Crawford Doyle Booksellers

Profile

Lodged on a strip that’s been a book-dealing hub since the thirties, this charming, majestic bookshop has preserved its block’s integrity throughout the decades, along with its affinity for literary greats. Formerly Burlington Books, the storefront switched names (and deeds) in 1995, maintaining the walls lined with cubbies of out-of-print titles, brassy bestsellers, and thick table-toppers on photography, architecture and art. Signed copies of Tom Wolfe’s Hooking Up are stacked next to collectors’ editions of J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. The shop specializes in first-edition hardbacks of postwar literature, ranging from a $50 copy of Philip Roth’s I Married a Communist to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for $3,500. Neighborhood stalwarts and walk-ins fresh from the Met make for a diverse crowd. A curious family of European philosophers, graduate students, and retired locals trade book recommendations with the lifers who work here (most have been on staff since the store opened). Drop in on the right day and you might get your tome signed—authors with newly shelved volumes like Salman Rushdie, Tom Wolfe, and Joseph O’Neill stop by regularly for unannounced signings. — Genevieve Leon

Crawford Doyle recently partnered with the SUNY-affiliated Empire State College to create a writing scholarship in memory of late employee Nicholas Pekearo, a writer attending classes at Empire State and a volunteer police officer killed in a 2007 Greenwich Village shooting. Pekearo’s scholarship supplies grants to aspiring writers.

Heavy Reading

Not up for lugging around your new five-pound book? Upper East Siders can opt for the store’s drop-off service.