Book Alley – Lubbock, TX
Only a few blocks down from Hester Books was Book Alley. The guy that ran this shop was an odd duck. If you frequent the places old books are heaped together and sold, you encounter some weirdos along the way, so it’s unsurprising. I don’t know how else to describe him. He didn’t want to talk to anyone, except to promote his Punch and Judy puppet shows for children’s parties. He seemed to have almost no interest at all in books, though to his credit, the shop was always very tidy. A single sheet poster at the front of the otherwise nicely appointed shop advertised his availability for puppet shows. A sickly sweet, off-putting smell often lingered in the shop. I think I eventually attributed the odor to a neighboring business in the commercial strip where this shop was located, but it could be powerful. The posted hours of business were also unreliable, perhaps due to his puppet show commitments. I never learned his name.
What I gathered second and third-hand was his father established the shop many years earlier and had a connection to Texas Tech University there in Lubbock. So many private libraries from retiring or dead professors came to the shop over the years. When he died, the shop passed to the son. The impressive books were in beautiful condition usually, and priced accordingly. I was also haunting the place to find severely underpriced books. No one can know everything, and many booksellers were still reluctant to sell online. A sharp-eyed booklover with a little extra time could still visit bookshops and find things to resell elsewhere and make a tidy profit. However, those days were dwindling.
I did find a signed first of Among the Gently Mad there, which felt like a find, though it was still a rather new book. Of course, I wanted it for myself. It was priced too high for me, and when I later came back with the money, of course, it was gone. That’s how that always goes.
There were some nice collectible paperbacks here. The vintage Penguins and related early paperback books were incredible. I remember being shocked to see that some Penguins were issued with dustjackets. It was the first place I saw Armed Services Editions. There was an enormous collection, perhaps complete, of the books of the food writer M.F.K. Fisher. Now that I live very close to her final home, I think back on that collection. I wonder what happened to it.
There was also a wonderful shelf with pictorial publisher cloth bindings from around the turn of the 20th Century, with all kinds of amazing motifs present: Moose and lumberjacks in checked jackets, armored knights and castles, and flags galore. It made for a beautiful display. He also had some very nice bins of ephemera to browse. I recall seeing a lot of sheet music, but there was a lot more, though now I don’t remember what. I remember specifically going there in search of WWII-related ephemera to scan and use as filler in museum exhibitions, but not finding much to work with. Most of it was too old. And all of it was nice. I don’t remember anything more specific in the ephemera, except for some fruit crate labels. The ephemera stock did seem to freshen up periodically, so he must have restocked it, and I always held out hope of finding something cool.
The shop has long since closed, I understand.
About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.