Bookseller Review: Piedmont Books

Piedmont Books

3800 Reynolda Rd.

Winston-Salem, NC

336.923.2437

www.piedmontusedbooks.com

Piedmont Books has over 40,000 gently used books, CDs, DVDs and video games at up to 75% the original retail price. Buy, sell and trade.

What we like: Piedmont has a surprisingly strong classics section, with a wide variety of titles and age of editions. The prices are fair.

What we don't like: It also sells the stuff we prefer not have in a bookstore, but it feels like a bookstore first, and that counts for something.

Would we go again? Considering we feel this was the best bookstore we found in Winston-Salem, we would definitely go back any time we visit.

Bookseller Review: Laster's Fine Art & Antiques

Laster's Fine Art & Antiques

664 S. Stratford Rd.

Winston-Salem, NC

336.724.7544

www.lastersfineart.com

Laster's specializes in handling estates and collections and their retail store contains valuable paintings, prints, fine antiques, rare coins, and rare books. Most of their collection is leather-bound.  

What we like: Upon first entering, we wondered where the books were. But we soon found multiple bookcases loaded with some good titles, and older editions. All hardcovers, many from the late-19th and early-20th century.

What we don't like: Even for what they have, many seemed priced too high. The few that we checked out specifically we know to be pirated or unauthorized copies, a common practice around the turn of the last century, so the prices for those seemed steep.

Would we go again? Yes. The possibility of finding some real gems here definitely exists, so we'd be crazy not to visit any time we were in Winston-Salem.

Bookseller Review: Edward McKay Used Books

Edward McKay Used Books & More

115 Oakwood Dr.

Winston-Salem, NC

336.724.6133

www.feedyourhead.net/ws

Edward McKay is a used-book store chain in North Carolina. Their Winston-Salem store has over 10,000 square feet of used books, textbooks, audiobooks, CDs, vinyl records, DVDs, VHS, and video games. Their inventory comes mostly from the public, so their stock changes every day. 

What we like: There are certainly a ton of titles, and store is well-organized and easy to browse.

What we don't like: For us, many of the editions are too new, likely many of them being used in recent college courses. And we prefer our used-book stores to not also have "Twilight: Breaking Dawn" movie posters hanging on the wall.

Would we go again? Not likely if we go back to Winston-Salem, but we're not opposed to checking out some of the other Edward McKay stores in North Carolina.

Left in the Leaves: Edgar Allan Poe Stories

After exiting the Forsyth library sale with our $5 bag of goodies, I began flipping through the Edgar Allan Poe Stories from 1961 that we found. Inside, I was tickled to find not one, but two little treats. The first is a business card for the Drifters Reef Motel on Carolina Beach, and scrawled on the back is Richard Lortie 670 W 6th ST, 724-9xxx with Sat. 10am. Interesting...

The other funny thing is an old order form for a Nifty Doodles-in-Gold kit. The order form says the offer expires on June 30, 1963. Sweet.

Bookseller Review: Forsyth Library Sale

Forsyth Library Sale

660 W. Fifth St.

Winston-Salem, NC

336.703.2665

www.forsyth.cc/library/friends.aspx

The Forsyth Library Central Branch holds a two-day, biannual book sale, hosted by the Friends of the Central Library. There is a bit of everything -- paperbacks cost 75 cents and hardbacks are $1.50. The second day everything is half-off, or $5 for a bag. 

What we like: You definitely can't beat the prices, especially on Day 2, when it's a grocery bag full of books for $5.

What we don't like: It'd be unfair to say anything bad about any library sale, let alone one we only visited for 30 minutes on its second day. We imagine there were more classics on Day 1, but even on Day 2, the selection was intriguing.

Would we go again? We wouldn't go to Winston-Salem for the Forsyth Library sale, but we might go back to Winston-Salem ... and hope the sale is happening at the same time.

At least we found the Forsyth Library sale, Pt. I

With a break of four and a half days on my work schedule, our anniversary falling in that span, and with a recommendation for a bakery in our back pocket, we took a little road trip down to Winston-Salem, N.C., this past weekend, and scouted out a few bookstores while we were there.

We had four bookstores on our list, and while none of them really panned out (except for a single purchase), we did also happen to be visiting when the Forsyth County Public Library system was holding their bi-annual sale at the Central Library in downtown Winston-Salem.

It was actually our first stop upon arriving in the city Sunday, and it was the second day of the two-day sale, which meant that all books were half-price, or a flat $5 for a regular-size paper grocery bag of books. There was a "Classics" table, and though it looked pretty well picked over, we did manage to come out of there with a half-dozen titles (below), as well as a James Fenimore Cooper biography, all for a five-spot. Not too shabby.

Books added: The Prince of India, Lewis Wallace (1906); Then and Now, W. Somerset Maugham (1946); Edgar Allan Poe Stories, Edgar Allan Poe (1961); Macbeth, William Shakespeare (1878); Henry Esmond, William Makepeace Thackeray (1942); Cass Timberlane, Sinclair Lewis (1945)

Publishers (in order listed above):  Harper & Brothers Publishers; Doubleday & Co.; Platt & Munk; J.B. Lippincott & Co.; Walter J. Black; Random House

Years: See above

Where obtained: Forsyth Public Library Central Library, Winston-Salem, N.C.

Price: $5.00 for all