Yes Books

Sure, there's an argument to be made for being able to walk into a bookstore, trot over to the book you want, slip it off the shelf, pay the friendly clerk, and go about your day. Tidy shelves, clear signs, beaming fluorescent lights: all tools of bookstore efficiency. Ah, but what do you lose in the organization and the bright light? Serendipity. The accidental discovery of something fortunate. The coming across something you weren't looking for but were lucky to find.

Yes Books, creaky, cluttered, a bit chaotic, a tad cramped, stands as a bastion of serendipity. It's not the sort of place you wander in with a specific tome in mind. Best to dawdle about the shelves (towering, seemingly on the verge of collapse), scan up and down, handle a floppy old paperback, or flip through a lovely old antique art book. And give yourself extra time to finger through the crates full of prints — flowers and plants and sea life and portraits and photographs and all sorts of images, old and new — many for short money. You never know what you'll find.

Yes Books | 589 Congress St, Portland | 207.775.3233

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