Get your summer reads at Raleigh City Museum

A lot of my friends know I get a physical rush when I’m shopping for shoes or clothes in a store that carries stuff in my style. I have to run my fingers over the fabric, pick up the shoes, ponder the possibilities. I feel more alert, but also a little soothed. I must slow down and take everything in. This is why I prefer shopping alone. I don’t like being hurried.

I get a similar rush when I’m in a book store, particularly a used book store. There’s nothing like thumbing through titles you never knew existed until you wandered down a different aisle. I love the musty smell lingering on the pages of aged books. I read the first pages of many books that will never become my own. I buy books knowing it may be years before I pick them up again. But there’s something about letting them live on my shelves until I’m ready for them … unlike shoes and outfits, they’ll never go out of style.

On Friday, my friends and I stepped into the Raleigh City Museum on Fayetteville Street to see what was on display. I was thrilled to find a used book sale happening inside. The titles were impressive, including many classics, some old textbooks and an impressive children’s book selection that brought back memories of my “Choose Your Own Adventure” and “Fear Street” reading days. I could have spent an hour or more scouring the tables for titles. But not all of my friends were thrilled about spending Friday night browsing used books, so I paid for my 1950s edition of Huckleberry Finn, a biography about Freud and some retro mini-Hallmark greeting books with plans to return.

The sale runs through Friday, according to staff at the museum. You can browse the books (and the historic displays) from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday. The museum is also open from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays. Hardbacks run $3, paperbacks are $1, and children’s books are 50 cents. The proceeds benefit the museum and its educational programs.

Let me know some of the other non-chain book stores worth checking out in the area. I’m particularly fond of the Regulator Bookshop in Durham and Lazy Lion Used Books in Fuquay-Varina.