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Meandering Through Minnesota Bookstores
A detailed look at four unique bookstores
Evan Vezmar | Managing Editor
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When I was younger, one of the more frequent activities my parents would force me and siblings to do was read. The ploy to get us interested in reading was also a plan to keep us quiet, but the children’s books led me to one of my biggest loves: bookstores. Special visits to Wild Rumpus by Lake Harriet and Half Price Books on Hennepin Av- enue opened my eyes to the wonderful world of books, and I still revel in enormous bookshelves and large rooms whenever I get the chance to stop by a bookstore. Those chances have diminished, partially because of COVID-19 and likely also because of the workload of high school, but I revisited some of my favorite bookstores from my elementary school days as well as some new stores to rediscover my love for books.
I revisited Half Price Books, Barnes & Noble, and Wild Rumpus, and I went to Magers & Quinn for the first time. From the moment I stepped inside these stores, I noticed how much they had branched out from the last time I was there.
Half Price Books specializes in used books and will buy customers’ books to place directly on their shelves, but I spotted the bookstore selling hats, clothes, puzzles, movies, and more. Wild Rumpus had also diversified, where a games and clothes section takes up a far corner. It seemed that all the stores had modernized, but not all of them managed to keep the magical feel that I knew when I was child.
Magers & Quinn cre- ated the balance between old and new perfectly. The building is immense, with multiple rooms filled with every genre imaginable. However, unlike Barnes & Noble, whose expansive space creates a very shopping mall feel, Magers & Quinn still felt cozy and calm. Magers pairs new books and organization with old, wooden furniture and the austerity of a library. Each doorway going to a new section of the store was a little too short, so when I ducked through, I felt like a character entering a magical new world. Read full story online
