Aladdin Book Shoppe – Oklahoma City, OK
One of the oldest used bookshops in Oklahoma, and since closed, Aladdin had the air of an old bookshop, though I guess it had not been in that final location for several decades. Yet, it had been there for a while when I started shopping there in early 2005, not long after moving to Oklahoma City.
I was fortunately hired at the Oklahoma Historical Society after graduate school to work at the newly opened Oklahoma History Center near the capitol building. Living on what was then the northwestern outskirts of Oklahoma City, I was excited to be decently employed, and have the means to occasionally buy books. Even collect books. I had been collecting for a few years by then, but now I could do so a little more seriously. I bought more bookshelves, and fortunately had space for them in my rented house (practically the intersection of 150th and Council Road).
Aladdin Books was a shop that took books seriously. Some used bookshops don’t take books all that seriously as objects. They are merely the commodity being sold. There may be a little romance tied up in them, but that just makes them more saleable. But at Aladdin, books were still special and a little magic. The staff were welcoming, had a good selection, and did not like me browsing into what I thought was just a section of Books About Books, but was their booksellers reference shelf. It wasn’t very clear where the store’s stock ended, and the reference shelf began, except it was near-ish the register, but not exactly blocked from public access and browsing. I do recall finding the first pirated Modern Library books I’ve ever seen in person. They were the big Decline And Fall of the Roman Empire two volume set by Gibbon. I never bought them, but I’d visit them from time to time. I think I let the Modern Library collectors list-serv know about them in case anyone wanted them, but there were no takers.
I eventually found Aladdin’s back room, which felt off-limits but wasn’t. Unlike the front of the store, which was full but tidy, it felt more like things were being processed in this back space. There were piles of boxes filled with books and sometimes other ephemera. Old issues of AB Bookman and other old bookseller catalogs were fun to browse. They also had shelves of the really old and battered things I like to look at. A shelf of Tom Swift and his imitators in fraying covers, ripped spine Bobbsey Twin runs, chart-topping fiction of the 1920s now completely forgotten, that sort of thing. They also had bound newspapers and other periodicals with red leather spines rotting away to dust, ready to stain your clothes if you got too close. This back room was my favorite part of the shop and a wonderful place to have a little space in the oppressive quiet, which was the norm here.
At the very front of the store was another smaller room. This was their “Rare Book Room” which had things that Kyle Hollingshead at Book Alley in Lubbock talked about — books that booksellers thought were rare for a long time, and then as more and, more of them moved online, discovered that a lot of them just weren’t that rare at all. I can’t remember looking in there much, or any specific things they had, but the glass cases were nice. I can vaguely recall some nice-to-look-at old children’s books.
I can’t recall any specific books that I bought from Aladdin, though I know I went there regularly in my time living in OKC. Their stock just didn’t move much, so I was less inclined to go very frequently.
Toward the end of my time in Oklahoma, Half-Price Books opened a shop a short drive north along the same arterial street that Aladdin was essentially on. The arrival of the discount used book behemoth no doubt signaled the beginning of the end for Aladdin.
About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.