Jim Rosenau writes:
Parking garage or book store?
Certainly our least visible used book store with the best deals is operated by the Friends of Berkeley Public Library. The volunteer-run store has a sweetheart lease from the city, which owns the parking garage just west of Telegraph between Channing and Durant. Enter from either street via a tunnel-like walkway or from the parking garage directly.
You’ll find a well-lit store, recently expanded and remodeled with quality books carefully organized and priced to sell. Most hardbacks sell for $2-4. The books are primarily donated by people like you; some are library discards. So the odds are you’ll find stuff you once thought about reading, but now at a price you won’t have to be so sure you’ll finish reading the thing. All proceeds go back to the library.
The best feature, though, is that they will take almost all your unwanted books. Not so choosy as the big name used book stores (since they don’t pay for the books). You get a donation acknowledgement for Schedule A if you can use it. And you get some shelf space back — to start the cycle all over.
Jim Rosenau runs This Into That in West Berkeley, which uses books (some perhaps bought from Friends of the Berkeley Library) to make innovative furniture.
