Sunday, November 23, 2008

John K. King Used & Rare Bookstore




The biggest second hand bookstore in Detroit, and far beyond I guess, is to be found at 901 W. Lafayette Boulevard. John King himself built up this huge book emporium and he recruited very nice staff, as well. Five stories of books, books, books..on every possible subject you can imagine. If you can’t find it yourself, the people in the store will help you chase it down. All the aisles have overhead lights you can turn on and off to give some extra visibility to your search. I almost got myself a big pile of books, including books on Science Fiction with a very nice contribution of Hakim Bey, a book on Michigan plants, a little booklet with lumber information from the 1920’s and poems from Allen Ginsberg. In the end, I diminished my stack to two books on Detroit, which was of course why I came here in the first place. The titles I found are Devil’s Night and Other True Tales of Detroit by Ze’Ev Chafets and God Squad by Walter Wagner. The last one is an odd little book from 1979, with as subtitle: the drama of the Detroit police chaplains corps trying to use God where guns have failed. I will keep you posted on how that worked out.

1 comment:

goooooood girl said...

your blog is very good......