BOOK SOURCES

Here are various websites at which to find out about (or even to order, if "security" is not a major issue) books. Books in Print is accessible online to people with a valid Penn i.d. Lists of bookstores can be found at Selected Bookstores (from Oxford University's Computer Laboratory archive) and AcqWeb's Directory of Publishers and Vendors. The Book Industry Study Group can be reached via this link (and includes A Guide to Book Publishers' Archives). Canadian books are a focus of the CBC's Info Books and Writers page. At The Library of Congress, Abby Yochelson, Cassy Ammen, et alii, have produced Collection Development and the Internet: A Brief Handbook for Recommending Officers in the Humanities and Social Sciences . . . .

FOR PENN USERS ONLY:
Global Online Bibliographic Information Service (YBP Library Services)

A good example of a book collector's home page -- which includes addresses from which you may order books -- is to be found here (duck! -- it includes sound effects, although -- now -- only if you want them). Other "antique, rare, and used book" sources can be located from

Bookcases and other book-related chachkes readers may think they need can be checked out on (inter alia) the Levenger Home Page.

Used and o.p. booksellers, not all of them available through online search engines or their own websites, can often be located through using (inter alia) Book Hunter Press's Used Book Lover's Guides guides.

Book reviews are available from (inter alia) The New York Times Book Review. Book news is available from many sources; for the UK, for instance, from Books Today.

  1. General New Book Sources

    1. USA -- new books:
      1. Amazon.com
      2. American Association of University Presses (AAUP) and its online catalogue
      3. Babelguides.com (a site for world literature in English translation)
      4. Barnes and Noble
      5. BookCloseOuts.com (a site for remainders)
      6. Book Culture (536 West 112th Street, New York, New York)
      7. BookSense.com (a site for U.S. independent, locally-owned bookstores)
      8. Borders
      9. Consortium Book Sales & Distribution
      10. Frontlist (an online bookstore for new scholarly and theoretical books)
      11. Kaboombooks.com (discount books)
      12. Labyrinth Books (122 Nassau Street, Princeton, NJ; 290 York Street, New Haven, CT)
      13. Midnight Special (1318 Third Street Promenade, Santa Monica, CA 90401)
      14. Seminary Co-op Bookstore (5757 South University, 1301 East 57th Street, Chicago, IL 60637)
      15. Small Press Distribution
      16. Strand Book Store (828 Broadway, at 12th Street, New York, NY 10003)
      17. University Press Books (2430 Bancroft Way, Berkeley, CA 94704)

      18. Booksprice.com is a place at which you can compare book prices at several online book stores

    2. UK (England; Scotland) -- new books:
      1. Amazon.co.uk
      2. See also ACHUKA: Children's Books U.K. (in conjunction with Amazon.co.uk)
      3. Blackwell (Oxford; but now also including Heffer's [Cambridge], James Thin [Edinburgh], etc.)
      4. See also Blackwell's "academic Amazon," Blackwell's Online Bookshop

        Almost the first thing I did [on arriving as an undergraduate at Oxford in the early 1930s] was to assemble for myself a little library, something made possible by opening an account at Blackwell's -- an account not finally settled until I started earning my living four or five years later. I did once pay something in response to a characteristic and rather moving letter from them to the effect that 'from time to time Blackwell's found themselves in need of ready money and for this reason they would be very much obliged if the substantial bill which had accumulated over many years might become the subject of my attention, perhaps even of a payment on account'. Oxford scholarship -- even Oxford literacy, owes more to Blackwell's, surely the world's finest bookshop, than to any other amenity the University offers.
          Peter Medawar, Memoir of a Thinking Radish: An Autobiography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 44.

