Used Bookstores in NYC
Used Bookstores in NYC
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Want to visit used bookstores in NYC, but don’t know which to pick? Look no further!
Want to visit used bookstores in NYC, but don’t know which to pick? Look no further!
In the summer of 2026 I decided to visit nearly every used bookstore in New York City. After exploring 40+ locations over the course of 100+ hours, I distilled what I learned into this guide and the map of my favorite spots you see at the right.
Important caveats: this guide…
Will be most useful to people who share one or more of my interests: philosophy, critical theory, nature/environment, and the social sciences and humanities (specifically sociology, cultural studies, and urban studies).
May be distorted by my bad memory or by my failure to visit sufficiently many times to get a representative picture of certain stores over time.
May be outdated. Please contact me if I’ve omitted a good bookstore or included one that has permanently closed.
With those caveats out of the way, my advice is below.
If you only have an hour…
If you only have an hour…
…then I would recommend picking only one bookstore to explore. Which one depends on what you want. Below are my top three recommendations in several categories.
Wide selection: The Strand, Book Culture, East Village Books (cash only)
Bargains: East Village Books (cash only), The Book Cellar, St. Agnes Library Book Sale (once-per-month schedule)
Continental philosophy: Unnameable Books, Book Culture, East Village Books (cash only)
Analytic philosophy: The Strand, Book Culture, East Village Books (cash only)
History of Western philosophy: The Strand, Book Culture, East Village Books (cash only)
Critical theory: The Word Is Change, Book Culture, Unnameable Books
If you have a few hours…
If you have a few hours…
…then I would recommend a pairing of two bookstores in walking distance of each other. Especially close are:
St Agnes Library Book Sale (once-per-month schedule) + Westsider Rare and Used Books
The Strand + Alabaster Bookshop
Mercer Street Books and Records + Codex
Troubled Sleep + Unnameable Books
If you have an afternoon…
If you have an afternoon…
…there are two clusters of bookstores that I highly recommend, one in Downtown Manhattan and the other in Bushwick:
The Strand + Alabaster Books + Mercer Street Books and Records + Codex + East Village Books (cash only)
Book Row, Human Relations, Molasses Books
If you want all the details…
If you want all the details…
…then do I have the table for you!
First, click the button in the upper right corner of the spreadsheet below to open it in a new window. Then...
Double-click cells in the "Notes" column to expand them
Go to Data > Create Filter View, then click the upside-down triangles that appear in each column in order to sort the table by the values in that column.
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