Bookstore Spotlight: Karen Wickliff Books

Bookstore Spotlight

Karen Wickliff Books

Location: 3527 N High St

Columbus, Ohio

Sells: used books only

Pricing- cheap-fair-pricey rarities

We took a little road trip to Columbus to the science museum to see the Tutankhamun exhibit. Afterward we headed over to a very disappointing non-used bookstore. I’ll tear it up in another spotlight, but we’ll skip it for now. Hungry and disappointed, we traveled across town to an all-vegan restaurant called Seitan’s Realm. Amazing food btw. While there we figured on just hitting up the local Half Price Books and calling it a day.

But hold on a second! Across the street we spotted a bookstore called Karen Wickliff Books. An odd choice for a bookstore name. It was in a strip of shops that all looked the same. It screamed Christian Bookstore to me. I quickly Googled it just to make sure and saw picture after picture of beautiful messy old book stacks. Ok. Ok. It closes in 30 min so let’s just run through and see what it is.

Holy Moley! This is THE place I was hoping to find. You walk in and immediately are navigating through four-foot-tall piles of used books. Not ten steps in and we already had two books in our hands to come home with us. Books on shelves. Books in nooks. A voice from behind a stack of books welcomes you in. That’s Karen Wickliff. She’s the owner. She’s 80 and knows her stuff. She’s also a foot taller than the stacks of books around her, which explains the height of the stacks.

I headed back to the paperback room. My wife hunted down the occult section. Usually, she has a hard time finding those old non-fiction occult books but this time she said it was difficult to choose which one she wanted. Meaning, there were many. That’s very rare in the used bookstore world.

The place is deceptively bigger than it looks from the outside. The big room to the left has shelving reminiscent of an old library. That’s where a lot of the hardcovers are. I didn’t see any best sellers but it’s not a high-end collector store either. I mean, she has collectible books, but nothing is locked behind glass cases if you know what I mean.

Back in the paperback room the shelves go almost to the ceiling. I guess more correctly it’s her pulp genre room as there were hardcovers back there also but obviously mostly paperbacks. What blew my mind was that even though it wasn’t marked she totally had separated the sub-genres into sub-genres. For instance, all the books that had to deal with ships were grouped together on the shelf amidst the other genre fiction staples. Lots of crime, sci-fi and fantasy. Not as much horror but I did find some tucked behind rows and in the larger format paperbacks. What I was really impressed by was how much weird stuff there was. Books that I wouldn’t even know how to classify. Old low run books from the 60’s-70’s. Short lived publishers of trashy fiction. Non-US releases. There was so much that I didn’t get to look at it all. Not to mention technically we only had 30 min until it closed. I noticed she wasn’t exactly kicking us out, so I went up and asked if she had a basket or something for me to put my books in. I sat down my stack and for a second had lost them as there were stacks everywhere. She gave me an old box but said I couldn’t keep it (ha!). She also told me they only take cash, so I had to run down to the bank to pull out some funds.

I told her that we were in town for the day, and we had just come from a hip independent bookstore. She described it in a diplomatically nice way. I then said, “it was terrible.” And immediately she was like, “yeah.” Ha! And we proceeded to trash talk. It was so funny. I get the feeling she says what she feels most of the time. We talked about collecting old paperbacks. She said that people usually want the most ridiculous looking stuff. I agreed and told her there would be plenty in my pile. She also said that if there was something I wanted from one of the stacks to let her know and she would pull it out because everything was in order. Wait what?! Everything is in order. Haha! She knows exactly where everything is for when people order books on her ABE Books account. I love it. I also felt guilty because I might have mixed some stuff around in the back. Sorry Karen! I just pulled some stuff from the back rows out to the front. I’ll put it back next time I’m there.

Some negatives?

No public restroom. Cash only. Both can be solved with a little forethought though. She’s still making people wear masks but that’s no problem and if it is, you’re a chump. She has some on the counter for free. I get the feeling the hours are touch and go so you might want to call before you go if you’re going to be in from out of town.

If you are reading this blog because these forgotten old books are your thing this is a MUST stop. Karen is a sweet and sour lady who’s just as ready to talk books as she is to talk trash. It’s an eccentrically beautiful place that is becoming more rare to come by as the years go on. I have an adorable handwritten receipt. As she was writing up our books, she would comment on the ones that were trashy. The Hawk book I picked out being an obvious choice to rip apart. It was hilarious. I cannot wait to go back!

I grabbed this picture of her from a Columbus Dispatch article about the store. I tried to link it but it won't work so you should Google it.