Paul’s Book Store

A surprisingly large selection for such a cramped space. Hold your breath and suck your chest in to try to get between a few of the shelves, but it’ll be worth it. The books are packed tightly together, the signs are handwritten, and it’s also fairly busy the entire time you’re there.
Still, you’re pretty much guaranteed to find something you never knew you needed. The staff is friendly and helpful, and the prices are reasonable.

Marvelous. I’ve always enjoyed Paul’s. The clerks are septunigarians and great, and it’s an independent bookstore on State… home of Walgreen’s and Urban Outfitters. In… to…it.

A great place to just relax and read some books. The staff (an old couple probably) don’t disturb you when ur reading or just browsing the books, but when you ask them to look for some book, they are really nice and helpful. Quiet and cozy place to stay away from the noisy world outside. Always can find some little surprises between the shelves.

Too many of the books assault you with mustiness or worse when you open them. For many years, a lot of the books, especially the ones in the boxes on the floor, were thoroughly dusty. Only a couple of years ago did a staff person or two take it upon themselves to do any cleaning or rearranging. That was, in fact, the only time I’ve ever seen a staff person away from the register area.
The staff, when not pretentious, show little or no interest in customers or the bookstore. They seem to be chosen for their ability to keep the owner company. Because they seem never to leave the register, they also don’t know what’s on the shelves or where it might be located. That’s the problem with a skeletal staff who aren’t asked to do anything but provide conversation and hands to ring up sales. At least the pretentious ones have some book knowledge; even the owner obviously doesn’t keep up with the NYT Bestseller List, the NY Review of Books, the London Review of Books, Publishers Weekly, or anything else I can see.
If you’re disabled, forget accessibility. I guess Paul’s was grandfathered into the city, state, and national statutes, but no one in a wheelchair could get into or through large chunks of the store.
The books are often ridiculously overpriced. The owner largely insists on charging half of the price of the latest edition of a book that she has a (not terribly good) copy of from 40 or 50 years ago. For some reason the owner also thinks it best to DEFACE books by scoring out prices on the backs of mint condition books and then writing a nice large price on them in pencil. (To be fair, this seems like a comparatively recent practice, maybe within the past five years.) She forgets that sometimes people go to used bookstores to find books they want to give as gifts; certainly you should give them that option! Even if you were to erase the price, it’s indelibly impressed into the cover. This is an OBSCENE way to treat books anyway.
I guess I could say one good thing about them: they play good music, usually old jazz on vinyl. Otherwise they play NPR.

Dear Paul,
First of all, I’m glad you’ve been around since 1954.
In those 60 odd years you certainly amassed a marvelously random assortment of reading material. But random is good, random is the standard jargon for what Madisonians would term ‘eclectic’. And we love you for it.
We find your dusty, wooden shelves to be wholly endearing. Stuffed with all sorts of novels that retell tales both fabled and fact, myth and reality, yet all the while captivating in their accounts.
There’s an almost automatic tendency to get lost amongst your towering bookshelves and the stories that each whispers, while browsing through history and life stories disclosed in written form. There’s a natural inclination to relive each account with a vigor, reinstated by the thirst for escaping present afflictions if only for a while.
Thank you Paul for the temporary reprieve and the relaxing diversion. Nothing Gonna Change My Love For You.

Books crammed in every corner! Everything a used book store should be. Worth checking out and perusing for an hour or so.

I could get drunk off the book smell here… what an awesome place! Everything is super old and if you’re super old like me, the history & art sections alone are worth taking a couple hours to pick through. Which I did.
I really liked this place, but I do get the overwhelming feeling that the books are all talking about me… or something. You know what I mean. That, I’m not sure I want this shiz up in my house feeling… Or that the books themselves have a sordid history… never mind.

If you’re looking for a bookstore that embodies Madison, Paul’s is it.
I do like rambling bookstores with nooks and crannies, but Paul’s stands out for needing a thorough cleaning. It’s extremely dusty — and that’s without any car traffic on State St. A few of the sections could also use a purge and freshening. Still, the store had a nice vibe, with NPR blaring, people wandering in and out to say hi to staff and owners, and lots of wastrels killing time between coffees.

A fun place to go in and get lost among precious musty books.

Everything I want in a used bookstore – a massive history section, especially American history and labor history, and lots of political philosophy and public policy. They also had a really old edition of Archy and Mehitabel in the window, which I kind of wanted, but I ended up getting a book by Robert Wiebe about early American democracy.
And yes, it does smell like a bookstore!

if it helps, this place really smells like a bookstore.
even from the street as you are walking by and their door is open.

Excellent, eclectic selection of old postcards and frame-​able prints in addition to a wide array of book titles.

Great selection of used books to look through, friendly people. They are very homely, the perfect nook and cranny sort of place for a used bookstore connossiuer. Thin, long and cozy. The one department they seem to lack slightly in is being up to date on new releases, but who goes to used bookstores for such a thing?
For collectors, avid readers, or anyone looking for a classic used book store atmosphere, Paul’s is in a fabulously convenient location and will provide winningly.