“If I have not read a book before,” the English essayist William Hazlitt remarked, “it is, for all intents and purposes, new to me, whether it was printed yesterday or 300 years ago.”
This eternal newness is the great virtue of books, and it is also the great attraction of used bookstores. All the deep thoughts and shallow musings and entertaining tales of history sit patiently in these stores, freed of their former rivalry for shelf space, finally allowed to be brethren on equal terms. They wait like hopeful pets for the perfect owner.
Over the last few years, a number of used bookstores have opened in Nashville. Some are excellent, others good or even poor; some are welcoming, others less friendly. Because selection and atmosphere vary so much, the following tour aims to help you sort them all out. Comments about the stores are based upon several visits to each, including a recent survey of all in one weekend. The atmosphere of a bookstore results from a combination of the store itself and the people who run it. Both are considered here.
I omit shops open only by appointment and booths in antique malls. However, at most used bookstores, you can find a “Book Buyer’s Guide,” which lists information about these and other places to find used and antiquarian books. Although most have specialties, all of the stores I describe carry books in every field.
Let’s begin with the handsomest used bookstore in town. Bodacious Books is hidden away in Belle Meade Galleria, the little shopping center with Blockbuster on Harding Road before the 70/100 split. It’s difficult to imagine a more pleasant place in which to while away an hour searching for some treasure that you haven’t identified yet but will know when you find it. The store is spacious, nicely carpeted, and well-lit, with arches leading to smaller rooms. Ceiling fans lend a pleasant, old-fashioned air; when the weather allows, the double entrance doors are thrown open. A sofa and easy chairs are just inside the door, and other chairs and benches are scattered strategically throughout. Usually, good music plays unobtrusively over the sound system—Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington.
At Bodacious, the variety and quality are excellent, and the prices reasonable. Everything is clean and neat; no books are double-shelved. All hardbacks with jackets are sleeved in acetate. There is a great selection of mysteries, and one entire room is devoted to natural history and gardening. Best of all, the owners, Carolyn Householder and Charles May, are as knowledgeable as encyclopedias—and considerably more friendly.
Equally welcoming, and offering an even greater number of books, is BookMan in Hillsboro Village. In place of elegance, it has the satisfying virtue of being absolutely stuffed with books, many of them double-shelved on boards groaning with the sheer, extravagant bookishness of it all.
A few months ago, owners Larry and Saralee Woods doubled their space and named the new addition BookWoman. Actually, BookMan/Woman is all one store, with a single entrance. It’s the perfect location for the walk-in crowd, and at any time of day you can find searchers picking the knowledgeable brains of the owners and clerks. Browsers huddle in corners and sprawl on the seat in the window of BookWoman, poring over art books, classics, or two of the store’s specialties—mysteries and science fiction. You can find both autographed first editions and paperbacks for school reading requirements. There is a good and ever-growing women’s studies section on the BookWoman side.
In Green Hills Court, across Hillsboro Road from Davis-Kidd, you will find Dad’s Old Book Store. Owner Ed Penney, a former country music songwriter, opened Dad’s 12 years ago. Penney is pleasant and endlessly informative, if less chatty than the owners of Bodacious or BookMan. Because of his considerable expertise in rare books, he is frequently called upon to appraise libraries and estates. Dad’s is not the place to find paperbacks for school.
Although he also has a variety of more common and more recent books, Penney has a fine selection of genuinely rare and fine books—beautiful editions of adult and children’s classics, first editions, luscious old illustrated volumes. He also offers a wide variety of autographed photographs, letters, and other memorabilia from characters as diverse as Jimmy Carter and Ginger Rogers.
Interestingly, Dad’s is very much a family business. Until recently, Penney had never employed anyone except his own children. One daughter still handles Internet sales, which amount to almost half the business nowadays, and another runs the store on Saturdays.
On Bransford Avenue, a couple of blocks off Thompson Lane, there is an aging, unprepossessing house with the name Book Discoveries. You won’t find the quality of Dad’s or the atmosphere of Bodacious. The storm door creaks, the carpet is ancient, and the shelves sag. But packed into the several little rooms of this house are some great book deals.
The owner, well-known Nashville booklover Geneva Henderson, died in mid-October. So far, her husband plans to keep the business going. He employs two retired people also known in the book community, Mills’ Bookstore alum Ruth Meeks and former Ben West Library fountain of knowledge Bill Colsher. Several categories are well-represented, but Book Discoveries has an especially broad art selection. And even if the store could use a few more chairs for browsers, the atmosphere could not be friendlier.
In contrast, two other bookstores vie with each other for being the least friendly in town. One is the venerable Elder’s Bookstore on Elliston Place. If you know the name of only one used bookstore in Nashville, it’s probably Elder’s. Charles Elder has been in the business for several decades, and his son Randy isn’t exactly a newcomer. Both are extremely knowledgeable. Elder’s specializes in Southern history but offers a wide array of other books, including good deals on classics and children’s books. Tall stacks line the entrance, and patrons are greeted by a friendly, musty smell.
That may be the last bit of friendliness they encounter, though. “Don’t tell me,” one handwritten sign snarls. “The only person who cares what your grandmother had is your grandfather.” Another snaps, “We do not suffer fools gladly.” There are warnings against pulling books out by their spines, leaving children unattended, and examining the old Bibles without assistance. Curiously, this last admonition is taped directly to the spines of the books you are not to damage. Nevertheless, even though there are few places to sit and ponder a volume, and even though Randy Elder routinely patrols the aisles, there are always people browsing in Elder’s. Besides its impressive variety, it looks and feels like a genuine, old-fashioned used bookstore.
Although it doesn’t have scolding signs on the wall, the minimally named Books in Cummins Station is just as unfriendly as Elder’s—but without as much character and personality. With almost no place to perch, the narrow space doesn’t encourage serious browsing. Nor does the owner, Brock Mehler, who grudgingly emits a greeting and then tends to ignore a customer’s subsequent remarks. However, it must be said that although the shop is small and the atmosphere chilly, there is a nice selection across the spectrum, and the prices are reasonable.
Although its atmosphere is friendly enough, Table of Contents, on Belmont Boulevard next door to Bongo Java, is probably Nashville’s least interesting used bookstore. It’s got a good location, near Belmont University and several restaurants, but the stacks of decaying paperbacks on each side of the entrance pretty well set the tone. Inside you’ll find mostly sale-table bestsellers and curious offerings such as outdated textbooks. I know a bookaholic who has a great deal of credit at Table of Contents and still can’t find anything worth taking home.
Used bookstores are one of the essential adjuncts of civilization, and Nashville is a little closer to becoming civilized than you might have thought. Finally, we have a respectable number of good shops, run mostly by knowledgeable and friendly people who are delighted to inform and advise. And most importantly, they offer those books that Hazlitt described—the ones that, no matter how old they are, are always new.
