Bell's Books

Bell’s Books in downtown Palo Alto celebrates ninety years of fine bookselling in 2025! Bell’s Books will host a ninetieth anniversary party at 536 Emerson Street (the store) on October 18, 2025, from 2 pm to 6 pm.

The event will feature presses from Kinetic Steam Works. Guests will have the opportunity to print their own bookmarks and watch master printers create three-color souvenir coasters. Several local authors will be on hand to sign their books, available for purchase in the bookstore during the event. 

The staff have also curated a display of the ninety finest books on offer from Bell’s today, such as The Souls of Black Folk signed by W.E.B. du Bois, a signed first edition of The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, A Wrinkle in Time signed by Madeleine L’Engle, and a first edition of J.R.R Tolkien’s first book! 

Bell’s will be open as usual during the event, and guests are encouraged to explore the 350,000 books in stock in our historic building. The party will also coincide with the City of Palo Alto’s Code:ART installations around the downtown area.

Please join us for the revelry in celebrating Palo Alto’s oldest purveyor of new, used, and rare books as it reaches this milestone achievement!

All week, October 5th through the 11th, is Banned Books Week.

Consider reading some titles that were challenged in libraries, schools, and bookstores in the past… many still are!

Walt Whitman: Leaves of Grass

Orwell: 1984

James Joyce: Ulysses

Octavia Butler: Kindred

Allen Ginsberg: Howl

John Steinbeck: Of Mice and Men

Alice Walker: The Color Purple

Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 452

Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid’s Tale

Jacqueline Woodson: Brown Girl Dreaming

and many others…

Our current window display contains a number of retro tech items, including a variety of types of phones, a UNIX programming book from 1986, a 1982 IBM manual for the Basic computing language, a complete Mac computer from the 1980s, and an authentic “Think Different” sign from the office of a former Apple employee fondly known as Gandalf (because he had worked there so long, had a long grey beard, carried a walking stick, and was an excellent magician).

One of the gems of Bell’s Rorty collection is Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason. This 1948 edition of Kant’s monumental work on ethics was Richard Rorty’s personal copy, with underlining and marginalia. An invaluable insight into Rorty’s thought on ethical matters as they relate to Kant, it has various colors of markings indicating that Rorty returned to this work at different times to revisit certain relevant issues. With Rorty’s surname inked in his hand on the front free endpaper. 366 pages. A unique item!

Our new Bell’s Books bags have arrived in a number of new patterns.

Canvas or cotton. Just in time for the summer!

John Carter’s ABC for Book Collectors is back in stock from Oak Knoll Press. This is the definitive and latest edition of one of the very best resources on book collecting. It includes definitions and examples of some of the most commonly used terms in the book trade, such as “leaf book,” “condition,” “first printing,” “royal bindings,” and many more. Invaluable!

Priced new for $25.

A call came in the other day regarding a particular translation of a classic Greek tragedy which we had. Unfortunately, the customer was unable to find parking at that particular time, so the transaction was done by phone and handed to the customer curbside.

Total time from query to delivery: 10 minutes!

Allow us to help you

with your curbside

needs!

Time to brush off some old classics, or read some scary stories you didn’t get to in years past. There’s always Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (which is in at least two versions), or perhaps Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde. Why not try the weird tales of H.P. Lovecraft, or Stephen King’s collection of short stories entitled Night Shift, if you are looking for a change? Start your spooky reading now!