From superstores and quirky indies to unusual nontraditional sites, L.A. has them all
.

The second largest city in the country, Los Angeles boasts a broad range of bookstores, from chains and general independents to some of the most delightful and quirky specialty shops and nontraditional outlets, including, believe it or not, a car wash. (See below.)The bookstores listed below are a selection and are ordered roughly from downtown heading west toward the ocean. A section on Pasadena, northeast of downtown, concludes the list.

Downtown

The Museum of Contemporary Art Bookstore (250 S. Grand Ave.; 213-621-1713) features contemporary art books, catalogues, cards, posters, ceramics, glass, magazines, T-shirts, ties, art multiples.

Dutton's Books (505 S. Flower St.; 213-683-1199), in the Arco Plaza Mall next to the Bonaventure Hotel, is one of the few downtown bookstores mixing used and new books. The main store is in North Hollywood (5146 Laurel Canyon Blvd.; 818-769-3866); the stores are run by a different branch of the Dutton family from Dutton's Brentwood.

Just two-and-a-half years old, Skylight Books (1818 N. Vermont Ave.; 323-660-1175) inhabits a pleasant, expansive 2000-sq.-ft. space with a hangarlike ceiling-and yes, skylights-once occupied by Chatterton's, which closed in 1994. In the bohemian, individualistic neighborhood of Los Feliz/ Silverlake -- think East Village West -- not far west of downtown, the emphasis is on literary fiction, film and cinema, Los Angeles history and alternative titles. The store has been very creative in devising theme readings, such as an "L.A. Crime Chroniclers" event featuring Michael Connelly, a former Los Angeles Times police reporter and author of Angels Flight (Little, Brown); Paula L. Woods, who writes about a LAPD homicide detective in Inner City Blues (Norton); and Miles Corwin, a Los Angeles Times reporter, author of Killing Season (Fawcett), who followed an LAPD homicide team.

Just down the street from Skylight is Amok Books (1764 N. Vermont Ave.; 323-665-0956; www.komabookstore. com), also known as the Koma Bookstore. A long, narrow storefront offers up a variety of books, magazines, records, videos and CDs on anarchy, sleaze, mayhem, erotica and surrealism, among other favorite subjects.

In Larchmont Village, which feels like it's been transported from New England, Chevalier's Books (126 N. Larchmont Blvd.; 213-465-1334) has nice black signage and fixtures with unusual black drawers and cases for overstock, in about 1000 square feet of space.

At Every Picture Tells a Story (7525 Beverly Blvd.; 323-932-6070; www. everypicture.com) the story is: original artwork from children's books, editorial, comic and magazine art, displayed in an airy 5000-sq.-ft. exhibition space. The store also has a comfortable but small children's book area in front. Its collection includes pieces by Garth Williams (Charlotte's Web), H.A. Rey (Curious George), Clement Hurd (Goodnight Moon) and Hilary Knight (Eloise).

One of the most significant African-American bookstores on the West Coast, Eso Won Books (3655 S. La Brea Ave.; 323-294-0324; www.esowon.com) carries more than 12,000 titles pertaining to African-Americans. The store also has a large selection of audiobooks and videos.

The University of Southern California Bookstore (840 Childs Way; 213-740-9036) is one of the country's largest college stores, with a full selection of titles and services.

More than 60 years old, Larry Edmunds Cinema &Theatre Bookshop (6644 Hollywood Blvd.; 213-463-3273) has some 5000 new and used titles about cinema, movies, theater and television.

Also in Hollywood, the 70-year-old Samuel French Theatre &Film Bookshop (7623 Sunset Blvd.; 213-876-0570), which has a branch in Studio City, focuses on films, filmmaking, music, dance, opera, biography, history, theater, plays, screenplays and the performing arts.

Golden Apple Comics (7711 Melrose Ave.; 323-658-6047; www.goldenapple comics.com) has everything and anything for lovers of graphic novels, comics, anime and nearly every popular-culture image of recent years. Check out, for example, the South Park shot glasses and Yoda action figures. Crowded at most any time of day with devotees, Golden Apple has another store in the San Fernando Valley (8962 Reseda Blvd., Northridge; 818-993-7804).

Worth traveling to is Traveler's Bookcase (8375 W. Third St.; 213-655-0575; www.travelbooks.com), offering a full range of travel-related books (guides and literature), maps, magazines, videos and accessories.

Traveling east one storefront from Traveler's Bookcase is Cook's Library (8373 W. Third St.; 213-655-3141), which offers a smorgasbord of titles on food, food preparation, cuisines of the world and anything else the devoted foodie may want.

