Jan5

The Last Bookstore

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The Last Bookstore

The Last Bookstore in L.A. is where our family went over Thanksgiving break. (Maybe, eventually, I’ll get around to posting about our Christmas break).

But before I get to that, a followup to my “Best laid (sneaky Christmas) plans” post. Originally, I was hitting up thrift stores because I meant the coat for Mrs. Instructor to be a gag gift. But then my focus shifted.

Soooooo … that’s amazing.

Now on to the blog post!

The Last Bookstore was featured in the blog of my homegirl Janis at Retirementally Challenged (clever!) My eyes lit up when I read:

“Housed in a hundred-year-old bank building, The Last Bookstore is known for its huge selection of used books and a well-curated collection of first editions, rare, and vintage books (complete with the deep, musty smell that bibliophiles cherish). Customers can also browse through new fiction and non-fiction books, as well as an extensive selection of vinyl records.”

And it’s within driving distance! We didn’t tell the kids where we were going, just that they should bring something to do in the car for two hours each way. They brought… books.

This meme encapsulates my children well:

When we arrived, they were pleased.

Pleasantly surprised.

A couple views of the ground floor complete with, what is that? A woolly mammoth head?

Books upon books.
Books used as decor. Also, a cool ceiling.
Books making up the checkout desk, which seems sort of sacrilegious.

Remember that thing Janis said about bibliophiles liking the smell of old books?

I happened to catch one nose deep.
Bank vault doors to another room.
The vault had a creaky wooden floor.
You can see why this was in the vault. Wowsa.
So old!
See? Old.
Above the vault.
Note that Mystery has a ? instead of an arrow. I do appreciate cleverness.

And a book tunnel?

So many books, it’s like they don’t know what to do with them.

Color code them, I guess.
Because, why not?
Neville’s trunk got lost on the way to Hogwarts.
Good thing I didn’t take selfies.
Who thinks of this stuff?
Holding a book, of course.
I can only imagine Edgar Allan Poe books were in this area.
A collection of old cameras? Sure.
There was a lot of weird stuff about.
“We’ve got 22,000 sq. feet of space to fill. What should we put here?” “I don’t know? An old piano thingy?” “That works.”
Planning the layout for those frames would’ve been a fun challenge. I was so distracted by those, I forgot to take a closer look at what was behind the locked glass.
A gift shop with an interesting floor.
This is a former bank, after all.
Notebooks with funny titles.
Both of those would be accurate for me.
Heh heh. Honesty.
I’m confused, too, child.
Record room, obvi.
I know at least one of you is big into vinyl, so I made sure I was thorough for you.
This should cover it.
I also appreciated the old floor.

A couple of purchases later…

That felt accurate.

Janis got pics of stuff I missed, including the Danger Room and another view of the outside of the building, so check out her post too!

Is this a place you’d like to visit?

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57 responses »

  2. Most impressive! This is the kind of place I would have loved to spend a day at, about 10-15 years ago. Now with my diabetic eyes, paperbooks just aren’t good enough for me anyway.

    I LOVED all the pictures too. I actually looked at them. So no more Sensei/Instructor mixups (hopefully) 😀

    Does this mean that your next trivia question will be book related (hint, hint)?

    And finally, this never showed up for me in the feed. So I’m going to officially “unfollow” you through wordpress but don’t be alarmed, I’ve totally got you covered using Feedbro, which picks up all your posts no problem. Its how I saw this post in a timely manner instead of 3-5 days later, hahahahaa 😀

    Hope you had a wonderful New Years and am looking forward to your further adventures in 2025…

    Liked by 1 person

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    • I was looking forward to what you had to say about this, Booky. You actually looked at the pictures! Wow. Honored. 😊 Too bad I didn’t blog about this place 10-15 years ago. 😉

      Super annoyed with WP. I contacted them, and everything they told me to do I had already done. Ugh. 🤷‍♀️

      Liked by 1 person

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      • yeah, our 20+ bookcases back then would have been stuffed even fuller 😀
        And then we would have had even more books to sell when we thought we were moving to GA 2 years ago (we didn’t, but we did manage to downsize, so it was still a win).

