On a quick weekend jaunt to St. Louis, we saw all kinds of historic sites and of course we hit a bookstore.
On a Saturday evening, after a fine, full day of visiting the Cahokia Mounds and the charming town of St. Charles, we swung by The Book House in Maplewood — which happily is open until 10 pm Saturdays.
From the outside, it looks just like an ordinary storefront, but inside… so many books!
It’s an indie bookstore, and they sell mostly used and rare books, but they also stock a small selection of new titles.
And their shop has library ladders!
There are books all over the place, and thankfully there’s a nice bookstore guide stationed at a desk inside the front door to provide guidance to the history and politics sections or whatever a person might be wanting.
Here’s a view of part of the fiction section…
I found two books on my Wish List and bought them, and now they’re still in that new book glory area of our home library where I place new acquisitions before I break down and shelve them.
Other highlights of the trip:
The Dear Man bought a book about Cahokia at the gift shop.
We did some Lewis & Clark tourism.
We ate some amazing cookies in St. Charles.
We said hey to our old acquaintance Daniel Boone.
We went to Pappy’s Smokehouse for life-changing BBQ. (Ribs for him, baked potato for her)
We ate our 2nd St. Louis style pizza — this time at Billy G’s — and analyzed it thoroughly. We’re Chicago people, and while we don’t despise provel, we just can’t make ourselves crave it. Still: it’s not bad pizza, and it easily passes the “Would we eat this again?” test.
So, once again, St. Louis is a hit.
Anyone else visited a great bookstore lately?
2 thoughts on “Bookish Tourist: The Book House”