Coming of age in Oklahoma City wasn’t always the all-out adventure I know I tend to make it seem. Actually, more days than not, I was trying to find something constructive to do with my dwindling time. With the futuristic era of cyber-jacking info-loads onto the neural-net still about fifty or so years down the dark timeline, chances are you’d probably find me just hanging out at a bookstore.
Back in the days before Amazon, before Borders, before even Barnes and Noble, in the Metro, we only had two bookstore chains: Waldenbooks and B. Dalton, both in the various malls around town. While they were great for shoplifting copies of The Crucible for school and maybe even a Playboy for yourself, at the time, there were actually a few great independent stores around the city that usually garnered much more of my respect and even more of my cash, and are still fully deserving of my respect today.
When I first moved to OKC in 1990, I was pretty dang excited that a bookstore—Jean Barnes Books, actually—was at the end of my street, on N.W. 50th. That very excitement deflated, however, when I learned it was a weird self-help bookstore offering weird self-help books. I couldn’t tell you what they really did in there or why, but no section of books about the Beatles? They said hello and I quickly said goodbye.
Traveling across the street to Mayfair Village though, by the ol’ barbershop where I used to get my sides buzzed, there was a used bookstore with the wondrous name of Aladdin Book Shoppe. At first, of course, I quietly hoped it was the type of antique book store that would sell me a dusty tome of mystical tales that’ll transport this lonely child to Fantasia. Instead, after digging around like a nosy hound in the back of the store, the various stacks of men’s adventure paperbacks and sleazy sci-fi rained down upon me, giving me a new passion for rank, rotten and ribald literature.
Paperbacks became a slight obsession for me sadly, where I was stopping at just about every thrift store, garage sale and library dumpster from here to, well, a few blocks from here, collecting as many as I could. But, I told myself, who needs all that running around? This was the 90s and the book market was still an embarrassingly booming business. And few places took as great a pride in it as the Book Rack, a paperback home for unwanted reads down on May in the ancient Lakeshore Shopping Center.
Between their cheap selection of paperbacks and that great 2-for-1 exchange rate, I was buying, trading and selling books quicker than I ever could read them, if they were to ever got read. From Ray Bradbury to Raymond Chandler, that summer of ’91 I managed to get through every book that was on the middle school lists, every book that was a few years away on the high school lists, and plenty of yellowed dog-eared trash for fun in between it all. The Book Rack, sad as it may sound, became my vacation away from my vacation.
Sometime in the 8th grade, I apparently won a Native American student award for my writing and received a gift certificate to the books and magazine outlet, Bollinger’s Books, located even further down May Ave., right in the Village; before bookstores became glorified breakfast nooks and syrupy coffee shops, this was what a true neighborhood bookseller was fully expected to be. It was the 90s, how did we know?
Lou Reed’s Between Thought and Expression and Chas Balun’s More Gore Score got my first wadded up ball of filthy lucre, but it was when I found that first stack of ‘zines in their magazine pit that they got even more of it every week. I still feel the same xerography-based love for them today as I did then; ‘zines changed my life. Finding locally self-published goods like Rod Lott’s Hitch to national breakthroughs such as Factsheet 5, forget being a kid in a candy store—I was a burgeoning teen in an indie bookstore.
But, almost as soon as I even thought these book-nooks were going to be in my life forever, corporate America smiled as they came in and stomped them out like a well-smoked cigarette under a bland heel. Places like Barnes and Noble—with two on May, no less—as well as Borders came into town, killing off Bollinger’s pretty fast. It was shortly followed by the Book Rack. Remarkably though, after holding on for dear life longer than probably anyone expected, Aladdin’s lamp was rubbed one last time about six or seven years ago now, the spot still empty, I believe.
Jean Barnes is long gone too, in case you were wondering.
Sure, there’s still a few rarities around town, places like Half-Price, Full Circle and Commonplace—and don’t get me wrong, they do their job of sticking it, mostly, to the corporate readers—but I do wonder where’s the towering infernos of old paperbacks, the ragged stacks of detective mags and the moldy collections of ‘zines that’ve sat there for a year?
We’re probably never going to see them again, of that magnitude, in our lifetime, at least in a burg like Oklahoma City. But, for a good ten years, anytime I was too lazy to find some real adventure, a decaying 272-page one that I picked up for a buck would suit me just fine.