Whatever suits your karma, whether east or west is best, Bodhi Tree (8585 Melrose Ave.; 310-659-1733; www. bodhitree.com) has balm and instruction-in the form of 35,000 books and another 50,000 products-for it. Every square inch of every shelf and wall is used for display.

A decade old, the Mysterious Bookshop (8763 Beverly Blvd.; 310-659-2959; www.mysteriousbookshop.com) has nearly 30,000 titles crammed into a tiny storefront. Here you can find everything from current stock to rare first editions; mysteries, of course, are the focus, but the store also carries a good selection of horror and dark fantasy. Owned by Otto Penzler and Sheldon McArthur, this is closely related to Penzler's older Mysterious Bookshop in New York City and the very young one in London.

Sportsbooks (8302 Melrose Ave.; 323-651-2334), which was formerly next to the Mysterious Bookshop, has moved. It carries new, used and out-of-print sports books, everything from baseball fiction to media guides to Super Bowl programs.

The Rizzoli Bookstore (2 Rodeo Drive; 310-278-2247), in Beverly Hills-the bookstore of the stars-is an even more elegant branch of an elegant national chain that emphasizes art, architecture and style.

Brentano's (10250 Santa Monica Blvd.; 310-785-0204), in the Century City Shopping Center, is a neat, clean, busy store with outstanding customer service-a gem among chains. (Brentano's is owned by Waldenbooks, which is part of Borders Group.)

Arguably the premier general bookstore in the city, Book Soup (8818 Sunset Blvd.; 310-659-3110) is a landmark in West Hollywood and includes the Book Soup Bistro, a fine restaurant; an outdoor newsstand that offers thousands of newspapers and magazines; Book Soup Addendum, which features $1 books, gift books, remainders, markdowns and more; and, of course, Book Soup, the new-book section that specializes in film, art and literature.

Open less than a year in this location, Mystery Pier Books (8826 Sunset Blvd.; 310-657-5557) is in a delightful cottage behind Book Soup (take the charming steps to the right of Book Soup and see what is hidden behind the rows of storefronts). The shop specializes in first editions, and also has more than 4000 mystery, true crime, film, Hollywood, theater and other titles in the store, with more in storage. Also available: scripts and bound galleys. Among the titles recently displayed in the store are a signed first edition of Catch-22, one of the few first-edition copies of A Is for Alibi and a copy of Sleuth signed by Michael Caine.

A Different Light (8853 Santa Monica Blvd.; 310-854-6601; www.adlbooks.com) in West Hollywood is the Southern California branch of the premier gay and lesbian bookselling company that also has stores in San Francisco and New York City. This branch stocks nearly 20,000 titles in 2000 square feet of space.

The Bernard H. Hamel Spanish Book Corp. (10977 Santa Monica Blvd.; 310-475-0453), a major Spanish-language wholesaler and distributor, has some 6000 titles as well as music tapes and CDs in a spare retail space.

More than half a century old, La Cite (2306 Westwood Blvd.; 310-475-0658; www.france.com/lacite) prides itself on being the only all-French bookstore in the U.S. It carries 13,000 book titles, some 1100 CDs and miscellaneous other products, including maps, guides and French flag stickers and enamel pins.

Children's Book World (105801/2 W. Pico Blvd.; 310-559-2665) aims for a librarylike selection, according to owner Sharon Hearn. And the store d s well, stocking 67,000 titles in its 2300 square feet of space.

One of the few women's bookstore in Southern California, Sisterhood Bookstore (1351 Westwood Blvd.; 310-477-7300; www.sisterhood.com) offers 10,000 titles and related products "by and about women." Sisterhood has powerful ties with the community: it sponsors two book groups and even a chess club, has regular readings, offers a flier room (where women can post whatever they want) and stocks some textbooks for the UCLA women's studies and English departments (the campus is a mile away). The store is 26 years old and offers everything from music and videos to jewelry, incense and bumper stickers. (All inventory is also available for sale online.)

Across the street from Sisterhood is a sleek, huge Borders Books &Music (1360 Westwood Blvd.; 310-475-3444) that is typical for the chain.

UCLA Bookzone General Book Division (308 Westwood Plaza; 310-206-0763; www.uclastore.ucla.edu) is another major college bookstore.

Dutton's Brentwood (11975 San Vicente Blvd.; 310-476-6263; home. earthlink.net/~duttons/) has 125,000 titles as well as CDs divided into four sections-the east, west, north and south rooms-around the central courtyard of a large single building.

