Tim’s Used Books

Really neat little shop at the back of a path off the main drag. Had a nice conversation with the shop proprietor or employee about history and a book he was reading. Very cool selection of books — mainstream titles but also some really interesting out-​of-​print used items. Great variety considering that it’s not that large of a shop.

Cute little bookstore off the main drag in Provincetown. Don’t come looking for anything too specific, as it’s not the biggest store ever, but you can certainly find some good stuff.
Love the no cell phone policy!

I was absolutely delighted to have found this store. Where else can you walk out with a veritable stack of books — biographies, obscure novelties, literature, drama, how-​to — for just under 40 dollars. Extremely reasonable prices, a highly respectable and well organized treasure trove of wonderful and relevant titles, with a knowledgeable owner who was helpful, cordial and a total professional. A customer even asked him asinine questions — she didn’t know the book title nor the author nor any plot specifics, yet still expected help — and though he did not suffer her foolishness he wasn’t unkind, even taking a stab in the dark with a proximal suggestion.
Note: He is very serious about enforcing the signs indicating no talking on the cell phone while in the store. A customer was summarily rebuked in my presence.

I adored this place. Really affordable. Amazing selection. I found some hilarious titles, a book I’d wanted to read but hadn’t gotten around to tracking it down, and other interesting picks. It was hard to narrow down to just what I wanted to carry around with me until we got back to the car.
Perfect place to pick out your beach reading, without killing your wallet. FYI– not the best place to take a child. They do have some children’s books, but it’s a quiet shop and no phones allowed. It really makes the atmosphere perfect, though, the quietness. You browse, you select your treasures and then you go freely through the loud world with a bag of books at your side.

Just about everything a used bookstore should be — well organized but still haphazard, where serendipity reigns. I’m a long-​time Ptown regular, and Tim’s is part of my vacation routine: I bring a book or 2 with me to read on trip and my first day or so; when I’ve read the books I brought with me, I bring them to Tim to trade for another book or 2; read and repeat, until my vacation is over. I know to never go in when in a rush (but really, what is there to rush to in Ptown?) because to do a proper browse requires at least a good half-​hour or more. The icing on the literary cake is its great setting, like disappearing down a rabbit hole at the end of a slightly overgrown walkway removed from the madness and hubbub that is Commercial St. at the height of the season, into a world of books for all of the senses — you’re surrounded by the look and smell and feel and sound of well-​loved paper and books. Heaven!

Charming used book store, with an outstanding selection and informed staff. It’s a must when you’re in Provincetown!

Tim’s Used Books reminds us of what a sublime cultural foundation the Provincetown of today is built on. A true oasis, charmingly set back from teeming Commercial Street, Time’s Used Books is like stepping back in time. The wooden floors muffle your steps and you wander from room to room in peace and quiet, the walls lined with a treasure trove of books of every stripe. A veritible literary cave, the books are beautifully organized, arranged and displayed and the prices make you feel posh enough to buy as many as catch your eye. Tim’s Used Books is the real Provincetown, you can mingle with the local cognecenti here and well as with the «real» multi-​generational townies. It is a marvelous place that will transform your experience of Provincetown and give you the elements that add up to real vacation. Tim the owner is a gentleman and he staffs the bookstore with everyone from charming young PTown ladies to Billy Hough, one Ptown’s most interesting and literate performers!!!

We just went to the bookstore today and while I dont write many reviews, I had to review this place. We loved it! Found exactly what we were looking for and much more. The staff was wonderful and incredibly knowledgeable. So many wonderful books, so little time. You wont be sorry to spend some time wandering around in here.

Though I did not find what I was looking for, I found the selection to be great and the help to be friendly. Good Women’s Studies section!

Absolutely loved this place, this is what a used bookstore should be! Incredibly well organized, knowledgable staff (owner?), and very well priced. Off the main street a bit, which keeps it quieter that the rest of P-Town’s hubbub. Worth going all the way down the cape to just for this place!

This is a great little hole in the wall bookstore off of commercial street in provincetown. You walk down an overgrown alley way into a tiny but well stocked store of about three rooms. I talked to the man I believe to be the owner. He showed me where I could find what I was looking for, and directed me to some great titles. He even made kind suggestions of other titles based on what I was looking for. Great prices as well. I walked out with about 5 books for 18 dollars. I highly recommended this place.

