Acorn Bookshop

Quirky local bookstore — a hidden gem in a strip mall! Piles and piles of used books to look through, many leather bound collector books. Love this place!!! You never know what you’re going to find.

A labyrinth of books! Lots of great books, including first editions and collectables! Great prices!

Lovely spot for book lovers. Not a square inch wasted, whether taken up by clearance items, comics clipped out of newspapers from bygone years, or whimsical decorations. Lots of little nooks to duck into and flip through a book — and a great variety available! And the owners are wonderfully kind, too. I’m a fan of vintage sci-​fi and fantasy, and Acorn Bookshop is my nearby go-​to when I want to treat myself. Highly recommended.

I love this place. So cute! And I was able to find a lot of my favorite old books in the original hardback condition… and for an excellent price! The staff was really friendly as well.

I’m such a sucker for used bookstores. It really brings me back to the Sunday afternoons in La Jolla, when I would stop by the historic DG Wells bookstore and spend a couple hours in the back digging through the shelves of the science section books.
This place has sooooooooo many books. And it’s actually organized! I would come by if you have a couple hours to kill and if you have nothing on your mind. The owners were great in helping me find a book! I’ll definitely be back now that it is summer and I no longer have to study.

Somewhere, long ago an acorn fell in a forest. Does it make a sound? Nobody cares. A fortunate one, it is absorbed by fertile soil. Time goes by and out of that soil pops a sapling. Years go by, the sapling grows into a strong tree. Then a lumberjack comes along and cuts the tree down. It goes to a mill and is fabricated into paper; it goes to a press and becomes a book. Later you pick it up at a bookstore and flip through its pages. It’s of the Twilight Series, and a profound sadness come over you. You can’t believe it: «A f’n tree died for this!»
I do not know why this place is called Acorn. It’s probably some lit. shout-​out that I am unfamiliar or have forgotten. But it is a beautiful, vintage shop on 5^th Avenue, north of Grandview Heights.
Hung on bookshelves, walls, and other fixtures are homemade signs, newspaper articles, and posters – items of snark, sarcasm, funny dry whit– that gives the place a slightly eccentric character. The cramp aisles and nooks are adorn with vintage chairs and décor– this is certainly an indy shop with an indy ideocencracy that makes a browse through an experience. By the door hangs a skeleton.
They have some good deals, there were some interesting titles in the $ 1 shelves, relatively speaking. I saw the ‘comic styling’ of Kevin Trudeau and several X-​subject for Dummies there, as well as old hardbacks that may be worth checking out for a buck.
They have awesome collectables. Fleming’s The Spy Who Loved Me, that introduced James Bond, was there in first addition. Plath’s Bell Jar and a Salinger short story collection were other eye catching first addition hardcovers in the case. Although they may be a bit over price.
A use book store, they buy books and DVD – which they have a rack for and a decent sellection. There is a basement but I didn’t venture down. I wonder what they do in there? The sign says ask a staff member. But I was just stopping by, and didn’t want to bother them for just a look-​see.
They have an ample selection in every category, and a wealth of vintage books. They also have a wonderful set of Ohiana literature. How is it that I never heard of the word ‘Ohiana?‘
If you go, wear a bathing suit. The place gets stuffy hot, even with both their doors opened I was soaked with sweat. The place needs an air conditioner.
They didn’t have O’Hara’s Emergency. It seems a tree hasn’t died for that in a very long time,

You know how in the movies the best bookshops and libraries are winding and rambly and have lots of things and books to discover around every corner? Well, I found ours here in Columbus. The atmosphere is just so bookish. There’s fun decorations and cartoons and signs relating to books and specific genre sections absolutely covering the shelves, walls, and doors. The building itself feels very much like a house that’s just been filled with books. There is still an order to the madness and signage to tell you where to find what you’re looking for, and the friendly staff was happy to draw my attention to other sections — collectibles in the back, more books in the basement. Autographed copies are clearly labeled on the spines, and I don’t believe I’ve ever seen so many older and/​or rare books in one place.
Be warned, book lovers, you could browse here for hours. Acorn shares the parking lot with the center anchored by Walgreens, so it’s easy to find parking.

