The Book Rack

They will order pretty much any books for you (not just paperbacks) and let you know when they’ve arrived. If you want to support a local book store rather than ordering online, it’s useful to know this. The store is well organized and packed with worthwhile merchandise.

This book store is perfect! They have a huge selection of new and used books. The staff’s knowledge is exceeded only be their willingness to help. If they don’t have what you’re looking for, they will order it quickly, and with a smile. I can’t recommend this place highly enough.

What a cool find! Quite by accident we stumbled upon this quaint jewel in Arlington Center. If stacks and stacks and stacks and stacks of books are your thing, you need to check this place out. My experience with most indy and used bookstores is that they are pretty dark and dusty with a musty essence… not so here! They really maximize their square footage well, clearly labeled categories, lots of nooks and tons of books. Did I mention they have a lot of books? Mostly paperback but some more contemporary hardcovers. Found plenty of books I loved as a kid! You bring in books, they give you store credit. Today we bought two books for the kids at a good price, but next time, we will be back with gently used books to get us started on our credit collection! Park in the lot behind the church and you’ll be good to go to get sucked into this wonderful bookstore!

I went here today for the first time and was pleasantly surprised. My experience with many used book stores is a musty store with books that are either cookbooks from 1975 or sci fi series and romance series I don’t care about.
The Book Rack was clean and fresh feeling and had many books I was interested in. The women there were funny and helpful and I gave them a large pile of books for credit. I walked away with a book I loved for half off to give a friend as a gift and a pretty much new hardcover (usually priced around $ 30 and which only came out about a year ago or less) by an author I love for $ 2.50 with my credit from the books I brought in, I s*&% you not. I bought two books brand new in Porter Square the other day and now I feel kinda dumb.
I had to force myself to leave The Book Rack with only two books, but I will be back.

Yay this place is awesome! I’m so excited to have a local independent book store in Arlington! Has both new & used books. Bought a big stack of used books for a great price & I can sell them back along w other books when I’m finished reading! Owner/​manager was super helpful friendly & knowledgeable – can’t wait to go back! A really fun place.

This bookstore makes you feel comfortable stopping to read the first few pages of a book without being hassled.

I love indy bookstores. I’ve said it before — I wish there were more of them around. So, if you have one in your town and it’s good, I really think you should visit it and actually buy something so they don’t disappear. This is a very nice, small but jam-​packed, book store with a great selection of current books and classics. I was impressed with how many Scandinavian crime novels they had. Authors that you just never see in stores. My partner was looking for a classic for his book club and found it (as a used copy) at a more than reasonable price of $ 3. Great selection for book lovers and a lovely area to browse, plus great prices on used books. We’ll be stopping in again!

Great selection, helpful staff. If they don’t know the answer, they’ll look it up for you.

I’ve just moved to Arlington and have been crossing my fingers that there was a great used book shop in town. The Book Rack exceeded my expectations! All of the staff were friendly and helpful to me during my visit, and the fiction selection was great — there are lots of mass-​market paperbacks, but also a really great selection of trades too.
The thing that really got me ecstatic was seeing how extensive their YA selection was. When I was in there, no less than 3 teens wandered in looking for a book, and the staff was really knowledgable about the genre, remarking how popular the bookstore was with young adults.
A used bookstore with stellar selection, enthusiastic and knowledgable staff, that’s getting kids amped about reading? Um, yes, please.

Upon moving to Arlington, I was beyond excited to find the Book Rack — I grew up with one across the country in California! I have many good memories of digging through piles of old books, getting good recommendations from the staff, etc. The Arlington branch does it justice — the staff is usually nice, there are many books to check out, and they take books in for trade. The trading scheme goes like this:
They give you ¼ the list price for a book (paperbacks, they take some hard covers but not all), and all the used book in the store are sold a ½ the list price. You can use your book credit for up to ½ of the book price. I think that’s a fair rule that keeps them profitable while making used books cheap!
By the way, I spotted a copy of Cuckoo’s Calling there last week! ;)

Great store great people. This is a great place to stop by and get something to read. Not many places like this left.

Nice staff, great prices, and pretty good selection

while they don’t have every title you may want, and how could they anyway, they sure can get it fast enough for you, and it always comes in the day they say it will, plus they will give you a call to boot. Prices are discounted off list, and you get store credit for your used books. That and there are plenty of coffee shops and restaurants close by, everyone is helpful especially Mike who always seems to be around. Somehow feel spoiled having this steps away. Dig it. 5 stars because I can’t ask for much else from a neighborhood bookstore, except maybe a comfy chair, okay 4.5.

