Avid Reader

I am so impressed with this store!!! I don’t know the name of the gal who helped me but I am so grateful! This store has a lot of selection. I love their young readers section upstairs. I wish I lived closer or I’d be in here every week!

I cannot imagine why this place has any low reviews. It is an independent book store, the staff are really friendly and helpful, the hours are amazing-​till 10pm!- and if they don’t have what you want they order it for you in two days with no shipping charges. Not even amazon can compete with that. So you can do right by supporting your local independent book store without sacrificing the benefits you get from the big monopolies.

Love love LOVE this store!!! Great wide selection and honestly I can spend hours of my time here. Whenever I come to Davis, a stop here is a MUST for me. Plus I love the store’s name :)

I’d love to give them a higher rating, because I have ordered books from them very efficiently, but I have 2 big quibbles. First, their staff, with few exceptions, looks like they just got a diagnosis of stage 4 cancer. A dark-​haired older guy who is there a lot never smiles, and speaks only when absolutely necessary. It may have been his daughter I saw in the children’s annex once — just the same. Please! If you work in sales you should be able to smile now and then and meet people’s eyes. I’ve also heard the owner carrying on about something and she sounded very unpleasant. Maybe that’s why the staff are depressed? The other thing is that they are a small store and their selection is limited. That’s not a huge problem, because they are good about ordering, but sometimes it’s nice just to get a book when you want to read it. If the staff were more welcoming I would go more often, but I have to brace myself to approach the cashier, so. ..

When I lived in Davis, this was my go to place whenever I wanted to go to a bookstore. The selection is pretty good for a small bookstore and they’ll help you order anything that they don’t have in stock. They also have occasional book readings and events. The best bookstore in Davis!

You know that feeling you get when you are looking for a specific book/​title/​author and you cant find it??? You book people know exactly what I am talking about. Panic sets in as you obsessively run Kindle and library link searches. And then of course, you call your librarian who shares the devastating news about the book being no longer in circulation in the entire library system! Well that’s what landed me at Avid Reader. I was looking for a book that I couldn’t get my hands on and the manager at Avid Reader was able to find it on his store computer within a few minutes. I was told that they can order it and that it could take up to 7 days «if» it was available. They did not require me to pay for it up front, however, I was asked to fill out a card with my name and phone number for a courtesy call when it arrived. I was pleased with the costumer service here. I received a courtesy call two days later to pick up my brand new book.

I love this book store. It is always my first choice when deciding where to pick up my next exciting book. Their «how to» section is always what grabs my attention.

with time to spare, i went back to the second shop on the block where they have games and things for kids although it seems that the board books are in the other bookstore for some reason. So there were THREE employees in the store this time which was great but someone who seemed to be the manager was lecturing them non-​stop and loudly about her time at Apple and how she learned that you don’t charge your phone until the battery is very low. She kept repeating it very loudly. NO ONE asked me whether they could help me or whether I was looking for something in particular — which I was — and once again, I left, invisible and unnoticed. I like supporting small, locally owned shops but they do everything possible to make me NOT want to patronize them.

If I could give it a negative 1 I would. Very unfriendly manager who treated his staff equally rude! He acted like he hated being in his own store, never greated
anyone, and acted like people being in the store were an inconvience to him.
He quoted me $ 100 for a book and when I returned to pick it up (driving from Sacramento because I had a $ 50 gift certificate), he informed me it was $ 160! I asked him to look it up and make sure that it was that much and he pretended to attempt to look it up. After many minutes I told him to forget it and Id take him at his word. When I returned home and looked the book up on the net I found it was $ 50 at most stores. We’ll see if I get a refund when I go to return it…

Not a huge book store, but a good book store for locals. If they don’t have the book you are looking for — they can get it within two days.
The place is well staffed with helpful and nice folks.
Lately, they have been having some authors in-​store for book readings/​signings. This is awesome.
There’s two floors, but the second floor is mainly children section.
This place also has gifts, calendars, notebooks, and misc knickknacks.
Very nice ambiance, chess table for a game, and a sister store a couple of stores over specifically for gifts and children.

A well stocked bookstore, with additional doodads. I particularly liked the Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault finger puppets (you could recreate their famous debate with these). One of the two salesperson was not the friendliest one I’ve ever met, but he was knowledgeable.

I recently bought a GRE book, and discovered that it was a very bad book, and had very little relation to the test. (I am an SAT, ACT, GRE tutor.). I returned the next day hoping to return it or at least exchange it for a different book, since I paid $ 40 for it, when as you all know, I could probably have gotten it online cheaper. I decided to be honest and tell the staff member that I had put some hand marks at the very beginning of the book, and the staff member then said that they could not take the Book back or exchange it. To be honest, this seems unfair, that I have a product that I can’t use, and they were not willing to work with me. That is their prerogative, but it would’ve been nice for a neighborhood bookstore to have been willing to help me out. To me, that is what differentiates a neighborhood bookstore from Amazon. You pay a little extra money for actual service. other staff members I have interacted with have been very friendly, and helpful, which is why I expected more from the store.

