[Chicago] Good Tech Bookstores in Chicagoland?

[Feihong Hsu]

I would echo Martin's opinion: the best tech bookstore I've been to
in Chicagoland is the one inside Microcenter (would've spoken earlier
but I forgot the name of the place). But that's not really saying
much. I've never been inside Powell's, so I can't compare with them.

--- Martin Maney <maney at two14.net> wrote:

> On Mon, Jan 07, 2008 at 05:49:57PM -0600, Michael Tobis wrote:
> > There's nothing in Chicago like Dallas's Nerdbooks, as far as I
> know.
> > I think there used to be one around Naperville called Bits N
> Bytes,
> > but I never managed to get there. That may be ancient history.
> 
> Yeah, it's long gone, and much missed.  There may still be an
> online
> ghostly remnant, but it was, of course, browsing the actual books
> inthe
> actual store that made it so wonderful.
> 
> At this time the best, or at any rate certainly the largest
> technical
> book selection I know of in the area is at Microcenter, of all
> places. 
> Aisles and aisles of books there... non-computer science, too.
> 
> > I love sci/tech sections in bookstores and know many of the ones
> in
> > Chicago. Tech quality seems to come and go. Four years ago I
> thought
> > the U of C bookstore was one of the best in the world. It is now
> > remarkably mundane. The best selection I know of  (or as of about
> a
> > year ago) is or was the downtown DePaul campus's Barnes & Noble,
> > followed by the Borders at Oak Brook.
> 
> Yuck.  I was lucky enough to be introduced to Borders back when you
> had
> to drive to Michigan to visit one.  This was before they started
> appearing everywhere, and the hiring process was mainly concerned
> with
> finding people who liked books and knew a lot about at least some
> types
> of them.  My benchmark is being asked "can I help you?", explaining
> that I was looking for a copy of the Smalltalk-80 book, and having
> the
> guy (1) know which one I meant, (2) that they had had a copy, and
> (3)
> after checking the shelves offering to order the copy they should
> have
> had but didn't; would you like us to call you when it gets here?  I
> haven't been to the Oak Brook Borders in some years becuase it was
> getting too too sad watching what had been quite a good computer
> section slowly dwindle (I remember being a little bemused to find
> not
> one but several copies of Lion's Commentary there back when it had
> been
> blessed for publication.  Probably that store's all time high point
> IMO)
> 
> Nowadays I mostly shop at Bookpool, which leaves a bit to be wished
> for
> in the browsing, but what else can you do when the local stores
> don't
> carry squat anymore, and most of that being along the lines of
> Office
> for Congenital Morons?
> 
> -- 
> There is overwhelming evidence that the higher the level of
> self-esteem,
> the more likely one will be to treat others with respect, kindness,
> and
> generosity. -- Nathaniel Branden
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Chicago mailing list
> Chicago at python.org
> http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/chicago
> 



      ____________________________________________________________________________________
Looking for last minute shopping deals?  
Find them fast with Yahoo! Search.  http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping