Bookshop: Autumn Leaves Used Books

By Kelly Sedinger, on January 4th, 2011

With its two local universities, Ithaca, NY is known in part for its many bookstores. Every fall for the last several years, my wife and I have traveled down to Ithaca from our home near Buffalo to attend Ithaca’s wonderful Apple Harvest Festival, which is a giant festival in downtown Ithaca that is devoted to crafts, food, apples, music, and all things autumnal. Or, at least, we tell each other we’re going for the Apple Festival. I, in large part, am going for the bookstores. And even having gone there four years in a row, we still haven’t visited all of them.    

 

Inside the "Autumn Leaves Used Books" store

Inside the "Autumn Leaves Used Books" store

 Of the ones I have been in, my favorite is a used bookstore called Autumn Leaves Used Books. Set squarely in the middle of Ithaca’s downtown block (which is now a pedestrian mall), Autumn Leaves isn’t the most densely-packed used bookstore I’ve ever been in, but that is a large part of its charm. I love a used bookstore that is packed full with tightly-spaced shelves as much as the next person, but Autumn Leaves’s interior is widely spaced and open, with ample space between shelves to navigate and browse without having to move aside or turn oneself sideways in order to allow other patrons to get through. They have a lovely kids’ section at the back of the main floor, separated off by low shelves arranged in a square, so the kids have their own area but can still be seen from just about anywhere on the main floor. 

   

Autumn Leaves has three floors — two floors and a basement, actually — and the upper floor is partially devoted to a coffee bar offering the typical bookstore coffee bar items. Free Wi-fi is available, but I’ve never used it. The building is one of those older downtown buildings where the floors and stairs pleasantly creak as one shifts one’s weight around. There is no bookstore cat that I’m aware of, unless it is kept sequestered on days like the Apple Festival, when the front and back doors are pretty much always propped open.
 

In terms of selection, used bookstores obviously vary from visit to visit, depending on what they’ve acquired in the interim between one’s visits. I’ve always found their Fantasy and Science Fiction section pleasantly abundant — it’s not huge, but it consists of two sets of shelves that are about twenty feet long, if memory serves. My most memorable purchases there include an entire four-book series by Michael Moorcock, a copy of the annotated Hobbit by Tolkien, and a number of Andre Norton space operas. My biggest missed opportunity there? Well, I still kick myself for not buying the Star Trek Technical Manual when I saw it there a year ago.

I don’t visit enough used bookstores to really be able to gauge the prices at Autumn Leaves, but I’ve never been unhappy with what I’ve bought there. On my last visit, I plucked an omnibus edition of Dan Simmons’s Hyperion and Endymion from a special “$1 each” shelf, to the consternation of the clerk, who yelped, “This wasn’t supposed to be on that shelf!” But he honored the price, which I appreciated. Other than that, I can’t comment too much about the staff there; in my experience at Autumn Leaves, they tend to offer help when asked, but I’ve never asked for it. They’re pleasant at the point of sale and otherwise they stay out of the way and let you browse. One quirk I like is how they ask you at each sale if you want a bag; when you say yes, they pluck a bag from a pile of used grocery store bags that they keep behind the counter. I’m appreciative of their re-use of plastic bags, even if I always end up buying more books than I’m willing to trust to a grocery store bag.
 

Outside the "Autumn Leaves Used Bookstore"

Outside the "Autumn Leaves Used Bookstore"

Autumn Leaves does not seem to have an official Web site, but they are on Facebook.

 

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