If I could give this store 0 stars I would. I was in there with dd adults who can not speak for themselves and while they were looking at books we were asked very rudely to leave and not come back because this store is for «paying customers». I will not ever support this business and I hope that they don’t keep discriminating against developmentally disabled adults.

I came here once with some boy while we were waiting for some movie to start. He asked me if I would like to play Chess, and I said I would love to. I think we played for a good ten minutes before he figured out that I absolutely do not know how to play Chess.
So, I like that there are board games, and that people play them, and that the kid’s books are up in a cute little loft area, and that the feminist books are right smack in the front of the store in a section labeled «feminist» instead of being labeled with some code phrase like «women’s and religious studies» for people who are afraid of the F-​word.
The clerks were friendly. The prices seemed to be pretty comparable to other book stores. They are too small to have the huge selection of a place like Borders, but they do really well considering the amount of space they have.

I loved going to this store and meeting some local authors and supporting this indie bookstore. They kids section is perfect with a rocking chair and 2 soft chairs.

I have ALWAYS loved this bookstore, until today that is. I have never been more offended then how my son and I were treated today. I have been a customer for several years and my son loved going as well. I have bought several books there for both my son and I, but I don’t think I will EVER be returning there again. Today, my son and I were visiting the store and he wanted me to read to him, so we went up to the children’s loft area and curled up in the corner and laid down and I read to him. Then suddenly the owner, Alzada, comes up to us and tells us that this area is for children and not for adults to hang out. I told her I’m reading to my son, and she responded again the area was for elementary kids. Well my son is in elementary school, he’s 11, he just turned 11 actually 3 days ago. She looked him up and down and then said, well he’s big for being 11, never the less, this store is to browse books, NOT HANGOUT, and then she walked away. My son was so sad he just wanted to go since obviously we were no longer welcome. We’re both so broken hearted by her attitude. We weren’t being loud or in anyone’s way. I was just reading quietly to my son.

A quaint and intimate bookstore that’s nice and quiet to read in. Although, staff is not the most outgoing and there is not a wide selection of books.

There is a very special place in my heart for Avid Reader. I have grown up with this bookstore and remember buying a book there when I was six using a dollar in pennies (and spend numerous hours reading the books there because I didn’t want to buy them, yes I was that kid). They always seem to have a nice selection of books and when they don’t have a book they always order it for me.
Being a hardcore Davisite obviously I try and support my independent book seller as much as possible but I do acknowledge that Amazon is cheaper. But considering Amazon’s attempts to avoid paying taxes in California I am boycotting and sending all my business to Avid Reader (who might acquire their books from there anyway but whatever).

I love to banter. I engage random people in conversation all the time. And I love books. So I sauntered in here, excited to banter about literature with someone, and all I got was a cursory glance from the very grumpy man behind the cash register.
Undeterred, I proceeded to bob my head to the classical music while perusing the shelves of wonderful books. And it really is a wonderful store. It’s almost unexpected what you’ll find, as I found my favorite British chick lit author on one of the shelves. I grabbed a copy and headed the cashier, ready to engage him in witty chitchat.
He wasn’t having it. I smiled my million watt smile and asked him how his day was. He mumbled some reply, got through the transaction with the minimal amount of effort necessary, and moved on.
I don’t know. This is a wonderful place. I would be delighted to work in a place like this. But clearly the staff does not agree with me.

Good book selection… the employees seem a bit snooty though. Why are they like this at independent bookstores? I never get acknowledged when I walk in and peruse. Only when I buy something or specifically ask something, do they say anything to me. They’re not rude, don’t get me wrong. They just don’t acknowledge me. I buy something about 33% of my visits, so it’s not like I’m just going in to read and leave. And I usually have my chef whites on, so I look presentable and professional (I go in usually after work)…so I’m not sure what the deal is. But it bothers me. I guess that’s why I miss Borders so much… great place to hang out and they ALWAYS seemed happy to see me, whether I was buying something, browsing, or enjoying some SBC. Sheesh… I wish Barnes and Noble would move in to the old Borders building. I know they’d be happy to have my business also.
I’m not writing this place off though. I’ll still come here on my way home from work. I’ll still buy a book every three or four visits. But I’m thinking I’ll be going to Beers Books or B&N in Natomas a little more often. And stop by here just a little bit less. I like to know that my business is wanted.