Best "Little" Bookstore

12th Street Books

It's worth it to visit 12th Street Books just for the smell: that dank, comforting scent of knowledge and history. Founded in 1991 by Mike Hale, this "little" bookstore just west of the Capitol is remindful of East Coast and European bookstores of lore – more a museum of escapism than a place of commerce. 12th Street sells used, rare, and out-of-print books, like first editions of William Faulkner's Go Down, Moses and Other Stories for $900 and Mars and Its Canals by Percival Lowell for $800. Both are books most of us have never read, yet, after holding that heavy, beautiful, hard-bound copy in our hands, decide we probably should.

12th Street Books
827 W. 12th, 512/499-8828
www.12thstreetbooks.com