Alabaster Bookshop

In a city where so many beloved independent bookshops have vanished, it’s a treasure to know, love & frequent Alabaster —one of the greats, truly! This intimate shop hums with quiet magic. A cozy atmosphere, quiet yet bustling with fellow book lovers, its air perfumed with ink & time. The shelves overflow with rare volumes and hidden gems, inviting you to linger & lose yourself in discovery. I relish the gentle chaos of the books strewn about & piled high — a comprehensive, eclectic collection, carefully curated yet hardly contained. I live nearby so pop in weekly, surprised to always find something new: be it a first edition of a personal favorite in excellent condition or lesser known works by acclaimed authors or something completely new to me! each priced with care and honesty too. I love it here & encourage all to discover its magic too

I wanted to like this place but it just seems super small and cramped and kind of a mediocre collection. I was surprised on how small it is, I would be shocked if it was more than 300 sq ft. It seems quaint but if there’s more than like 1 other person in there it just gets super claustrophobic. I looked for a couple of common titles and couldn’t find them.

pros: very interesting selection. lots of unique / hard to find editions of stuff, they definitely are good at sourcing such things.nncons: you cannot trust their pricing.nnfor one thing, they sharpie over any price notes on the books they sell. the original pricing shouldn't matter anyway, right? we're already buying used – if i buy a book that was $1.99 in 1980, of COURSE i'm expect to pay more in 2025.nnbut moreover, their pricing is often exploitative. i've frequently found used books that are in print, and readily available **DIRECTLY FROM THE PUBLISHER** NEW for cheaper than Alabaster is trying to sell used copies of them.nnit's one thing to compare them to Amazon or Barnes & Noble. of course i expect a local book shop to be more expensive than a massive corporation. but when they actively charge customers more for used books than they would cost new from the publisher… and sharpie over the original prices, as if to make it seem like their prices are reasonable… it really makes me hesitate before buying anything here.nni'm sure some of their stuff is fairly-priced, but after looking up a handful of books and realizing they were trying to get me pay more for a used copy than a new one, how can i trust them?nn(final comment: i am specifically referring to EDITIONS of books that are in print, not just titles. it's completely different to charge more for a version of a book that is no longer available – my frustration comes from the pricing on editions that ARE in print & available cheaper new from respective publishers.)

It really draws you in. The selection is pretty good. They seem to specialize in a few topics and have great depth in those. All my pictures are from outside because it was really crowded. Turns out some family used it as a meetup point and they were just clogging it, but not shopping. Bad form. One of the guys behind the counter was telling the other guy about a girl he was dating who had done some things he didn’t dare say in public. I was glued to it as the other guy slowly drew it all out. Apparently, she stole a vintage art print. Oh well. Rare bookshop freaky hits different, way less salacious than I was hoping for. In fairness, browsing books may have made me miss part of the story.

Guy working behind the desk was extremely rude. I asked if he could help locate a particular book and he said maybe. Brother, I think this is your job to help me locate particular books in your store. I also heard them disparaging former customers that perused books for too long while while they were in the store. They seemed to complain that the customers were reading the books and not paying attention to them, the employees, at all. It was also the most bizarre selection of what I guess you could call music but just sounded like old video game sounds and radio noises. If I were you, I would go to a different bookstore and not waste your time here.