I absolutely adore Acorn… Both the store and their online business. The store is filled with interesting books — some easy to find, some very rare. I have spent massive amounts of time looking around in there. But they don’t have all of their inventory at the Grandview store! Check them out on
. If you find one of their books online and would like to pick it up in person, just send an email or give them a call and they’ll let you know when it’s in the store to be picked up! I tend to collect hard-​to-​find titles, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised to find many titles in their inventory for fair prices.

As far as atmosphere goes, Acorn is a prime example of what a bookshop should be. It’s pretty unassuming on the outside, it’s a big blocky building connected to a few other small local businesses, including a delicious bakery. It looks clean, nice, and inviting, which is all fine and good, but it’s what’s INSIDE the counts, and it sure is lovely in there.
The epic fantasy library of every book lover’s dreams are those old musty buildings with stone walls and dust motes floating through the shafts of sunlight pouring through the window slits. Acorn evokes that feeling without actually being unclean. You walk in and you’re immediately bombarded by the wonderfully acrid scent of old books, and the place somehow manages to be both bright and dimly lit at the same time. I was approached by an amazing woman with wild frizzy gray hair and an eccentric manner of speaking that naturally appealed to me, being the awkward slightly-​crazy reclusive book freak that I am.
The décor is… interesting. There are despicably tacky decorations littered about the place that are somewhat related to the books you are browsing: stuffed animals in the nature section, LEGO space cruisers in the astronomy section, and so on. It’s totally cheesy and ridiculous and I absolutely love every bit of it.
There is a basement, which most people know about, but what I secretly suspect is that below that is a sub-​basement, where a sweating, exhausted wizard feverishly upholds a containment spell that keeps a sleeping demonic skeleton dragon from awakening and wreaking havoc on the Grandview Heights area, and a perky and rather effeminate elvin vanguard stoically stands guard over a dimensional portal that leads to a fantasy wonderland fraught with perilous adventure and anthropomorphic toad-​people. It’s all down there, I know it is! Okay, technically I have no hard evidence that any of this is true, but it has to be true, surely…
Prices seemed a bit high, but the lady who spoke to me was very generous and told me they can usually work with me if I couldn’t afford to buy the more expensive books. She must be just as good a reader of people as she is of books, obviously she noticed the combination of tattered clothing and childlike wonder in my eyes. Either way, if you haven’t figured out by this excessively long and rambling review, I think this place is pretty cool!

This shop may seem overwhelming, but it’s just because they have SO MUCH! The staff know their inventory and it specializes in collectables… CHECK IT OUT!

Cute little shop for used books

Went into a half price book store with a load of old books to sell, and they suggested I take them to Acorn Bookstore.
When I arrived at Acorn, I immediately noticed authenticity. Acorn Bookstore is certainly a home grown business, started by those who have a true passion for books.
The owner came up to me and looked at my suitcase of books. Within seconds, and without hesitation, she told me, «We’ve got all of those.»
I was equally surprised and impressed that she recognized all of the 35 books from the 1800s that I had with me. She must really know her store. I was glad my time wasn’t wasted, but was dismayed that Acorn didn’t need any of them. It seemed like the perfect place for my antique books.
When I asked her for an opinion about where to take these old books, her advice was «Don’t take them to half-​price books. They will just throw them in the trash.»
This sort of threw me for a loop, because Half Price was the very store that recommended Acorn Books to me in the first place.
In the end, I took my old books back to Half-​Price Books, and they paid a good amount of money for them. That is, enough money for me to assume I won’t see them in the trash anytime soon.

As a Mythic Ideal, Acorn Bookshop is hard to beat. For a wide selection of used books there’s just no better place to go. Half Price whats? Never heard’u’em!
The staff at Acorn is always charming, more than eager to help you find what you are looking for, suggest things you never thought to look for, and plumb into the hidden basement archives for the stuff that there’s no room for on the stuffed-​over-​capacity shelves. My two last visits to Acorn saw me just wandering the aisles in a daze, trying to take it all in, trying to remember what I might want to read, and resisting picking up a million books on subjects I never considered reading about until seeing some zany forgotten book on the subject at this very store.
Maybe this place is already considered a Columbus institution, but, if not– get with the program, folks! This is THE place to browse, amazed, at dead-​tree print in our town. There are other bookstores, but there are NO substitutes for this place! Acorn is my default used book store and it should be yours, too, so stop by with a few hours to kill and just TRY to take it all in!

They know their inventory and can tell you right away if they have a book or not. If they don’t have it, they are willing to take your name and number. The staff is knowledgeable, the books are plenty and the shop is a local treasure.