        Yeah, if you’ve done everything they said, not much else you can do. They regularly “update” things nobody wants but can’t make core functionalities work all the time. That is WP in a nutshell.

        Liked by 1 person

      • I had a dream recently that we lived in a decommissioned library turned into a house, with all the books still in it. My family might have a problem. My parents’ house was much the same.

        Liked by 1 person

    • I’m so grateful you alerted me to this place!
      Hubby says we did see the Danger Room but quickly turned around and steered the children clear. There were scantily clad cover models, apparently. I’d forgotten about that. But your vault pic looks different from my vault pic. Was there more than one vault?

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      • Haha! I seem to remember that the Danger Room was called that for a good reason… and not because of possible physical injury.

        I think there might have been two vaults, but I just saw one… or I saw the second one but didn’t realize it wasn’t the same (there was a LOT to see!).

        And, of course I meant “shout-out” not “shoot-out.” There goes my New Years resolution to check my spelling before hitting Reply.

        Btw, did you visit any other interesting sites while in the area?

        Liked by 1 person

      • I guess I’ll have to go back to see the possible second vault!

        We didn’t see anything else other than the buildings when we took the long walk around the block back to our car. The buildings were cool, and I took some pics of those, too, but left them out here.

        Of course there was traffic on the way home, and kids, and blah blah blah. Fortunately, Little Man had bought a Pokemon book, so that kept him fairly well entertained for the long drive home. 🙂

        Liked by 1 person

  6. Wow, Ilsa Rey (😉) this bookstore is amazing. I would love to visit it. Everything about it is so clever! And I love your pictures. We went to a restaurant in Cleveland that used to be an old bank. No books there, just food and drink!

    Liked by 1 person

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  10. What a totally amazing place! How long were you there? I wouldn’t know where to even start looking. So much good stuff, between the books, the crazy art, the money stuff AND the vinyl! There is a bookshop in Columbus (The Book Loft of German Village) that’s supposed to be incredibly cool, but I’ve never been. However, I think it’s a dwarf compared to yours. Thanks for the tour!

    Liked by 1 person

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    • A couple of hours, maybe? I didn’t pay any attention to the time. 22,000 sq feet was a lot of ground to cover. The crazy thing for me was, I’d seen a pic of the circle hole of books before. Someone sent that to me, and I assumed it was one of those mystical magical online photos of some wild place I’d never see. I could hardly believe I was seeing it IRL. You never fully believe those pics are real…

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  12. Looks like a magical place, Betsy. Bookstores are an endangered species in the age of Amazon and big box stores and it’s wonderful when indie stores can thrive. I love used bookstores for the reasons you convey and your photos capture their charm!

    Liked by 1 person

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  18. I remember reading and commenting on Janis’ post. The closest I’ve experienced is Powell’s Books in Portland, though that place has nary a woolly mammoth’s head or penny floor. (Or records, for that matter. Love the records!) They do have a rare book room like the vault here, and there are some pretty impressive titles there.

    I was going to comment on the cleverness of Mysteries? but you beat me to it.

    L.A. is pretty far down on my list of places to visit (no offense), but should I ever end up there again, this is for sure on my bucket list.

    Thank you for mentioning this overlooked post!

    Liked by 1 person

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  19. I’m glad I actually came to your site to see what I’ve missed. I follow you, but some of your posts aren’t showing up in my WP feed. 😦

    But this is awesome! What a great day. Your pictures are fantastic. I love bookstores – new or old, but the old ones have so much charm (or weird factors). We homeschooled, so I was always on the lookout for those old history fiction books like A Pawn in the Game by Fitchett. How nice your family enjoyed the day, too.

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