Acres of Books, Second-hand bookstore in downtown Long Beach, California
Acres of Books was a second-hand bookstore in downtown Long Beach, California, occupying two floors filled with over a million books. The shelves ran from floor to ceiling along narrow aisles, with sections organized by subject covering everything from rare first editions to everyday paperbacks.
Bertrand Smith opened the store in Cincinnati in 1927 and moved it to Long Beach in 1934, where it stayed open until 2008. Long Beach named it a cultural landmark in 1990, one of the few bookstores in the US to receive that kind of official recognition.
The store drew readers and writers from across Southern California who came to browse and sometimes stumble upon a long-sought title. The narrow aisles and floor-to-ceiling shelves made every visit feel like a personal search through an endless paper maze.
The store closed in 2008 and no longer operates, so a visit to the physical location is not possible today. Those interested in its legacy can look for references to it in local history resources or Long Beach's downtown area.
Ray Bradbury, best known for writing Fahrenheit 451, was a regular visitor and dedicated a personal essay to the experience of browsing bookstores, in which he named this one specifically. That essay became one of the most quoted tributes to the store and added to its reputation long before it closed.
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