Black Swan BooksScrew Amazon... bookstores are where it's at. Screw chains! Independent is where it's at. Oh, wait, Amazon took care of most of all the local chains...
Anyway, Oakland has awesome independent bookstores!
While we once had a ginormous Barnes & Noble (that I do sort of miss just because of sheer selection), Oakland still has a great bunch of small, independent bookstores. Yeah, you can get stuff from the NY Times bestseller list. But you're more likely to come home with something lesser-known that the staff or owners of the bookstore recommended for you. Plus many of the bookstores do events like author readings.
