What are the opening hours?

Monday 11am - 7pm Tuesday 11am - 5pm Wednesday 11am - 5pm Thursday 11am - 5pm Friday 11am - 6pm Saturday 11am - 6pm Sunday 11am - 5pm

Book Alley

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Pasadena's premier independent new and used bookstore.

626.683.8083
1252 E. Colorado Blvd. Pasadena, CA 91106 Nearly all our books are cataloged online.

With an online inventory of fifty thousand books, a knowledgeable staff, and a dedication to old-fashioned bookselling, we offer a personalized experience to both our in-store and online customers. Book Alley, founded in 1992, is not only Pasadena's finest used bookstore, but also one of Southern California's fastest growing (a rare feat these days). We are a general used bookstore, thus offering a large selection of books on all subjects, including children's titles. Although we do not specialize in any one subject, we can claim to have the largest selection of art, architecture, and photography books in the area. For those unimpressed by our façade, we are bigger than we look! We boast over 50,000 titles in-stock, from genre fiction priced at $2.50 to highly collectible titles. Because we are always buying, our inventory grows everyday. Browse us online, or in person, and discover the finest and most eclectic selection of new, used, and rare books around. We are open seven days a week, Monday through Saturday 10am to 9pm, Sunday 11am to 7pm.

10/30/2026

Happy Friday!

10/27/2026

“Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.”

Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

Guess I need to get on a boat to regulate myself too

10/25/2026

Books, stacks of

10/25/2026

“The terror, which would not end for another twenty-eight years—if it ever did end— began, so far as I know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain. The boat bobbed, listed, righted itself again, dived bravely through treacherous whirlpools, and continued on its way down Witcham Street toward the traffic light which marked the intersection of Witcham and Jackson. The three vertical lenses on all sides of the traffic light were dark this afternoon in the fall of 1957, and the houses were all dark, too.”

It by Stephen King

10/24/2026

It’s that season

10/21/2026

“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more.”

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December;
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
“’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door—
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;—
This it is and nothing more.”

10/19/2026

Books, heavy stacks of

Books bound for our art, photography and architecture sections

10/08/2026

“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against the hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.“

Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

10/07/2026

“Navigating in a space that questions your humanity isn’t really living at all. It’s existing. We all deserve more than just the ability to exist.”

George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren’t Blue

From a bookstore filled floor to ceiling with challenged books, happy banned books week

10/03/2026

Rare Books LA booth 112. Ready set go

Address

1252 E Colorado Boulevard
Pasadena, CA
91106

Opening Hours

Monday	11am - 7pm
Tuesday	11am - 5pm
Wednesday	11am - 5pm
Thursday	11am - 5pm
Friday	11am - 6pm
Saturday	11am - 6pm
Sunday	11am - 5pm

Telephone

+16266838083

Website

http://www.bookalley.com/

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