Horizon Books

I did not get a chance to see the old Horizon Books, which looks like it would have been a gem! Unfortunately now the location is in the basement of an old strip of warehouses that is sure to soon follow suit to everything else that is getting eaten up and digested by developers that are throwing up condos made of cheap materials.
Because of the location, not too many people seem to venture down into the hole. Literally a hole. The books are many, ranging from old encyclopedias and other hard bound books with the notches in the spine, to trade paperbacks from the 80s and 90s. Do a little bit of digging and surely you will find something you like. but that’s the problem. You have to do a lot of looking. I had several books on my list, not uncommon books, and there were none there. Upon my casual browsing, there were a lot of things I expected to, but didn’t see.
The owner is a really nice guy, and this place does look and feel really cool. but there’s just not really anything there. I guess if you’re open to going into a bookstore cold and just perusing literally every shelf, then yes. you will like it here, you will find something you never thought you’d buy. If you’re looking for something specific then good luck.
Through I like stores that have a bit of character, are imperfect, and rarely visited by anyone. this store seemed to go a little over the line with that. The place was a bit of a mess, one of the aisles had a bunch of blankets and sleeping bag set up as if someone were sleeping there. and it rather smells like someone sleeps there.

I called this bookstore for a book and was incredibly patient with the man on the phone who had a very difficult time remembering the one title and author I was asking for. I repeated it multiple times kindly over a 10 minute call, then was snarked at and eventually sworn at for letting him know that it was ok if he didn’t have it on the shelf, I would call around. I’ve been in the book world for over 16 years with not a single bad experience, and this was rather surprising. Very disappointed.

Don (the owner) is what drew me to this establishment. It has a character to it that makes me forget the horrible presence of aimless tourists on the hill on the weekends, and remember how the hill used to be more of a weird community of people. Don is always around the area, and I have run in to him at Sam’s and vermillion, both places at which we discussed poetry (which I love). Please don’t ever go, horizon books.

Actually — thankfully — this place is STILL OPEN.
If you like books you’ll love how much personality this place holds.
This is also the place to peruse for rarities and collectibles that you will find nowhere else, including some SWEET records hidden away in the back. Strike up a conversation with Don — so knowledgeable, so sweet, and a Capitol Hill classic worth knowing.

NOTE: Horizon Books has MOVED and is alive and well at 1423 10^th Ave on Capitol Hill, nearly underneath Moe Bar (a little south).

RIP Horizon Books. So very, very sorry to see you go — you will be missed!

so I don’t usually watch TV but saw some of True Blood over the Holidays at a friends so now I am out looking for Charlaine Harris southern vampire series books and I like to support local stores first so hitting up the independent used places
I found one book here by her and had a great chat with the guy working here and right now all books are ½ off so gonna have to go back at look for a few other authors I like

Say you have an uncle who had TB as a child but decided to smoke away his adulthood, the same uncle who went to Germany for like 9 years, working on his Religious Studies degree that never materialized, the very guy whom you sort of admire from afar, while slightly confused about his way of dealing with life, because he seems either always angry or sad, if you could imagine that he owned a house, this store would come pretty close to how he’d have it.
Books everywhere. The selection can be somewhat tempermental, but it’s easy to forget you were supposed to meet someone 35 minutes ago, all the way the hell across the town.

It’s rare, but occasionally I’m wrong, very rarely, almost never. But when I’m wrong I admit it. I came in here a few years ago and caught an odd vibe. It might have been the mildew smell, or the maze like space but I found myself really not liking the place and I haven’t been back.
Today, they had a big sale so I decided to step back in and take a look. The mildew smell wasn’t as strong, and I found myself getting lost (in a good way) in the shelves. I still think the layout is kind of confusing, and the shelves are very high causing you to have to stand on rickety milk crates to get to what you need. I also think it’s odd that the Sci-​Fi Anthologies are way in the back, miles from the main Sci-​fi section.
But my main barometer of a good used bookshop is how long I end uphanging around. Judging by the fact that I missed geting a parking ticket by about 30 seconds, I’d say this is a pretty good spot for browsing.

I had just stepped out of the Walgreens because I was short of some hair conditioner, which is unacceptable in the my case, since without it, my head heralds the largest poof ball of Asian hair in the history of hair. It’s true. I lack the stereotypical gorgeous straight hair naturally and if I’m not prepared, will invoke the frizz gods to enact hatred on me and I’ll walk around looking like a poodle.
So saying and feeling a little inspired after the Victrola run, I recalled my friend telling me of this little bookstore that sold a bunch of used books and that it might be of some interest to me.
I stopped in and was greeted by the resident dark calico mix of a cat. It looked up at me, and meowed.
This is the little house that was built for books. No housing for a family. Not for a clothing boutique. This place was the haven for used books and they found a secondary resting place here. The walls were lined heavily with shelves that encased hundreds and hundreds of books. And I was in heaven. I roamed these short aisles of used books looking down at me from the very top of the ceiling. Other stacks rose from the ground, neatly beckoning. Literature. Fiction. Non-​Fiction. Biographicals. History.
I came across three lovely books I could not pass up on. Old, bound books printed in 1916, 1936, and 1945 respectively. Oh, and of course, Russian. I walked out after spending around $ 30 for three books.
An old tattered copy of Father and Sons by Turgenev, a cloth bound version of Sholokhov’s And Quiet Flows The Don, and his other novel, Harvest on the Don. It was special, because when I opened the book to flip through the pages, an old stained newspaper clipping fell out and I noticed that it was about the author. Someone had cut it out, years ago, and placed it in the book, as a bookmark. The old paper stained the inside of the cover, a rich amber.
And now, it had been found.

I like books! And, I like used books even better. And I’ve come here repeatedly and browsed, and browsed, and browsed, and browsed… (You get the idea.)
I love the IDEA of this place. A wee little house, with a wee little porch, a wee little yard, stocked 10-​foot tall bookshelves, and bookish people manning the cash register! This should be nirvana to me! So it pains me to ask this… Why do all the books here suck?
I mean, I’m sure there is a market out there for decommissioned Danielle Steele novels and home improvement manuals, but BLEH!
You’re killing me, Horizon Books! You’re killing me!

Either be really tall or be willing to do the monkey climb up the many milk crates if you like something on the top shelf at Horizon. Aside from that, this place completely rules. It’s mostly older books, and they’re sort of in order. It’s a great place to get lost for a few hours on a rainy afternoon. They have this funny article on the wall about how old books have been found to have a hallucinagenic mold in them. Hmm…

Horizon Books is a quaint old-​fashioned used bookstore, complete with cats, book-​loving staff, and utter chaos in the stacks. It’s not the place to find a specific book, but this small cottage off 15^th is packed with books of every flavour known to man – it’s a great place to browse. When I was working on a paper on World War I, I found a couple of original Army-​issue pamphlets stuck in the War Books section, and I imagine the other sections hold similar surprises. Keep an eye on the sign outside, as it advertises sales and specials.