Today my wanderings took me away from the woods and dirt paths towards quaint towns and into old mills, a garage, and a barn, all converted into treasure troves of books. Inspired by an article in Yankee magazine highlighting some of the best used bookstores in New England, I created a day trip for my husband, a fellow book lover, and I to explore some of these unique peddlers. Typically, I visit bookstores whenever I am exploring a new place; this time it was reversed and we visited new towns while the bookstore was the primary destination.
Total driving consisted of 269 miles and the day lasted 12 hours. As time is important to me, I mapped out our potential bookstores as best as I possibly could and estimated the time. One bookstore in Vermont was too far north and today’s hours could not be confirmed so I took that off the list as well as a bookstore down in Connecticut near the coast. As the day went on, I had to take off another bookstore, “The Shire” in Franklin, MA due to it’s closing time making it inaccessible later in the day. To make up for some of the bookstores I couldn't get to, I added one in Brattleboro to our trip and one in Newburyport. Below is the map of our final trip and we traveled clockwise, another tradition of mine.
We started the day heading west on route 2 towards Montague, Massachusetts in search of the Book Mill situated on the Sawmill river. We found it easily enough and were very impressed by the grounds. There were mill buildings painted in a deep red with white trim spread throughout the property adorned with small gardens and stonework walls. The store wasn’t quite opened so we checked out the attached Lady Killigrew cafe and bar. This was a welcoming cafe, that offered great tasting coffee in a comfortable setting with tables chairs in addition to a counter with bar stools. Before we would leave Mike and I grabbed a lunch to go from their menu. The store opened just after ten and I explored all of their little rooms set up in different places of the mill. The books were well organized, the store was very clean, and open windows allowed for the soothing sound of the river flowing just outside to drift in while browsing. The staff were friendly and helpful but not very chatty. The store and cafe offered free wifi and several folks were taking advantage of that both at cafe tables and throughout the bookrooms in makeshift desks and comfortable sitting chairs. I found the prices reasonable and selection satisfactory. This is a bookstore and cafe I would definitely revisit!
And here is the Cafe-the book store is to the right and river just outside the windows:
Next we headed to Vermont on our way to some New Hampshire bookstores. Since we were passing near Brattleboro, I used my “Yelp” app to research any decent used bookstores. Brattleboro Books came up and had good reviews so we set the gps to the mountain view town. Again, we were able to locate it no problem but did have to pay for parking. $.60 and hour isn’t too steep though! This bookstore was compact and was packed with books. The prices were a little high compared to the previous bookstore but reasonable. It didn’t take me long to browse the store and find some more hiking companion books. The store owner was polite and helpful here as well. http://www.brattleborobooks.com/ As we left, we headed to a bookstore across the street, Everyone’s Books, they sell new books for “Social Justice and the Earth.” Pretty large store with a lot of local interest and helpful staff. http://www.everyonesbks.com/
After a brief visit in Vermont we drove into New Hampshire’s small towns. We drove along route 9 and passed two of my recent hiking spots: Mt. Pisgah and Chesterfield Gorge. Henniker is the home of New England College and a had lots of traffic due to the weekend being move in weekend for their students. We found the Old Number Six Book Depot off on a side street in a residential home. There was a sign out front otherwise we would have not believed it was a bookstore. Parking was available in a large driveway and the entrance was just passed a cluttered porch to a former garage. We were greeted right away and overtaken with the size of the store. It was a lot larger than it seemed from the outside. This was by far the largest collection of books I’ve ever seen, probably more than most libraries. The owner, Ian Morrison, is a former history professor from NEC, and very personable. When I asked him if he turned his book collecting into a business he laughed it off and said it wasn’t a collection, it was a disease. He started collecting books on history and wanted to own everyone, and then started to collect bargain books, and it just grew from there. Despite the extensive collection, it was amazingly organized. Some of the categories were on topics I haven’t even heard of like “Pulsars and Quasars.” This is a bookstore I highly recommend everyone who loves books try to visit. It had the biggest collection, was organized by topic and author, and the owner was the friendlies gentleman! I had to use the restroom (another plus!) and he told me to follow the pink string. Sure enough, there was a pink string near the entrance and it ran along the floor by book shelves, up the stairs and past more bookshelves, through several rooms and ended at the restroom way off to the corner. Another fascinating aspect of this store were the comics he had taped along the ends of bookshelves, I had fun reading many of them when I wasn't looking over book titles. http://www.hennikerbookdepot.com/
The entrance is through the door of the dark brown building, past the porch collection of items:
Here is a video Mike took wandering through the store: bookstore walk through tour
Our second bookstore to visit in New Hampshire would bring us down to North Hampton along route 1. We found the location easy enough in a large yellow barn. There were For Sale signs posted all over it but they were open. The staff shared that sadly, due to lack of business, they would need to sell and relocate all the books, probably to Maine in a warehouse. He was very friendly and personable. He shared part of the history of the store and the demise of both Antique and book stores due to many adults just not shopping at them anymore. This barn was filled floor to ceiling with paintings, antiques, books and other artifacts. There was a strong musty smell in the barn that was divided into many rooms on two floors, fifteen rooms alone for the books! Many of the books were in ziplock bags which made it difficult to pick up and flip through, the prices were a bit high and it was difficult to navigate through the rooms. I do wish the owners good luck, their collection was definitely impressive. http://www.drakefarmbooks.com/
It was not almost five in the evening and we wanted to try to hit one more store. It was too late to go to Franklin, MA so we looked for bookstores near 495 and found several in Newburyport, MA. We headed down to the Tannery Mill stores and visited the Jabberwocky Bookshop, a real treasure! Their collection wasn’t as large as some of the previous stores but it was new, staff very helpful and pleasant, and it included a great toy store! I found a book I had been looking for and we really enjoyed the atmosphere of the renovated Tannery Mill. http://www.jabberwockybookshop.com/
