fls boo/^stores go, it’s best by ttobf
By Nancy Fcigenbaum
Hcportcr
What book store in town has
the best sense of humor?
It must be the one that stocks
three copies of “Tibetan Gram
mar” and uses an orange and
white hearse as the company
car.
Half Price Books, Records
and Magazines is just inside the
city limits ofBiyan, across from
the Taco Bell on Texas Avenue.
It’s the sort of store that should
be tucked away on a back street
of a big city, where people wan
der in and out of shops. In
stead, the low brick building
sits in a section of town where
the only thing to browse for is
lumber or accountants.
nue in a quick dash for one of
the few front spaces. Just as dif
ficult, is finding the entrance to
the back parking lot, the drive
way to which is a regular Bryan
hazzard, a narrow street in ad
vanced stages of pothole degen
eration.
O,
“L
\ t’s a good location,” says
Charles Middleton, a customer
just passing through on his way
to Victoria.
Middleton says he was
looking for “Berlin Game” by
Len Deighton, unavailable in
Victoria. He found the hard
back for $2.95 in the store’s ex
tensively stocked and excessi
vely cluttered mystery
collection.
If there’s any word to de
scribe the store, it’s cluttered. A
wooden book shelf packed with
50-cent specials lies propped
against the outside window and
four or five signs taped to the
glass door, promise variety and
disorganization.
To even get near the store,
cars must traverse Texas Ave-
nce safely there you can see
the long front window filled
with stacks of new books that
wouldn’t sell and Half Price’s
own t-shirts hanging from
stuffed cardboard busts.
The front record room is a
collage of decorating styles.
Part of the inventory hangs
from the ceiling and the wall
behind the cash register is pa
pered with old album covers
and fillers.
Customer Tom Kurdyla says
he comes here for the old re
cords he can’t find anywhere
else. The early Jethro Tull al
bum he’s buying has been re-
leased, he says, and probably
doesn’t cost that much, but he
likes to collect originals.
Although the front room is
primarily for music, books line
the walls and fill the crevices.
Expensive-looking coffee-table
books on everything from Fa-
berge eggs to insects compete
with comic books and literary
series’ to capture the eye.
says employee Seth Bobev. Even
so, he says, the Bryan store is
half the size of its Austin coun
terpart but the selection is just
as dizzying.
Categories range from the
mundane, “Romance” and “Re
ligion” to the exotic “W.W.II”
and “Hispanic Studies,” with
much in between.
“They’ve got everything,”
says patron John Blake, who
says he buys books on philoso
phy, economics, construction,
and music, among other sub
jects.
The motto on the Half Price
book mark reads, “We buy and
sell anything printed or record
ed,” which explains how they
came to own the Hungarian
version of a D.H. Lawrence
novel and a collection of music
theory books in Russian. Few
mall book stores carry copies of
“Jane’s Dictionary of Naval
Arms,” or have “Will the Soviet
Union Survive Until 1984?” in
stock as well.
In the rest of the store exposed
light bulbs hang from a low
ceiling giving the rooms the
comfortable, unfinished feel of
a basement. Few basements,
however, have so many differ
ent kinds of books. The store
stocks 75 different categories,
Employee Gene Bryant says
the store buys almost all of its
used books from local resi
dents, in which case Half Price
is more than a book store — it’s
a testament to the varied tastes
of Bryan/College Station’s pop
ulation.
Someone’s sold the store
“Sintering and Related Phe
nomena.” The question is, who
will buy it? And where is the
person dying to own “Legal and
Administrative Texts of the
Reign ofSamsu-Iluna,” which is
written in the cuniform sym
bols of ancient Sumeria?
“They call this a first am-