Back in the 90s maybe earlier, no it can’t be earlier because I didn’t get to Atlanta until 85 or so, so probably late 80s early 90s. There was a used book store call Oxford Too that was at 2395 Peachtree Rd. (looking at Google Earth). It was an old house that had stacks of books, narrow hallways, lots of dust. Heaven.
My brother and I went there for no particular reason. Honestly I don’t remember him and I regularly going book shopping, but that’s not important.
I remember going there frequently. It was a perfect used book store in that it was almost mystical because of it’s dusty history. On this trip in particular I noticed a set of sci-fi booklets from the 60s/70s for really really cheap. It was just boxes of those random pulp, printed artifacts but there were so many that it felt necessary to obtain them. I’ll never understand the obsession of obtaining all items, but I accept that I am afflicted with that kindof otaku-type mania. I’m not sure why I didn’t buy them but I didn’t. It was in the days of college budget which means no budget so I suspect it was part of an I’d-rather-have-food era.
Cut to X-mas that year and my brother gives me a set of maybe 30 of them. Predominantly issues of Fantasy & Science Fiction, but with a few Asimov’s Science Fiction, Galaxy, and Analog.
I was remembering these because we’re in the middle of another end-of-year purge and it has been declared that Books Must Go. I have a lot of worthless-ish older books that were not hard to part with, and these had been in storage so were placed (not by me) on the Books Must Go list. That did not happen. Worthless-ish were deported from our shelves to the donation center, and pulpy sci-fi history imported. Hardest part about reading them will be not cracking their spines.
- INtown at 20: Remembering Oxford Books – From 2014, remembrance of the now-shuttered Oxford Books stores.
- ‘Imperiled’ historic building remembered as beloved Buckhead bookstore – From 2018, reporting on the effort to save the building, built in 1929, as an historic landmark. Here’s the 2017 story from the same site about its preservation.