Tacoma Book Center

Tacoma Book Center is the place to dig: roughly half a million used books fill the stacks of an old building on East 26th Street in the Dome District. Dave Killian and Larry Jezek started the business in Seattle and moved it to Tacoma in the late 1980s, into a building that had been a grocery store, a dairy and a union hall. The store bills its stock as the largest selection of used and rare books in Washington.

The shelves wander from car repair manuals and horses to mythology, comics and a deep run of Washington history. Two carts of 25 cent books sit by the front door. Donations are welcome whenever the store is open, trades for store credit happen on weekdays, and the buying counter pays cash on Saturday and Sunday afternoons from 2pm to 5pm. Plan to wander.