I love, love, love this bookstore! I go through a lot of books, and it’s nice to have a place nearby that I can exchange my old books for «new» books. It takes a while to browse through their selection, but I’ve always found a handful of books to take home with me every time I visit.
Their buy-​back option works out well for someone like me: I bring in 4 – 5 books at a time, get store credit, then buy 4 – 5 new books and I never end up paying more than $ 12. 4 – 5 books for $ 12 is an awesome deal. And considering it’s a used bookstore, the books on their shelves are in decent condition.
Good advice: they only buy back soft cover books – on the rare occasion they’ll buy hard covers from you, but only if they’re very new, popular books.
They also sell a handful of new books as well, and they’re marked down MUCH cheaper than other stores. So, if there’s a new book you’re dying to read, check to see if they have it here first. You could save a lot of $$. And then when you’re done reading it, bring it back and trade it in for more books. That’s bang for you buck, folks. Bang for your buck.
If they had a little café attached to this place, or even a little reading room, this place would be perfect. I know there’s a Starbucks on the corner, but buying books from a local, used bookstore and spending more on a drink than you just spent on 3 books seems a little ridiculous. Maybe that’s just me.

An amazing little neighborhood bookstore, GREAT for children’s books (my only reason for coming here). They have many in both used and new, and even the new ones are discounted.
But the best thing about the book rack? The people that work there.
Came in here with my kid, and the woman at the counter said, «So, [his name], how’d you like [last book he bought there].» He, living in a world filled with apparently random grown-​ups who know him, was not fazed at all by being known by name at the local bookstore, but I was mightily impressed.
We never go to a big chain without checking here first, and have saved many a trip to B&N because of it.
[The Book Rack also participates in all sorts of little fundraising activities to help Arlington schools.]

I come here every time I’m in Arlington and I’m never disappointed! I love the whole store credit deal because I am constantly buying new books and giving away old ones so I have a continual store of credit. I don’t think I’ve ever paid more than $ 5 for a book, and usually can find the books I am after.
This place is great for students who need to buy summer reading books or books for certain courses because they have an awesome selection of classics. For one english course my school was going to charge me $ 6 for a book; I came here and found the same one for $ 2, minus $ 1 due to my store credit!

When I finally cleaned out my books and boxed them up, the staff at the Book Rack was so helpful and took the time to explain the policy to me about how my used books would translate in to credit for me to come back and SHOP!!!
I know everyone loves to shop, but this is an opportunity to use my credit to give gift certificates to friends for FREE on my end, or use my credit get more books to feed my addiction to books and get some great finds for cook books and other things that I love.
Love to see the same great staff there and they are always so willing to answer questions, and when my daughter was looking for a particular book, they ordered it for her!

I don’t read a lot. But I had an hour to spend in Arlington today and 35 minutes of it were spent here.
It’s very cozy, packed with lots of used books and they had some of the most popular books — like «The Art of French Cooking», «Freakonomics», «Tipping Point», etc., available new and cheaper than the cover price.
I loved the fact that they had about 2 (3, if you count the first shelf with a mix of content) shelves devoted to cooking books… the rest were fiction, science fiction, novels, poetry, and even some kiddy books!
They’ll also give you store credit for your used books for up to ¼ of the original cover price and then you can use half of your store credit on any purchase of their used books. Yea, it’s a little complicated, but maybe it’ll be useful for some people…
Parking was pretty easy — you have your choice of free 1 hour street parking, or the public lot for up to 2 hours at 50cents per hour. There’s also a small shopping plaza nearby that have about 10 or so spots available.
There’s a Starbucks right up the street from where they are, so you can go enjoy a cup of coffee and your newly (used) book to read!

I like this store a lot. If you’re looking for a Barnes and Noble feel free to head out to the mall and skip this mom-​and-​pop as it’s not what you’re looking for. But if you’re a reading junkie looking for used books, on the cheap and well cared-​for, stop in at this store.
I’ve been to many used book stores and was surprised at how well-​organized The Book Rack is by comparison to most of them. I struck up several conversations with the folks who work there and saw several other customers doing the same. I like the 50% store credit policy that they have if you’re looking to offload some of your shelf-​clutter and I think it’s brilliant that they’ll donate the books that they don’t want for you. Having moved any number of times I wish I’d had access to this place when trying to decide what to box up and what to get rid of.

This is a cute store with few options beyond used mass market mysteries and Sci-​Fi. While two of the three salespeople were nice, unfortunately the one I chose to ask about mysteries was downright rude, no smile, and wouldn’t get up from eating her cheap smelly lunch to show me where the mass market mysteries were. (FYI, I know her lunch was cheap because she was bragging about it to the other two).
That One (ha ha) pointed in the direction of the other room to the Mystery Section. We’re not talking about exercise here, people, she would only have had to walk 2 feet!!! But, she pointed, and I struggled to find the section as it was not well-​marked.
This was bothersome because the food she was eating smelled so bad, I couldn’t wait to leave. I would have thrown up in the bathroom, but there is NO lu for patrons.
That said, the Book Rack has been around since 1975 and is therefore practically Historic! It’s privately owned, also a good thing, and they do have moderately-​priced used books, and an option to trade your books for theirs. Also a good thing. Oh, and, the parking is easy and they accept credit cards, which is nice.
This is a great place to go if you’re broke, have lots of books to sell and trade, love mysteries, don’t care about buying fiction, nonfiction, or memoirs, and don’t need to use the restroom. ;)