See for yourself on their facebook page, The Book Rescuers in Pinellas Park claims over a mile of book shelves, and I would say that is not an exaggeration. There is no parking or AC, but the fans down the many aisles of books are blowing away the dust and heat from outside and keeping the customers and the books cool. Tucked away in an industrial complex in Cross Bayou Industrial Park between paint shops and car repair places is a huge warehouse with what can only be described as mountains upon mountains of books.
No shortage of customers. The pictures on their Facebook don't do it justice, and they have since added DVD's, VHS tapes, old media, records, banned books.. you name it. Their aisle of Fantasy and Sci-Fi was amazing, but the books I saw online that they took in a few weeks ago, were no longer available. Their pricing system is based on little colored stickers, but 99% of the books are yellow-dot, which are $2 each, and those are the only books I grabbed.
I would say this has the largest selection of vintage Science Fiction I've ever seen in person. Older books were wrapped in plastic, and still $2. Looking for Ace Doubles? 100's of them for $2. 50's and 60's pulp paperback? Fill a whole shopping cart. This is not the store you will complete your Dragonlance collection at like the last store I went to, but holy crap can you find some really old cool stuff for cheap. I did notice a lot of books have seen better days, covers tattered and dirty, some missing whole pieces. Some books I was really excited to see by popular authors were in such poor condition, I had to frown and move on. I was easily able to find 20 books for $40 that have a much greater value; some to add to the collection, and some to list. The Dune books are eBay fodder, Laser books are always awesome and have unique covers, tons of Gibson there I passed on..
I'll be coming back to this place when I can make it down there, at least once a month. Lot's of good scores, and I left tons on the shelf that I wanted to take. I spent about a half hour, and could have easily spent a couple of hours and really found some gems. Great place overall. Awesome staff, just a really cool find if you are in the Tampa area.
**Edit** - I visited here again two Saturday's later with my wife, on April 6th and we walked out with 5 books that were worth listing, and my son bought some cool old VHS tapes. They gave my wife a teacher discount! Super cool place and we plan on going back often.
Until the next adventure..
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