All Hail the Used Bookstore

Few new businesses get me as excited as new used bookstores. For a city this large, L.A. can certainly afford some new additions. I was happy to hear about Kulturas Bookstore at the corner of Ocean Park Boulevard and 17th Street in Santa Monica. The shop was opened in January by Andrew MacDonald and Irene Coray, who moved here after running the store in downtown Washington D.C. for 20 years.

I went in there Wednesday and found a cozy, brightly lit store filled with well-packed shelves of books - organized, but with a warm, user-friendly disorder. They also carry some “sort of vintage” clothing and used CDs and they’ve carved out some wall space for local artists. Ella Fitzgerald was playing at just the right volume.

Right now their first edition and art sections are particularly strong, but Kulturas has something for everyone. I picked up a couple of reasonably priced used fiction titles, but they also carry cookbooks, history, philosophy, women’s studies, children’s books, etc. The store buys books for cash or trade.

Irene and Andrew were on hand to chat about books, which is something you can't get from Amazon. Get in there and help support a new used bookstore.