Spotlight on Bookstores: *Whodunit* in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Today’s Spotlight on Bookstores post is written by Brooke at The Bluestocking Guide.  According to her blog’s tag line, Brooke offers “reviews by a partial, prejudiced, and ignorant reader.”  An attorney by day, her “about me” page tells us that she aspires to world conquest [grin], one of her great strengths is honesty, and her Achilles heel(s) include chocolate, shoes, and books … what’s notto like?!  I have The Bluestocking Guide in my Reader, and know that Brooke is a Mac aficionado who recently underwent a major blog re-design, and has created Inklings, a growing archive of her podcasted interviews.

Read on as she tells us about scouting out a few of those original Nancy Drew mystery books; then scroll down for some more info I’ve found about Whodunit …

I meant to tell you guys how I found the Nancy Drew book.  After realizing that the original series was a lot different than the revised edits we have today, I was on the look out for originals or reprints.  This one company, Applewood made reprints a few years ago, but they stopped.  So I decided to look in some used bookstores.  I’d love to tell you I used my skills as an attorney and conducted a hard core investigation which included talking to some unsavory characters.  But alas, I used the yellow pages.  So I remembered that I had seen this store on a mystery store website.  But I never checked it out until now…

So I dragged my faithful side kick Wolffman out with me today.  Actually I didn’t have to drag him.  This was our second visit.  The first time, he started reading this one book so he was eager to finish it.  But anyway, it is a quaint little place as you can see from the picture.  There are books everywhere.  One day I hope my personal library looks like this. 

The first time we went, I asked the owner about original Nancy Drews.  Well they had them behind GLASS!  I got kinda scared.  But actually the price wasn’t bad.  I thought the man was going to fall over when I told him that I would buy both books.  (I look really young).  He was trying to sell me a Dana girls mystery.  But I had done enough damage for one day.  But I went back and purchased it today.  I’ll be reviewing it as soon as I can.  I’m reading Karen Brown’s Prejudice in Harry Potter right now.  But if anyone is ever in the Philly area you might want to check it out.

Here’s a picture of one of those old Nancy Drew books.  My grandparents, who thought the best way to spend a Saturday morning was to traipse around the nearby towns looking for bargains at yard sales, bought me bunches of these over the years … wish I had them now!.  I remember that Nancy would take Bess and George for a ride in her roadster!

More information about Whodunit Books is in this article from The Temple News of February 18, 2008.  It explains how Whodunit was used as the setting for a Abercrombie and Fitch 2004 catalog, a bit about the store’s partners and the ups and downs of the economy in City Center, and treasures found in a Dumpster.

Have you, like Brooke, ever searched out an old book (like Nancy Drew or the Dana Girls series) that you had to have?  Have you ever bought a book that was displayed behind glass?