I’ve been helping my grandmother clear out my late grandfather’s collection of magic books from the 30’s — 70’s. Acorn came with a high recommendation and delivered with what I considered to be a more than fair price on the collection of six boxes that I brought them.
They have a fantastic selection of collectible and rare books, and a friendly helpful staff that has vast knowledge to help you find what you need, and estimate pieces from your collection.

This is the bookshop of my dreams!
No seriously, this place reminds me of every bookworms wetdream. Soft wonderful music plays as you wander from aisle to aisle. The smell of old books invades every sense. The place is stacked literally to the ceiling with books. The organization is a little scattered so you usually have to ask someone if you are searching for something in particular. I am more of the wander and peruse the titles type.
The shop has many second hand paperbacks as well as some very nice hardcover sets (I saw an older collection of Dune for around $ 80). There are also a few DVDs and a neat music collection throughout the shop. The first time I went, there were two piles of books marked ‘free’ outside that would have made great coffee table books or decoration for a large bookcase.
If I want something specific I will go to a chain. If I want to discover something wonderful, I will go to Acorn.

It’s a close call, but Acorn comes in just behind Karen Wickliff for best bookstore in Columbus. This still puts it well ahead of, say, Book Loft.
Like all truly good book stores, the emphasis here is quality over quantity: many great bindings and editions, rared used and new titles in good shape, and authors and titles you won’t find in other stores, new or used. Best for collectors, with superb literature sections, but great all around.

My first impression of Acorn Books was, «Whoa! That’s a lot of books!» Or at least it seems like that with the stacks being so tightly packed in there. Needless to say, it was a little overwhelming at first. Then I saw the signs that explained what genre of books was in what aisle and it started to make sense. Prices could be found inside the jacket cover and ranged from under $ 10 to $ 50 and in some cases much more.
There were new editions and classic editions. Collector books are on hand as well and can be pretty pricey. A copy of Ernest Hemingway’s Farewell to Arms was going for $ 1000.
I was happy to find chairs to sit in and just read a book. Classical music was playing softly in the background, which would allow one to relax and not be disrupted while reading. Around the place were pictures, postcards and bumper stickers that had quotes with a sense of humor. Curiously, there were some bottles of hot sauce by the checkout counter. I wondered if they were with the cooking section, but they weren’t exactly.
You can take your older books and sell them to Acorn Books. They also take donations and Acorn Books takes books to the local libraries, as well.

A trip to Acorn Bookshop is all about the hunt. Categories and sections fail as shelves overflow with books and stacks of texts pile up. This used bookstore is a maze of a place.
It’s clear that Acorn’s focus is collectible volumes — neat old printings, out-​of-​print books, signed editions and the like. If you’re looking for the latest paperback edition of a Kurt Vonnegut novel, you’re out of luck. If, however, you’re in the market for a leather-​bound version of «Slaughterhouse Five,» Acorn might just be the place to look.
I’ll go as far as saying that Acorn is the best source for rare books in Columbus. The practicality of such a distinction is arguable, though. For most people, Acorn is a fun place to spend an hour or so, but C-​bus has better bookstores.

Compared to other local establishments like Half Price Books, Acorn Bookshop is an unfathomable mess of books that you’d need a trained sherpa to navigate. Just take a look at some of the pictures I’ve been kind enough to post to get a better idea of what I’m talking about. It will seem daunting at first, but once you figure out what’s going on you’re in for quite the treat. To put it in layman’s terms, the selection of cheap, used paperbacks here is mind-​boggling.
Like a good thrift store or used record store, the thrill of the shopping experience at Acorn is the hunt. I started off in search of some pulp novels from 40’s/50’s author Raymond Chandler, and found myself engulfed in a sea of sci-​fi novels about twenty minutes later. If you aren’t interested in making LeVar Burton proud by letting the muse of literary wanderlust lead you about the store for an hour or so, the staff here is incredibly useful in aiding your search for whatever it is you may be in need of. What’s interesting is that they’ll rarely lay a finger on a computer to browse their inventory for you; it’s almost like they have a divine sense of what their walls do and do not contain. Freaky, yet incredibly useful. If you’re in the mood to casually unearth dirt-​cheap paperback classics on a lazy Saturday afternoon, I assure you that Acorn will not disappoint.