noble.

Thus, I give it a 3/5 Quaintness Ranking.  

Book Soup Bookstore

8818 Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069

Book Soup Bookstore is a small bookstore that runs horizontally on a corner of the Sunset Strip. Its front is lined with open air magazines for sale and mirrors that reveal the tall dark wood bookcases inside. Inside, you’ll find meticulously catalogged sections for every niche genre like Japanese literature and more trending “BookTok” books. Despite being so nicely organized and selling only new items, the store feels stuffed to the brim with books. It’s quite difficult to decide which book to pick up first; but once you do, you’ll be shocked to discover its offensive prices. Their books aren’t the only ridiculously priced items for sale; they also sell an array of annoying gift shop nic-nacs and useless gadgets. Upon going, I fell into the consumer’s trap and bought not only a twenty dollar book, The Edible Woman by Margeret Atwood, but also some jasmine tea inspired by Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and chai tea inspired by Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote- items that gave me no lasting joy, like a good vintage book could.

I was ultimately misled by its cool name, as Book Soup isn’t a very interesting bookstore, but rather run-of-the-mill. I would only recommend this bookstore to someone truly starved for a quick book in passing. I thereby give Book Soup Books a generous 2/5 Quaintness Ranking.