BookShopWorld

Book Gallery
3615 E Indian School Rd, Phoenix, AZ 85018

The Book Gallery is a high-quality used bookstore in northeastern Phoenix. It earns top marks for its helpful staff, curated selection, and fair prices. While its Literature and Poetry sections are good, its real strengths lie in History, reference works, and academic titles.

Despite being the 5th largest city in America, Phoenix’s book scene is relatively underdeveloped. The Book Gallery stands out as oasis of strong used-book offerings. Books are in good condition and priced fairly, hovering between $5 and $10, with more specialized and academic books sometimes priced higher. The store itself is large and made for browsing. Its long diagonal aisles give the space a clean and fluid feel while still maintaining that trademark bookstore coziness. Aesthetically, the Book Gallery excels.

The store also benefits from a strong sense of organization. Each topic is divided into detailed subsections. The History section, for instance, has shelf-space labelled for each king/queen, which I found to be near unprecedented. The downside of such fine-tooth categorization is sometimes that books can either elude simple categories or can be found among general subject-matter when they might equally be subsectioned. But no bookstore has a perfect shelving logic, and the Book Gallery’s is more than adequate. Browsing is mostly clutter-free (boxes do cover lower shelves in part of the fiction selection). The staff was also kind and helpful in directing me to certain sections.

Obviously, any book-shopping experience is calibrated to a buyer’s preferences. I look for fiction, poetry, philosophy, and academic humanities/soft-sciences titles. All these are good, but History is especially impressive. Philosophy’s depth was above average as well. Importantly, staff makes an active effort to curate selection and take in exciting new stock. This makes the Book Gallery a good repeat-visit. I check it out every time I’m in town.

RECENT BUYS:
The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality and Tragedy, by Stanley Cavell ($10)
Past, Space, and Self, by John Campbell ($8)
Edmund Husserl: Philosopher of Infinite Tasks, by Maurice Natanson ($8)