Walk in through the large, wooden double-doors and you will enter onto our bookshop's main floor. Above the door, a sign in cement still reads "Edwards Library" because this was the site of the original Southampton town library built in 1904. The library is now just around the corner on East Street. If you are interested in more history, you can find it here. When you step through the short foyer, the first thing you see might be a surprise and can't be missed: a restored folk-art ferris wheel and circus wagons. For more on that, go here. To your right will be shelves of non-fiction. To your left will be shelves of fiction. And straight ahead will likely be us, the friendly staff, often at our computers behind a large display case and antique banker's desk, as well as more shelves with our volumes of scarce/rare non-fiction, fiction and children's books.  
 

The non-fiction area has the following sections: Animals (Birds, Cats, Dogs, Horses, General), Antiques & Collectibles, Art & Architecture, Arts & Crafts, Biography, Collective Biography, Books on Books & Reading, Books on the Writing Process, Business and Law, Christmas, Cooking, Entertainment, Essays, Foreign Language, Games, Gardening, Health, History (Ancient, Asian/Russian, Civil & Revolutionary Wars, European, Latin America/Africa/Australia, U.S. Foreign Wars, U.S. General, World War II, General/Other), Home Improvement & Decorating, Humor, Letters, Literary Journalism, Massachusetts, Music & Dance, Nature, New England, Occult/Paranormal, Philosophy, Photography, Psychology & Self-Help, Reference, Religion/Spirituality, Science, Ships/Sea, Sports (Baseball, Fishing, Football, Golf, General/Other), Technical, Travel & Cultures (U.S., Africa, Asia/Russian, British Isles, Canada, Europe, Latin America/Caribbean, General), True Crime, Women's Studies.

 
 

In the fiction area, you'll see a brick fireplace with hardbacks lining the mantle and a round table in front of it - for stacking books or sitting and perusing them. Most of our fiction is arranged simply by author. There are separate sections for trade paperbacks, short stories/collections, plays, science fiction & fantasy, poetry and vintage paperbacks.

We have a growing collection of ephemera for sale which you'll find in various spots. There is sheet music next to the fireplace and an assortment of pamphlets and cards on our wooden triangles. There are also magazines on the lower floor. You'll find lots of fun things down there. To get there, you have to go back to the foyer for access to the staircase. There is a large children's section downstairs, with collectible and modern children's books. You will see rows and rows of mass market paperbacks separated into a number of different categories - mystery/suspense, scifi & fantasy, romance, western, general fiction, poetry & plays, biography, health, nature/gardening, history, essays, general non-fiction. There is also a large table full of vintage paperbacks.

 
 
If you find that searching through all those books has you wishing for a cup of coffee or tea, we have that too. For one dollar, you'll have your choice of brew.