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High Valley Books is Bill Hall’s vast collection of rare and out of print books and magazines spanning fashion, art, architecture, interiors, photography, and fiction. It is run out of his Greenpoint basement (and now upstairs annex). My girlfriend Hannah is a writer and former bookseller who put me on to his place when she found a great copy of The Last Whole Earth Catalogue for me a couple years ago, and we’ve had the pleasure of experiencing Bill’s hospitality and deep knowledge on a few occasions since then. They have an online store if you’re not in NY and their “New Releases” email is one of the few recurring retail emails I would recommend subscribing to.
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As a book nerd, I’m always looking for places to get my fix. High Valley Books in Greenpoint is amazing to behold. It’s open by appointment only and is located in the owner’s home. It specializes in vintage and out-of-print art and design books and magazines. Make sure to go downstairs so you can feel like a hobbit in your perfect, overflowing book lair! Their Instagram features pics of visitors, and is a good chance to see what cool-kids-about-town have been there recently.
Sep 18, 2024
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I love record stores and the discovery that happens when old stock mixes with new. More recently I've been getting deeper into art books and love buying books for people as gifts. NYC has a great community of shops like Karma and Mast, and there’s a gaggle of independent vendors that work the fairs like the Printed Matter MoMA PS1 Art Book Fair. I started going to the fairs a few years ago. They are like record fairs but even crustier in some ways, full of curmudgeons and characters. Check The Booksellers documentary for a nice slice of this world. I have met a few dealers and developed some rapport, one of which is Jeff Hirsch Books in Illinois, which has an incredible inventory and their sales emails are one of my favorites of all types. Even if you don’t buy, you learn something.
Apr 6, 2021
Left Bank is a great destination bookstore for art books, zines, and ephemera (it's actually one of my favorite stores in NYC, period). I just discovered these digital catalogs they've been sharing on their website and it sent me down a rabbit hole. the kate bush fanzines one is a favorite as is "shirt show."
Nov 12, 2024
Top Recs from @niquilly
If you have a car (I don’t anymore— mine got stolen a few weeks ago), save a parking ticket and put it on your windshield when you want to park illegally. in my experience, it worked about 80% of the time :)
side note: there was no decoy parking ticket on the windshield when my car got stolen...
Feb 23, 2025
99% sure he's already come up on PI at some point but I was re-listening to some classics this morning and its some of the most inventive, timeless and funny shit out there. Ive probably only listened to a tiny fraction of his catalogue but this one called Flipwild is a great place to start
Feb 23, 2025
it’s Nora Ephron & Mike Nichols and it is a damn near perfect movie from start to finish. it’s a pretty heartfelt and complex labor and love story, but it’s also very funny and stylish and it might make you cry and then go on ebay and see if you can find the movie poster
hard to find online but you know, search watch online free and persist. maybe use reddit too…I think that’s how I found a link that worked
Mar 11, 2025