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Follow Louis on Twitter at @LouisFowler and Instagram at @louisfowler78.
Does anyone remember the tiny comic book store from the 1980’s that was across the street from the Will Rogers Theater next to the old laundromat? The location is now a spice store
Mind over Matter Comics. That was the first comic book store I ever went to.
Yep. Used to go there every Saturday after work, looking for the latest issue of R. Crumb’s WEIRDO. And if they had a new issue in stock, I’d buy it and go to the park and read it cover to cover before heading home, where I’d read it again.
As a lover of indie bookstores myself (worked at one in Stillwater during the late 80’s/early 90’s), I can wholeheartedly recommend Second Chance books. Lots of romance, but beyond those, it’s a smellers dream, replete with comics and wholesome nerdiness galore!
Bollinger’s was great.
Remember Bolingers. Got a cool Bukowski photo book there. Still have it.
Half Price books annoys b/c they have like 10 copies of an author’s most famous work, and absolutely nothing else by them. And they never carry anything even slightly out of the mainstream cannon when it comes to literature.
I was heavily into Sci-Fi as a teen in the 80’s. After graduating in 1989 I’d spend my time between classes in used book stores seeking what ever in the Sci Fi realm. Somehow I managed my way down NW16th off of Penn in what is now referred to as Plaza District, it was then too. However the place was like a hive of retched scary people. To say shady would be mild. You had an electronics surplus store which I loved by the way Schmidty World Wide or something, that is where Saints is now i think. Then there was this old house with books which was cool and a fire hazard and very likely a structural safety hazard.
However the gem was Jim’s used books. Inside I found a world of Sci-fi. Spent an hour browsing, I was naive and kept seeing men coming in and going past a curtain. Well I ventured back had to see what this was about. Oh BOY! Yup Jim’s was a used book store but also a used porn shop and place old dudes helped other old dudes out if you will. Being a skinny 18 year old I felt like raw meat and got out. Reminds me of walking into the old Mayfair theater too…that is another story.
There’s a place on 23rd across from OCU that’s called Michael’s that’s in a house that looks it’s full of old paperbacks, if you’re looking for old-style used bookstores. This article brought back fond memories of Aladdin (before it was in Mayfair), the multiple Book Racks (the Lakeside one was within a bike ride of my house, used to go there all the time, dated the daughter of the owner of the one that used to be in Edmond on 15th/Boulevard), Bollinger’s, and many other bookstores that used to be here.
Michael’s is not a good example. I suspect it’s a tax dodge of some kind, because the books are just piled messily all over the place attracting dust and mold and the cashier is just some old man watching TV who gets very surprised if you buy something.
Unless I am mistaken, Aladdin was originally downtown in a RR viaduct and was a genuine treasure trove of ancient tomes … old book smell and everything. It was a thing of beauty. I haven ‘t run onto another place like that in many years. Thanks for reminding me.
Believe it or not, I still have a bookmark from B. Dalton. There was also a used book store at Hefner & Penn that we frequented a lot. Don’t remember its name. There was also one at the shopping center at Council and NW Highway who would take darn near anything in trade and give you 25% of its cover price as a credit against the books she had in stock which were normally half price. I’ve only read one Kindle book; I like to have the actual book, much better than an electronic copy.
I actually made money in the 90’s finding rare books at used bookstores. I miss the treasure hunt.
I the bookstore on Eastern any good. Asking for a friend. 🙂
Is the bookstore on Eastern any good. Asking for a friend 🙂
Book Beat in south OKC had lots of unusual stuff that was hard to find anywhere else. They also hosted bands and had art shows.
My mom worked at Waldenbooks in Heritage Park Mall in MWC for over 20 years until they closed it. I went there almost daily, and the books we have from there….they used to get books that hadn’t gone to final print yet (don’t know what they call it) but it was like the proof copy before final print, and we could read those, find typos, but the purpose was so the employees could read the books before they came out and would be able to recommend them to the customers. That way when they hit the shelves, the employees already knew about the book and could tell the customers how great the book was. We have so many first edition, limited edition prints of books it’s just crazy. I refuse to read books on Kindle or any other device. I prefer to have the book in my hands. There’s just something about perusing a brick and mortar store, to rolling the ball on a mouse, to finding the right book to read.
Bill’s Books, which used to be on Western. He’d pick through estate sales and put the best in his shop.