Perhaps the most delightful, unusual bookselling find in Los Angeles is the Sepulveda West Car Wash (2001 S. Sepulveda Blvd.; 310-478-9274). Books at the car wash? Well, it is Los Angeles. And it is a state-of-the-art, upscale car wash where half the customers are driving Mercedes and BMWs and chatting on cell phones as they wait for their cars to be hand waxed. The company stocks some 500 titles, mainly what it calls "inspirational" and bestsellers, and a healthy number of CDs and audiobooks. (Greeting cards are also a hot item here.) For such a nontraditional outlet, it's amusing to see more spinner racks and dumps than in most bookstores.

Bookselling by the Sea

For a microcosm of American book retailing, consider going to Santa Monica or Pasadena, where chains, independents and nontraditional stores, all close to each other, sell a variety of books in a variety of ways.

A few blocks east from the ocean, Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade, a popular walking street that runs three blocks between Broadway and Wilshire Boulevard, features several vibrant independent bookstores selling new and used books, chain stores and nontraditional stores.

Midnight Special (1318 Third St. Promenade; 310-393-2923), named after lines from a Leadbelly song, has a leftist and political bent appropriate for the "People's Republic of Santa Monica." Founded in 1970, the 5000-sq.-ft. store stocks about 100,000 titles and has an authoritative, no-nonsense attitude -- from the bold black-and-white signage (which contrasts with some bland competitors) to the spare facade. Here community and political groups meet, and you'll never have trouble finding tomes on labor history, Chicano issues or socialist theory.

Barnes &Noble (1201 Third St. Promenade; 310-260-9110) is at the north end of the promenade, on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard. The three-story building with an art deco facade includes a Starbucks and a music section. Although the ambiance and selection is much like that of the other 500-plus B&Ns across the country, there are some distinguishing elements to the Santa Monica store -- good and bad. On a recent day, a clerk was wandering around one floor, apparently trying to find a book for a customer and, L.A. style, was barking into a cell phone, oblivious to in-store customers. On a more positive note, the third floor, with its arching wooden ceiling, 10 palms and great views, is worth a look. In this store you'll see the B&N library/coffee shop effect -- people reading, doing homework, writing, using laptops and talking quietly in the many chairs spread throughout the store.

The Borders Books and Music (1415 Third St. Promenade; 310-393-9290), near the south end of the promenade, also has three stories and courageously stocks literature on the first floor. (B&N puts its fiction and literature section on the third floor, as far from the entrance as possible.) People don't hang out here as much as at Barnes &Noble because there are far fewer chairs in the store proper, but the cafe on the first floor, with both indoor and outdoor seating, is a popular spot. You can also sample the growing selection of sidelines available at Borders stores.

A hot spot for specialty bookselling is Restoration Hardware (1221 Third St. Promenade; 310-458-7992), a rapidly expanding national chain of more than 60 stores-with origins in California-that sells specialty home furnishings, decorative hardware and books. Think Crate &Barrel meets IKEA and throw some books into the mix. The book selection is intriguingly eclectic, ranging from several hundred gardening, woodworking and hardware titles to The Doors of San Miguel de Allende by Robert De Gast (Pomegranate) and even Legacy: A Step-By-Step Guide to Writing Personal History by Linda Spence (Ohio State Univ./Sparrow).

One of everyone's favorite art and architecture bookstores is Hennessey &Ingalls (1254 Third St. Promenade; 310-458-9074), which stocks a mix of 80,000 new, used and antiquarian titles in 6000 square feet of space.

Two smaller used bookstores worth a visit are Bayside Books (1234 Third St. Promenade; 310-394-8311) and Arcana: Books of the Arts (1229 Third St. Promenade; 310-458-1499), a solid arts book store.

One short block from the Third Street Promenade is a Rizzoli Bookstore (332 Santa Monica Blvd.; 310-393-0101), on Fourth Street and Santa Monica Boulevard. It is tasteful if quiet. This store opened with great fanfare at the time of the last ABA show in Los Angeles in 1994, and the cafe closed long ago. Rizzoli also has stores in the region in Pasadena, Beverly Hills and the South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa.

Pasadena

Like Santa Monica, Pasadena-just a 15-minute drive from downtown Los Angeles-is home to a variety of bookstores.

