Keep On Bookin

Solid little bookstore. My only complaint is that I felt the prices were a bit high. All books cost half of the retail price on the back of the book. I guess I am accustomed to used paperbacks being 5 dollars or less. And who knows how many times they have been resold — it just seemed a little steep to me.

really nice collection of older books.

The shop in the strip mall with the words «BOOK EXCHANGE» across the sign is actually the very same Keep on Bookin’ store I was looking for. Even if my S.O. and I weren’t interested in looking at books (which we were), we were definitely interested in stepping inside to take a break from the heat and the outside world.
New and used books are organized into the usual category headings, but I found it a charming experience being able to browse without any particular literary destination in mind. What am I in the mood to read today? What book will I connect with? What book will find me? Old bookstores always have that strangely appealing book smell. Is it the scent of knowledge? The aroma of mystery?
We usually spend so much time glued to our computers and mobiles that it’s nice to be able to take a break from all those screens. You’ll find no seats, tables, coffee shops, kiosks, or restrooms at Keep on Bookin’. They’re all about the books, with a few gratuitously long aisles of reading material stacked wall to wall, from floor to ceiling. Like many smaller bookstores, there is some truly random stuff here. Comics, reference books, hundreds of novels are densely packed and once you meet the book (s) you want to take home, look for reasonable prices lightly pencilled inside the covers.
Need help with anything? Shopkeeper Melanie would be more than happy to assist you. If this friendly lady’s plans come to fruition, she may become the owner of this bookstore in the near future as she told us the current owner is moving to Florida and likely to sell soon.
Helping to soften the blow of having to leave town, Keep On Bookin’ was an interesting little place to stop by before we hit the freeway for home. It’s especially nice that books don’t care whether you’re a visitor or a local, so based on our visit — 4 stars, as this is one stop-​worthy neighborhood shop that welcomes everyone to come on in and keep on bookin’.

This place is a pretty typical mid-​sized used bookstore. Lots of aisles tightly packed with books, old and recent, with prices generally around half the cover price. I found the organizational scheme a bit hard to navigate — authors weren’t always where I expected them. They also have some odd categories like «time travel» that caught books that I would’ve put elsewhere. But I did find some books to read on the plane back home.
They stamp every book they sell, right along the edge of the pages on the top of the book. This practice made me cringe, especially as I purchased some books that were in really good shape. Apparently they do this to track books they’ve sold, as those are worth less if you sell them back to them at a later date? Anyway, I almost put the books back when I saw they were going to deface them quite visibly with a big green rubber stamp. Sad books.
The cashier was really friendly and helpful, though her boss chewed her out during our visit for tuning into the «wrong» radio station. That was incredibly awkward to overhear! I didn’t mind a little Lady Gaga during my book shopping, but I did mind a public airing of what should’ve been a private reprimand (if an issue at all).
Give them a look. They didn’t have a ton of books in genres I regularly read, but you’re likely to find something to take home.