My wife and I were thrilled to find Tim’s while wandering down Commercial Street this week — it’s quiet, tucked away location is a welcome break from the rest of downtown. The selection is haphazard and some books are pretty dusty, but we spent 45 minutes browsing and came away with a number of excellent finds. The prices are quite reasonable (unless you’re getting a collector’s item or first addition, understandably) and the man who checked us out was lovely — we spent a few minutes discussing Paul Auster, Jeffrey Eugenides and the joys of Moby Dick. While I might organize things a bit differently (Ann Coulter in Women’s Studies? Is that a joke?), a generally satisfying book buying experience.

As a writer, I’ve visited this place often over the years and have generally been delighted with the discoveries I’ve made.
This time however (mid-​November 2011), I was really angered by the condescending and dismissive attitude of the sales person. In preparation for an article on dogs in fiction I asked about a copy of «One Hundred and One Dalmatians.» «No,» snapped the clerk, «We don’t have movies.» I responded that the title I sought was originally a book, written by the well-​respected Dodie Smith. Then explaining that I was doing an article on «Dogs in Fiction,» I was informed that «that is the most over rated topic in the last 30 years!»
My two friends and I quietly left the shop.
It’s a pity that such a cozy and welcoming space should hire such pretentious help.

I found some excellent books here, including Hemingway and Faulkner (who is sometimes hard to come by). Don’t expect to be «in and out» — best to browse the store if you have plenty of time since there are an overwhelming amount of books piled high in long rows. But the selection is vast and the prices are fairly low — usually under $ 12 for a new book, and much less for used ones.

TIm’s is housed in a tumbledown old cottage at the end of an overgrown walk, one that gives the feeling of taking one miles rather than a few meters away from the hurly-​burly of Commercial Street. If its collection is just ever so slightly similarly jumbled and otherworldly, I suppose that’s part of the place’s charm.
You don’t go to Tim’s for a Twilight book or something you just read about in the NYTimes Book Review; you don’t even go expecting much of anything specific. Instead, it’s a paradise for the eclectic browser, interested in finding a dogeared «House of Mirth», a forgotten chapbook of local poetry, or an oversized catalogue of a mid-​seventies exhibition.
In short, it’s everything that the increasingly cookie-​cutter world around us isn’t: eccentric, impractical, and really rather wonderful. The only reason for four stars rather than five is that’s also rather small…

Kinda spooky place! You walk down a small «alley» to get to it. It looks like a little house that got lost playing hide-​and-​seek and was never found.
Cute little used and new book store. Cluttered inside but maybe you’ll find something worth your time. Books I got were like 6 – 7 bucks each. Well, not too bad I suppose…

Great for used academic books. Often gets the libraries of retired and deceased professors. If Tim himself is there, he is friendly and very knowledgable about all kinds of books. He has a larger store in Hyannis, but I haven’t been there.

My experience at Tim’s Used Books kind of sums up, at least to a small degree, why I greatly prefer purchasing my little darlings from an indepdendent bookshop rather than from an online or chain megastore. While Tim’s is certainly a rather tiny but cozy space and, respectively, does not stock the wealth of titles a significantly larger store could accommodate, it’s a fun place to shop. Definitely seems hit or miss, but the environment is great. The fiction section is by far their best. I, and the other people who were there with me, managed to find some inexpensive goodies. I even scored a sweet copy of Edith Wharton’s «The House of Mirth» for just $ 1.50.
What I like most about Tim’s is the people who work there. I was helped by and spoke with two very knowledge individuals (a man and a woman) who were humorous, intelligent, and quite straight-​forward about their literary likes and dislikes. I greatly enjoyed our conversation. This is definitely not the sort of place to go if you’re looking for a specific title, but a wonderful place to browse, hunt for a good fiction buy, and to shoot the shit about literature and authors.
Book nerds unite! And then go and enjoy a cocktail on the beach.

Not impressed. Especially not impressed by the staff member that dissed my friends book choice about a profession he wants to get in to. I love books and have a variet of interests but anything I found was just way too overpriced. The only knitting book they had was about dog sweaters. Ack. I’d so much rather go anywhere else and pay full price for the book.

I love used bookstores, and I go in this one every summer, but I’ve never been particularly impressed. There’s a generic assortment of books for higher prices than I’d pay at home in Boston. If I were stuck in Provincetown with no means of communication with the outside world, I guess I’d like this place… if the public libraries were all shut down… and I didn’t know anybody to borrow books from…