      5. bol.com
      6. Internet Bookshop (i.e., W. H. Smith Online)
      7. Waterstone's

    3. Ireland -- new books:

      1. Kennys Bookshop (Galway)

    4. Canada -- new books:
      1. Amazon.ca
      2. chapters.indigo.ca
      3. Canadian New Bookstores with searchable catalogues

    5. Australia -- new books:
      1. Angus & Robertson
      2. James S. Bennett (library suppliers)
      3. Clouston & Hall -- Academic Remainders (Canberra)
      4. Collins Booksellers
      5. Dymocks Booksellers
      6. Gleebooks (an independent Sydney bookstore)

    6. France -- new books:
      1. Alapage.com
      2. Amazon.fr

    7. Italy -- new books:
      1. Internet Bookshop Italia

    8. Germany -- new books:
      1. Amazon.de

    9. For comparative prices at various online new book sites, see Bestbookbuys.com.

  2. General Old, Used, and Rare Book Sources

    1. AddALL Used and Out of Print Book Search (US)

    2. BookFinder.com (US)

    3. UKBookWorld.com (UK)

    4. ABEBooks.com

    5. AKALIT

    6. Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America, with links to online dealers and catalogues, the entire ABAA membership lists, theft reporting forms, information for book collectors, and so forth

    7. Bibliodirect

    8. Biblion.com (UK)

    9. Bibliopoly.com

    10. Book Avenue

    11. Bookstore Tourism (a guide to regional bookstores)

    12. Chambal (US)

    13. ChooseBooks.com

    14. Elibron

    15. EuroLibri.net (Europe generally)

    16. L'Ex-Libris (a French site)

    17. ILAB: International League of Antiquarian Booksellers has a site that includes a search mechanism: Booksold

    18. Mare Magnum Librorum

    19. Strandbooks.com

    20. Zentrales Verzeichnis Antiquarischer Bücher (ZVAB)

  3. A Number of Specific Old, Used, and Rare Book Sources

    1. A long list of sources for book collectors with an antiquarian focus is found at The Essentials of Book Collecting: An Essay in Parts. Part 5. Book Collecting on the Internet (here is Lucas's complete Essay)

    2. Advanced Book Exchange

    3. Charles Agvent

    4. William H. Allen (Philadelphia)

    5. American Booksellers Association

    6. The Americanist (Norman and Michal Kane, Pottstown, PA)

    7. Anacapa Books

    8. AntiQBooks (a combined listing for European and American dealers in old, used, and rare books)

    9. Any Amount of Books (a UK source specializing in rare books, first editions, modern literature, art, poetry, scholarly/academic books, antiquarian, etc.)

    10. The Asian American Bookseller (from the Asian American Writers' Workshop)

    11. Asian Rare Books

    12. Baker & Taylor

    13. Beasley Books

    14. Between the Covers

    15. Bibliofind (now part of Amazon.com)

    16. Biblioquest International (Australian used and antiquarian books)

    17. Blake's Books (Boston)

    18. Bolerium Books

    19. The Book Chest

    20. BookPages (online UK books)

    21. Book People (information about Book People Mailing List, a source for information about new online books); see also The On-line Books Page

    22. Book Sales in America

    23. BookWire

    24. Brick Row Book Shop (rare, scholarly, and first edition books and manuscript material of 18th, 19th & early 20th century English & American literature)

    25. British Books@American Prices

    26. countrybookstore.co.uk (a UK online bookstore, offering discounts)

    27. Daedalus

    28. Diana Dominguez (specializing in Chicano/Chicana literature)

    29. Nederlandsche Vereeniging van Antiquaren (NVvA) -- the Dutch Association of Antiquarian Booksellers

    30. Episteme Links (this site, devoted to the history of philosophy from the ancient world to the present, is a source of books in the subject, as well)

    31. Joseph J. Felcone, Inc.

    32. The Fine Books Co. (Rochester, Michigan)

    33. Future Fantasy Bookstore

    34. Galaxidion: Le marché ancien ou épuisé

    35. R. A. Gekoski, Modern Literature / Rare Books and Manuscripts (London)

    36. Bennett Gilbert (rare books in the history of ideas)

    37. Heritage Book Shop, Inc. (modern firsts, etc.)

    38. The Internet Theatre Bookshop

    39. JustBooks (a UK used book source)

    40. Kennys Bookshop (Galway)

    41. R. R. Knott Bookseller (98 Hawthorne Avenue, Ottawa, Ontario K1S 0B1 Canada)

    42. Limes' Scandinavian Marketplace for Books

    43. Le SLAM: Syndicat national de la Librairie Ancienne et Moderne

    44. LIVRE-RARE-BOOK (Pascal Chartier, Librairie du Bât d'Argent, 38 rue des Remparts d'Ainay, 69002 Lyon, France)

    45. Ken Lopez, Bookseller (Modern First Editions, Vietnam War Literature, Fiction & Poetry by American Indians, Black Literature, Latin American Literature, Beats & the Sixties)

