New York's Best Indie Bookstores

Located smack in the middle of Morningside Heights, this vast bookery serves as a kind of unofficial bookstore for Columbia University. The place specializes in … humanities, enlightening eager-to-learn college students on cultural studies, philosophy, literature and art. And their obsession with edifying ivy covered academia doesn't stop in New York - they also have branches in Princeton and New Haven. [link]

Here we have a proud-to-be-on-a-street-that-Dylan-sang-about nook consisting of only a single cluttered room. Used books are piled floor to ceiling as haphazard shelves, … tottering columns of lit, and lots of dust imply an ancient burial ground of prose and poetry. Left Bank specializes in modern first editions and signed books I can't afford - it's definitely best suited for the serious collector. [link]

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St. Mark's is an East Village institution catering to the downtown boho set - plus lots of students - and specializing in literature, literary journals, and plenty of … artsty, philosophical theory. Watching all the NYUers milling around makes me long for those early college days when Kerouac and Vonnegut were the purist form of mind-expansion. [link]

You know the deal with the Strand - everyone's got the bags, and 18 miles of books and all that. But with over two million severely discounted used and new reads - plus … an impressive collection of rare books (Ulysses signed by Joyce!) - how could I not include it on an NYC bookstore list? (Photo) [link]

There's plenty of disaffected, hipster pretension to go around at Williamsburg's coolest book dealer. But blowing trust-funds on expensive haircuts and Animal Collective … tickets is a stressful endeavor, so let's cut 'em a break. Art, design and architecture books dominate but S&S also stocks an intriguing collection of ecletic and kitsch offerings of all kinds. Photo: http://www.brooklynrecord.com/archives/spoonbill45f.JPG [link]

Perhaps the most visually appealing member of this list, Three Lives is filled with lots of dark and worn wood and could easily sit in Kafka-era Prague. The selection is … mostly contemporary and classic fiction and there's a certain serenity to the space conducive to prolonged browsing. [link]

Slated to reopen this month, Freebird gives us book dweebs street cred by requiring a treacherous BQE-crossing to find its ramshackle Red Hook block. The place used to … house an inspiring mostly used book collection, host regular readings and serve coffee, beer, wine and food; hopefully this won't change under the new management. And in case you were wondering, their website confirms a Skynyrd-inspired name. [link]

This Park Slope staple is calling out for precious adjectives: cute, cozy, quaint - they all fit the bill. Bring your own coffee and relax on the patio before browsing a … selective collection of literary fiction and - as an employee put it - "peculiar classics", all under the watchful gaze of Gomez the house iguana. A favorite of local book-lovers and stroller-packing mommies. (Photl) [link]

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