How to shop in used-book stores: 14 tips from a bibliophile

Unless you’re visiting a high-end dealer such as Silver Spring, Md.’s Type Punch Matrix or a small oasis like Kensington Row Book Shop in Kensington, Md., you’ll be bending down to peer at shadowy bottom shelves, possibly going through boxes and probably getting dirty. Think of yourself as a prospector. Carry a small flashlight.

If you want just one particular title by John McPhee or Ursula K. Le Guin, you’re likely to be disappointed. Instead, be ready for anything, whether it’s discovering a new author or pouncing on an undervalued gem. You’ll only know what you need when you see it.

At venues like the Second Story Books Warehouse in Rockville, Md., Capitol Hill Books, or Wonder Book and Video emporium in Frederick, Md., you can easily pass a very happy afternoon. The hours will whiz by. Bring a candy bar.

Like most stores, used-book shops sometimes grow crowded on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Since Mondays are often devoted to restocking, midweek can be the best time to see what’s new, especially if inventory turns over rapidly, as at the Friends of the Library bookstores in Montgomery County, Md.

Replace books where you found them. Don’t carry on loud or long conversations. Don’t boast to the owner or manager that the old paperback of Jack Vance’s “The Dying Earth” priced at $5 is actually its scarce Hillman first edition worth $100. Do look at the books themselves, not at a handheld device that indicates what they sell for online. Otherwise, prepare to be quietly and justly reviled by those around you.

Even before you cross the threshold of any bookshop, be sure to check out the sale carts or table on the sidewalk outside. Mistakes are made, and there may be sleepers awaiting your eagle eye.

If, in fact, you are mainly interested in older fiction and nonfiction, the sidewalks often serve as final resting places for your kind of vintage material. A store may acquire a private library, ravage it for the more immediately “sellable” works, and then dump the more obscure, tatty or common titles onto its bargain tables. Like me, you might be very happy to find a worn hardback of Emily Eden’s “The Semi-Attached Couple” (very Jane Austenish) or one of the witty novels of William Gerhardie (somewhat Evelyn Waughish) or any volume from the wonderful Dent’s Illustrated Children’s Classics.

Say or nod hello to the manager or clerk on duty. If asked whether you need any help, the time-honored response is “I’m just browsing,” unless, of course, you really would like some guidance. After a few visits to a store, you might exchange names with the people you deal with there. As at bars and restaurants, becoming a regular tends to elicit a warm reception and extra attention. For instance, if you cheerily ask “Anything new?” in a D.C.-area shop, Dylan, Lance, Eli, Zachary, Julia, Susan, Dave, Allan, Chuck, Joey, Hi Lee, Tom, Hélene, Debbie, Patrick, Lauren, Nathan, Victoria, Camille or Aaron might reply, “We just purchased the library of [insert one — a Famous Professor, Georgetown Socialite or Science Fiction Fan]. Want to take a look?” Sometimes you might be permitted into the backroom or sorting area. As the material there may be “raw stock,” you can sometimes negotiate a quick-sale price for a wanted title.

In smaller shops like the Lantern in D.C.’s Georgetown, or thrift stores with just a wall of books, you should probably look at nearly everything. Don’t skip the science and mathematics shelves just because you’re interested only in American history. You wouldn’t want to miss picking up that hardback of George Gamow’s “One, Two, Three … Infinity,” which would make a splendid gift for a middle-school student, as I can testify.

While a large store can be overwhelming, and a warehouse even more so, volume does increase your chances of finding titles you never knew you wanted. By contrast, a small shop — unless it’s just a paperback exchange — tends to be zealously curated, so there won’t be any bargains, but you might happen upon a beautiful copy of that first edition of Marilynne Robinson’s “Housekeeping” you’ve always yearned for.

Bear in mind that some writers’ books can be scattered throughout the store. Ford Madox Ford, for instance, wrote biographies, poetry, memoirs, art history, essays, novels, literary criticism, travel books and World War I propaganda. Consequently, his various works might be found in multiple places other than on the shelves marked Literature. So explore. At the least you’ll gain a better sense of the dealer’s overall stock. And, by the way, if you’ve never read Ford’s “The Good Soldier,” you’ve missed one of the greatest — and most technically dazzling — novels of the last century. It opens, “This is the saddest story I have ever heard,” and never lets up.

If you can’t make out the faded words on the spine of a jacketless hardcover, always pull put the book to discover exactly what it is. I own a first American edition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” because dozens of people before me never bothered to scrutinize the copyright page of this slightly water-damaged volume with an unreadable spine. While hardly a pretty copy of the classic, it is nonetheless worth a pretty penny.

While you’re at it, you should also reflexively check for an author signature, which adds to a work’s value. Some writers — Annie Proulx and Julian Barnes come to mind — sign their books in such tiny handwriting that a hurried bookseller can easily overlook their microscopic script.

When I was in junior high I read Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden,” which taught me not only to be true to myself but also what American prose should sound like. I still retain my old Signet paperback for sentimental reasons, but for reading these days I turn to an attractive hardback from Princeton University Press. To own a scholarly or first edition of a favorite book is a way to honor its place in your life. Plus such copies make great gifts.

All book collectors develop distinctive crotchets. For example, most people pay no attention to broken sets of an author’s complete works: Yet the odd volumes, nearly always priced to sell, may be printed on good paper, with large type and wide margins. They make excellent reading copies if you’re looking for, say, Walter Scott’s “Ivanhoe” or Anthony Trollope’s “Framley Parsonage.”

Inversely, otherwise hard-to-find titles can sometimes be acquired in cheap omnibus editions. I wanted a copy of “Atomsk,” a scarce, and now very expensive, psychological spy novel by Carmichael Smith (one of the pen names of Paul M.A. Linebarger, better known in science fiction circles as the inimitable Cordwainer Smith). I finally acquired a copy after discovering that it, along with three other titles, had been reprinted in a volume of the Unicorn Mystery Book Club.

When traveling, instead of tsotchkes, I pick up appropriate-seeming books as souvenirs: During a trip to Alaska, I acquired a collection of Jack London’s Klondike stories; from a visit to Chicago’s Abraham Lincoln Book Shop, I took home a copy of Fletcher Pratt’s lively short history of the Civil War, “Ordeal by Fire.”

Once you’ve become seriously interested in collecting Civil War history, classic children’s literature or any other subject, you’ll want to visit dealers specializing in those kinds of books. You won’t find any beat-up bargains, but you will find older books that have been well cared for and newer ones with bright dust jackets in mint condition. Many of the items might even be unique because they were inscribed to one of the author’s nearest and dearest. You’ll pay top dollar for such collectible copies, but the shop will guarantee their authenticity, and if you choose wisely your purchases will maintain or increase in value.

Try never to leave a bookstore without making a purchase, if only a used paperback. It is the least you can do to support these defenders and bastions of civilization.

Let me end these bibliophilic thoughts by stressing that the most interesting books are seldom the obvious ones — that’s why “hitting the shops” is so much serendipitous fun. But don’t forget that collecting books should lead to reading and using them, whether we do so for instruction, research or delight. Interior decoration doesn’t count.