A Birthday Trek

NOTE: I have been busy editing my book, Island Times Three, and have fallen behind in my posting schedule.

Another one of my birthdays occurred last week, and to “celebrate” I told my family I wanted to visit a bookstore.  More precisely, a used books bookstore. Candidates included shops in Ann Arbor, Novi and Brighton.
     A bit more research turned up John K. King Used Books in Detroit on Lafayette and Fifth, and with over one million books in stock, what was not to like?
Off we go!

As we started out, I was glad that at least this year, compared to 3 years ago, my birthday would be free from natural disasters.

Here we are, Lafayette and Fifth!

     John K. King Used Books boasts 4 book-filled floors. Absolutely no space is wasted.

 We were pleasantly greeted and given a map—this map is essential:

We stayed about an hour and a half, and I’m pretty sure that at least 999,000 books await my perusal. If I skim through the same amount of books and stay the same amount of time each visit, I will have to travel to John K. King Books 999 more times to see them all.

I spent most of my time in the home decorating section and discovered some interesting finds (thanks, Katie!) for $24:

I adore vintage decorating books (mid century), especially of the fifties, sixties and early seventies.

In the end, I was quite overwhelmed by the number of books. After an hour and a half I barely scratched the surface, and at that point we were all ready to leave. Next time we are up for a trek, we want to visit John K. King North in Ferndale. Supposedly, this store only houses about 60,000 books–much more doable!

Detroitbookfest.com published an interesting article on John King and his bookstore in 2017.