Saturday, May 7, 2011

Cookbook Bookstores

I'm always on the lookout for resources for my writing and research. Used bookstores are one of the places that I search to find topics that I think might be interesting to write about. When writing about food, used bookstores are the best for helping me find books that document food through history. But even better than a used bookstore is a used cookbook bookstore.

Last week I went to The Cookbook Store in the Kensington neighborhood of San Diego. I was looking for community cookbooks and was not disappointed in the selection offered at this store. Ran by a cookbook collector, this store offered a great diversity of cookbooks.

Specialized bookstores like the one above provide you the opportunity to ask questions of a bookseller whose passion is that genre of books. They are knowledgeable about the history of that genre and can help you learn about where to get certain titles and how much to expect to pay for them. Getting to know a used bookseller can be as valuable as being friends with your local reference librarian.

There's a lot of great bookstores in San Diego and highly recommend checking them out.  You can learn more about them by visiting the website for the San Diego Bookseller Association.