The Book Trader

Okay finally another post. So this one was prompted by a yelp review I recently did of the Book Trader in Philly. It made me think of our summer jaunts on South Street when I was in my early teens, especially the first time you took me there. Our cousin CC was in town, and we were going to get her a little going-away trinket. On the way there and back we were listening to the live CDs of Ani D.; I was complaining about how her songs sounded bland and talk-y, and you were trying to convince me of their awesome-ness. We went to a couple different stores, and then we made a visit to the Eyes Gallery, that crazy little gift store that sells Mexican-influenced things like bags, decorative figurines, and strange instruments. I remember really liking that place, and you bought a couple of small painted animals with bobbing heads. Then we probably visited the poster store and Pearl paint and Guacamole and all those other South Street haunts.

I don't remember exactly when we found out about the Book Trader, but at some point during the summer we started gathering big bags of old books in the house and bringing them to the Book Trader for store credit. All those Sweet Valley Twins books, useless text books, Archie comics, and things we didn't read anymore. We probably only got like $10 back each time after bringing in like thirty books, but it was still enough to buy a couple of good reads. I would always go to the mystery section to buy an Agatha Christie mystery, trying to build up my collection. You would sometimes go into the music section in the back and hunt down cds. So yeah, those were fun summers in the city. The Book Trader has moved since to Olde City -- have you even been to their new location?