Book Browsing in Dupont Circle

(Kramerbooks and Afterwords Café façade at right. Image from http://www.kramers.com/about.cfm)

It's a rare thing to see three* independent bookstores operate within a short walking distance of one another. Even before the internet threw the publishing industry into an uncertain abyss, corporate behemoths like Borders and Barnes & Noble endangered smaller establishments, and the meeker storefronts generally remained few and far between.
But the neighborhood where Sinclair Lewis wrote Main Street boasts a handful of local bookshops all surviving even in the presence of a Books-A-Million (the area’s one chain, stocking the lousiest selection). Here is the lowdown on my favorite literary emporiums in Dupont Circle:

*I know that Lambda Rising counts as a Dupont bookstore, but since it comes from a GLBT angle, I plan to profile it in a future post on District GLBT places of interest.

Kramerbooks & Afterwords Café – 1517 Connecticut Ave. NW – Open until 1 a.m. every day and 24 hours on Fridays and Saturdays, this bookshop/eatery transcends the lowly standing usually reserved for businesses focused on literature and assumes a loftier, glossier position – that of a nightlife staple. Though most of its profit presumably comes from food and drink, its retail space, outfitted with one of the widest fiction selections in the District, usually bustles well into the night.
New releases, encompassing literature, essays and memoirs, lie to the left upon entering. In front of the distant wall dedicated entirely to fiction, several shelves carry major titles in philosophy and theology, many of which would appeal to the city’s liberal population, but enough that would challenge its groupthink propensities as well.
Closer to the café entrance are the larger history, specialty and self-help sections. Through another corridor one finds the bar (in a bookstore? No reason to ever leave…) and, understandably separate, a decent children/teens section.
Poetry is lacking in Kramerbooks, however, occupying only one part of a slim shelf back near the literature and philosophy. This weak point is common to many booksellers, but after such a strong showing in fiction it comes off a tad disappointing. It makes the place seem incomplete, though only barely.
Prices are average – as a broke college student I wouldn’t make more than two purchases at a time. Service is helpful, but because the place attracts throngs, not as intimate as other independent shops.
The crowd does allow the shopper to flip through pages as long as he or she likes without arousing impatience, but don’t expect to get any appreciable reading done in the store itself – nowhere to sit outside the dining area, and a din of voices and music fills the space constantly. But it’s not an unbearable din, by any means, and the playlists are usually decent and diverse – I’ve heard Fleet Foxes switched to Van Halen in one sitting.

Books for America – 1417 22nd St. NW – Farther away from the traffic circle, tucked in an unusually schizophrenic spot between Soho Café and Club Apex, lies this gem of used bookseller. Books for America relies on donations and volunteers to achieve its endearingly basic mission – encouraging reading and literacy in the District – by offering the cheapest deals on books anywhere beyond a yard sale.
For instance, on my first visit I arrived with $3.50 in my wallet, intending only to browse. I came away with Waiting for Godot, A View from the Bridge and Inherit the Wind. Not an everyday occurrence, especially for frequenting an establishment that looks like part of a shopping center.
The problem with a donations-only bookstore, however, is that the selection can range from extravagant on one day to paltry the next. It depends on how many gracious philanthropists are donating, and gracious philanthropists are scarce these days (I don’t blame them, though). When I bought three of the most eminent titles in drama that day, I essentially cleared out all the relevant titles in Books for America’s drama section. I’m sure it has been replenished since then, but there’s no real way of knowing what you will or won’t find while shopping.
That said, this store stocks plenty. (The bookmark they give away with purchases encourages the buyer to donate their books back upon finishing. I fully endorse this policy, even if I don’t flawlessly live up to it.) With a plain, hectic arrangement, the lo-fi aura within lets the shopper feel as if he or she were sifting through a literary dumping ground, searching for glistening titles both renowned and obscure.
They may be hard to find quickly – if they are there at all – but when time permits the digging can be as rewarding as the discoveries.

Second Story Books – 2000 P St. NW – This is a collector’s bookstore, which means no cheap purchases here. But that doesn’t mean it’s unworthy of a browse, either. Both Second Story’s Dupont and Rockville, Md. locations specialize in rare items, mostly hardcover, that ordinarily only an internet search could produce.
The store’s interior looks more like a library than a local shop, with tall wooden shelves eliciting an administrative vibe. But their contents are far from mundane – in the literary criticism section I came across books so old that their jackets had World War II propaganda written on the inside cover. Though fiction is sparse, I found an edition of Tropic of Capricorn from the first year it legally printed in the United States.
Of course, jewels like these are expensive. Only the tables outside offer any cheap deals, and I found much of their contents sub-par. But taking down an original Mencken, sitting down on the partially obscured chair in the far left corner, and reading a few pages while Billie Holiday played on the loudspeakers made the visit worthwhile. Even though I could never in my dreams afford the book I held, I felt distinguished just having the opportunity to flip through it.
And collectors – this is your local diamond mine. Come prepared to strike it rich.