Bookstores in the Palo Alto area

Mostly used bookstores, of course. (I know what my visitors like.) As is true everywhere, life has been sad for bookstores since our last visit here 16 years ago, but there are still a few choice ones around.

Bell's Bookstore
536 Emerson St. (near University Ave.), Palo Alto, 650-323-7822
Still there, a quite pleasant used bookstore long rejuvenated from its days as a dusty rathole.

Stanford Bookstore
White Plaza, Stanford, 650-329-1217
Sells new books and textbooks. Now more of a Stanford souvenirs store with a few books in the back.

Feldman's Books
1170 El Camino Real (just north of Santa Cruz Ave.), Menlo Park 650-326-5300
A large rambling used bookstore with an eclectic selection, including both hardcovers and paperbacks in a variety of conditions. Gets the most thumbs-up from my visitors.

Kepler's Books
1010 El Camino Real (between Santa Cruz and Ravenswood), Menlo Park, 650-324-4321
A once-great, now somewhat subdued independent new bookstore.

BookBuyers
317 Castro St. (near Dana), Mountain View, 650-968-7323
A large used bookstore with a miscellaneous and diverse collection. [ETA: Not any more: it closed shop April 17, 2016, hoping to reopen ... someday, somewhere.]

Books Inc.
Town and Country Village (at El Camino & Embarcadero), Palo Alto, 650-321-0600
301 Castro St. (at Dana), Mountain View, 650-428-1234
Two outlets of a local independent chain of new bookstores, rather like Borders was before it grew the urge to go national. The Palo Alto outlet is larger, but the Mountain View one is next door to BookBuyers and has a cardboard stand-up statue of Ernest Hemingway (I always thought him a two-dimensional author).

Linden Tree
265 State St. (near Third), Los Altos, 650-949-3390
A good children's new bookstore, one of two in the area.

Recycle Bookstore
1066 The Alameda (at Race St.), San Jose, 408-286-6275
275 E. Campbell Ave. (at 1st St.), Campbell, 408-370-3514
Yes, a used bookstore with two outlets! Particularly good for fiction paperbacks, but a solid general store, or, rather, two of them.

Hicklebee's
1378 Lincoln Ave. (near Minnesota), San Jose, 408-292-8880
The other fine children's new bookstore in the area, in the Willow Glen shopping district of San Jose.

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