Store Hours:
We are open 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, except:
Thursday, November 24 (Thanksgiving): CLOSED
Saturday, December 24 (Christmas Eve): 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Sunday, December 25 (Christmas Day): CLOSED
Saturday, December 31 (New Year's Eve): 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Sunday, January 1 (New Year's Day): 12 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Tuesday, January 3: CLOSED for our annual inventory
Checking Stock on our Website:
You can check our inventory online before placing an order! Right below the book cover image and Add to Cart button, there is information on whether a book is in stock or out of stock. This information is updated hourly, but it may not always be accurate. To have a bookseller check the shelf for you and set a copy aside, please call us at (323) 660-1175.
Ordering Out-of-Stock Books:
If you're ordering out-of-stock books for in-store pickup by December 24, we recommend getting your orders in by the following dates:
Monday, December 12 for older, more niche, or less common books
Monday, December 19 for recent, widely available books
When in doubt, stop by or give our booksellers a call! They'd be happy to check our distributor's warehouses and see how quickly we would anticipate your order arriving. You can reach us at (323) 660-1175.
Shipping Deadlines:
If you'd like us to ship your books to you or your recipient for delivery by December 24, we recommend having your purchase made by the following dates:
Monday, December 12 for USPS Media Mail
Saturday, December 17 for USPS Priority Mail
Please note that if your books aren't in stock at the time of your order, it will take us one to two weeks to get your books before shipping them.
Online Orders:
Currently, in-stock orders for pickup are filled in one to two days. Books that are not in stock will be ordered for you and we'll send you a notification email with an estimated timeframe for your order (order turnaround depends on which warehouse in which part of the country is shipping us the book).
We are doing our best to process your online orders quickly. However, with a small team, there is a delay between when you place your order and when one of our booksellers enters it into our system, pulls and processes any in-stock books, and reaches out to you with an update. You will get an update posted to your online order and emailed to you once we've started processing your order. (Check your spam filter if you don't see an email come in.)
In-Store Pickup versus Shipping:
We strongly recommend choosing in-store pickup on your order for two reasons: (1) we process each book on a pickup order as soon as it arrives, so a backordered or not-yet-published book won’t hold up the rest of your order; and (2) our customers have experienced USPS delays and a major uptick in porch theft in the last couple of years with shipped books. In-store pickup is faster and more reliable.
However, your books are not available for pickup immediately. Please wait to receive a notification that your order is ready before coming to the store.
Due to space limitations, we hold orders for 90 days after they're ready for pickup, then consider them abandoned and donate them.
We continue to offer shipping, and will happily ship your order if that’s the best option for you. We recommend Priority Mail, which has been much more reliable than Media Mail over the last few years.
Members in our Friends with Benefits program get free Media Mail shipping as a benefit of membership, and we will continue to offer that service. However, we're also offering discounted Priority Mail for members (starting at $5.95) to give members a more reliable option.
Member Discounts:
To apply your Friends with Benefits member discount to your online order, choose Apply Member Discount in the Cart. This button won't update the book prices automatically -- we do that manually before we charge your card.
Gift Cards:
You can purchase or redeem gift cards in-store or on our website.
When you're paying for an online order with a gift card, our website won't be able to verify the amount on your gift card, so it also asks for a credit card, so we can charge your card for any balance not covered by the gift card.
Gift Wrap:
Free gift wrapping is available in-store and online. For online orders needing wrapping: In your Cart, you'll see a message that says "Need Gift Wrapping? Click here." That link will take you to a form where you can identify the items that are part of that gift, fill out To and From information, and include a gift message.