    46. MFLIBRA (a source for French antiquarian books)

    47. William & Nina Matheson Books, Inc.

    48. The 19th Century Shop

    49. Oak Knoll (best source for books on the book)

    50. Pandora (out-of-print science fiction, fantasy, horror, and mysteries since 1973)

    51. Pennsylvania Used Book Stores

    52. Philadelphia Rare Books & Manuscripts

    53. The Poetry Center & American Poetry Archives at San Francisco State University (for American poetry recordings)

    54. Powell's (Portland, OR)

    55. Quality Paperback Book Club

    56. Bernard Quaritch Ltd

    57. Deanna Ramsay, Bookseller (Canadian antiquarian, used, and rare booksellers)

    58. Rare Books Around the Net

    59. William Reese Company

    60. Rudi Thoemmes Rare Books

    61. David Strauss (The White House, Market Place, Folkingham, Sleaford, Lincolnshire, UK NG34 0SE)

    62. Tall Tales Fantasy and Science Fiction Bookseller

    63. Tudor Rose Books (Perry, Florida -- English and American Literature; literary criticism)

    64. WordsWorth (30 Brattle Street, Cambridge, MA 02138)

    65. Yankee Book Peddler, Inc.

    66. Yesterday's Gallery (1920s-1930s American and British fiction)

    67. John T. Zubal, Inc.

  4. Individual Publishers

    5. As they turn up and in alphabetical order, here are links to information about their publications provided by individual trade and other publishers of interest to Traister:

    1. Bantam Doubleday Dell

    2. Blackwell Publishing

    3. Bloodaxe Books

    4. Broadview Press

    5. University of California Press

    6. Cambridge University Press

    7. Canongate Books

    8. University of Chicago Press

    9. Coffee House Press

    10. Copper Canyon Press

    11. Columbia University Press

    12. Cornell University Press

    13. Dalkey Archive

    14. Farrar Straus and Giroux

    15. Four Walls Eight Windows Book Publishers

    16. Granta (magazine and book publishing; related to New York Review Books)

    17. Green Integer

    18. Harcourt Brace

    19. HarperCollins

    20. Harvard University Press

    21. Houghton Mifflin

    22. Alfred A. Knopf

    23. Liberty Fund, Inc.

    24. The MIT Press

    25. University of Nebraska Press

    26. New Directions

    27. The New Press

    28. New York Review Books (related to Granta Books).

    29. W. W. Norton

    30. Oxford University Press:
      1. UK
      2. US
      3. Singapore

    31. Penguin:
      1. US
      2. UK

    32. Phanes Press (see also the closely related site of David Fideler)

    33. Phaidon Press

    34. Pickering & Chatto

    35. Playmarket Online (New Zealand playscripts)

    36. Princeton University Press

    37. Random House

    38. Routledge

    39. Scala Publishers

    40. Serpent's Tail

    41. Simon and Schuster

    42. TELA/Scholars Press (books, journals, and electronic publications in the areas of religion, classics, and Mediterranean archaeology)

    43. Steerforth Press

    44. Turtle Point Press / Books & Co. / Helen Marx Books

    45. Verso

    46. Virago Press

    47. White Wolf (a Clarkston, GA, publisher of science fiction, fantasy, and horror, and creator of the slowest, worst organized, least readable, and least usable website Traister has ever encountered . . . but which he needed to use anyway: a colossal pain in the butt (and, as of February 1998, still a pain in the butt, although somewhat faster in its response time)

    48. H. W. Wilson

    49. Yale University Press

  5. Laserdiscs and other formats

    6. Theatrical or movie productions of literary works can now frequently be found in tape or laserdisc format. The following few sites can be useful in looking for such materials, although most of them seem to be organized for the benefit of people who are not seeking the latest film versions of, say, William Shakespeare.

    1. The Cinema Laser ("a global directory of those retailers with sites on the world wide web")

    2. The Criterion Collection

    3. Festival Films

    4. Ken Cranes Laserdisc

You can send Traister e-mail concerning this page at traister@pobox.upenn.edu.

Return to Daniel Traister's Home Page.