First and foremost is one of the best independents in the country, Vroman's (695 E. Colorado Blvd.; 626-449-5320). Billing itself as "Southern California's oldest and largest independent bookstore," Vroman's, which celebrated its 100th birthday in 1994, was rebuilt and redesigned in 1996. It's a beautiful two-story building with more than 30,000 square feet that stocks roughly 100,000 titles and more sidelines than many nonbookstores. Many of the sidelines sections could be small stores in their own right: consider the Museum Shop, which, among other things, sells jewelry and Tiffany lamps and the Cook's Corner, which offers cookbooks and cooking accoutrements from pads to aprons. Vroman's also sells a wide range of stationery, writing instruments, globes and maps and original artwork. Audiobooks rentals are in the rear of the store; audiobooks are sold near the front door. Its Zeli Coffee Bar serves food and drink outside; the newsstand is also outside.

Across the street is Cliff's Books (630 E. Colorado Blvd.; 626-449-9541), a 6000-sq.-ft. used bookstore with well-ordered sections and a catacomblike atmosphere.

Borders Books and Music (475 S. Lake Ave.; 626-304-9773) is a two-story building connected with Macy's Pasadena. In the town made famous by Greene &Greene architects, it has a few arts-and-crafts details in glass and iron railings. The store also has a parking deck attached behind it.

Old Pasadena (on Colorado Boulevard about a mile west of Vroman's) is a trendy area with branches of Sak's Fifth Ave., Victoria's Secret, Pottery Barn, Armani Exchange, J. Crew and the Pottery Barn, among the usual suspects. Barnes &Noble (111 W. Colorado Blvd.; 626-585-0362) is in a one-story building with brick interior walls. Just up the street and around the corner and next to one another, are a Rizzoli Bookstore (47 N. Fair Oaks Blvd.; 626-564-1300) and a Metropolitan Museum of Art Store (39 N. Fair Oaks Blvd.; 626-793-8618). Along with some amazing reproduction jewelry and other products connected with the museum's shows and collection, the Met store, one of about 15 satellite stores in the U.S., offers a range of art books in a shining, decidedly upscale setting.

The Norton Simon Museum (411 W. Colorado Blvd.; 626-449-6840), which is near Old Pasadena, offers art books, children's books, posters and stationery reflecting the museum's collections of European art from the Renaissance to the 20th century as well as Indian and Southeast Asian sculpture.

The bookstore at the Pacific Asia Museum (46 N. Los Robles Ave.; 626-449-2742) offers art and artifacts from Asia and the Pacific Rim and includes a re-creation of a northern Chinese palace.

Mitchell Books (1395 E. Washington Blvd.; 626-798-4438), a 1350-sq.-ft. mystery and detective shop offers some 13,000 books.

Page One Books By &For Women (1200 E. Walnut St.; 626-796-8418) is a feminist bookstore with 1750 square feet of space and more than 2500 titles and related sidelines.

Crime Time Books (1393 E. Washington Blvd.; 626-798-2013) specializes in new mystery and detective fiction, including paperback first editions.

Alexandria II New Age Bookstore (567 S. Lake Ave.; 626-792-7885) has new and used books, music, videos, jewelry, incense, candles, cards and gifts. It also offers psychic readings, a weekly drumming circle and a variety of classes and workshops.

Alter Years (3749 E. Colorado Blvd.; 626-585-2994) offers more than 1000 titles of costume reference, textiles, era-specific, military, decorative techniques, design reference, sh s, hats, jewelry, makeup and more and has a 200-page catalogue. Also in the store are patterns, supplies, accessories and trim as well as greeting cards and calendars.

The Gamble House Bookstore (4 Westmoreland Pl.; 818-449-4178) has more than 2000 books on the American Arts &Crafts movement and some sidelines, including pottery and lamps. It's in the former garage of the Gamble House, built by Greene &Greene for a Proctor &Gamble Ggamble.

Zany Brainy (3393 E. Foothill Blvd.; 626-351-4663) offers "a zillion neat things for kids," including books, toys, games, videos, audio tapes, computer games and more. There's also an IPO in the works for this national chain with nearly 80 stores.

In neighboring South Pasadena, in the Mission West district, Book'em Mysteries (1118 Mission St.; 626-799-9600; www.bookem.com) offers new titles and represents the David Kaye Collection of fine first editions.

In nearby San Marino, home of the Huntington Library, the San Marino Toy &Book Shoppe (2424 Huntington Dr.; 626-309-0222; www.toysandbooks.com) sells a full line of the best educational toys and games available and an in-depth selection of children's books, audios and videos, including new releases and timeless classics.