A Guide to the Best of Southern California : FAVORITES : Where a Book-Review Editor Goes to Browse

Vroman’s on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, which is near my home, and Fowler Brothers on 7th Street in downtown Los Angeles, which is near my office. Vroman’s won a lasting gold star in my editor’s heart in November, 1987, when it had, in stock, all five of the books nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in biography that year. Business at Fowler Brothers has been disrupted by the construction of the 7th Street subway, but Bob Manners of the trade books department and proprietor Sieg Lindstrom have a century of bookstore history behind them. Fowler Brothers, having survived worse, will surely survive the subway.

Among specialist bookstores, Rizzoli’s in Costa Mesa is admirable for the beauty of its art-book displays and small, elegant exhibit space. For children’s books, I shop at San Marino Toy & Book Shoppe (First Lady Barbara Bush recently invited proprietor Betty Takeuchi to the White House in connection with the Year of the Young Reader).

And for pure fun, it is hard to top Bart’s Books in Ojai. In this used-book emporium, an oak-shaded patio is enclosed by a maze of roofed bookshelves. The cheapest books are in the open shelves facing the street. (After-hours customers are instructed to throw their money into the patio.) There is also, however, a small inner sanctum with treasures for serious collectors and a glimpse of the book-cherishing spirit that makes this establishment possible.