Westsider Books

On the Upper West Side, across from Zabar's, a bookstore has stood for more than three decades in one incarnation or another. Today it's Westsider Books and it has pretty much everything you could want in a bookstore.



Long and narrow, with high ceilings, Westsider is packed to the rafters with used books. The shelves are stacked 15 levels tall. Ask for a title you can't find and the knowledgeable shopkeeper will mount a tall rolling ladder to retrieve it.


view from the second level

Not only are the books packed high, they're also packed deep--two levels deep. If the book you're looking for doesn't come down from the heights, the shopkeeper will dig behind the first layer of volumes, pulling out handfuls at a time, to find your quarry in the depths.

It's the sort of place where you can lose yourself.

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