The Last Bookstore

The Building Itself

Step through iron gates at the corner of 5th and Spring and you enter what Citizens National Bank looked like in 1914. Soaring marble columns support gilded ceilings two stories overhead. Original architectural details designed by John Parkinson (who also created Union Station and City Hall) remain intact. The space feels grand without being stuffy, historic without being precious. Books line every surface, filling the cathedral-like room with color and texture that transforms banking elegance into literary abundance.

The ground floor sprawls across 22,000 square feet. Fiction occupies the main room under those towering columns. Poetry, philosophy, and literary criticism claim their own sections. To the left, the Annex holds rare books, signed first editions, and oversized art volumes behind glass. Vinyl records take up serious real estate along the back wall, thousands of albums organized by genre. Graphic novels stack high in dedicated bookcases. DVDs, CDs, and even VHS tapes fill additional corners.

You can browse for free, touching and examining anything that catches your eye. Prices range from a dollar to hundreds depending on rarity and condition. The staff stays available to help locate specific titles but otherwise lets visitors explore at their own pace.

The Upstairs Labyrinth

Stairs lead to the mezzanine, each step labeled with genre names advertising what awaits above. The second floor opens with a dramatic book sculpture where volumes appear to fly off shelves in mid-air. Then the labyrinth begins. Bookcases angle in unexpected directions, creating winding paths that loop back on themselves. You turn a corner and discover history books, then round another bend into travel writing.

Halfway through, a dimly lit tunnel constructed entirely from stacked books curves overhead. Most visitors pause here for photos, standing beneath thousands of spines arcing above them. Just past the tunnel, a window cut into another book wall frames readers passing behind it. These installations started appearing years before Instagram made them famous, created simply because someone thought books could become architecture.

The labyrinth continues past artist studios belonging to the Spring Arts Collective. Five makers maintain working spaces here, selling paintings, sculptures, vintage typewriters, handmade journals, and textile art. Their hours vary, but Saturdays from 1 to 5 PM typically finds most studios open. During the monthly Downtown Art Walk (second Thursdays, 7 to 10 PM), all the artists gather.

At the labyrinth’s far end, a back room holds 100,000 books priced at just one dollar each. The Last Wall, they call it. Genre organization loosens here, making discovery more random but prices more forgiving. Gather Yarn Shop occupies another corner. Spring St Cafe offers coffee and small tables for anyone wanting to read on site.

What Works and What Doesn’t

The store succeeds at creating genuine surprise. You expect a bookstore and find yourself in a former bank vault examining horror novels behind a massive steel door. You climb stairs and discover a literary maze with art studios tucked into corners. The scale makes browsing feel like exploration rather than shopping.

Crowds gather on weekends and the narrow labyrinth paths can bottleneck. Weekday mornings offer breathing room. The mandatory bag check at security prevents theft but means you cannot bring large backpacks inside. Small purses pass through fine.

Parking downtown costs money. Street meters run about $4 to $8 depending on time and day, free after 6 or 7 PM and all day Sunday. Pay lots cluster along Spring Street at similar rates. The store does not validate. Taking metro makes more sense. Exit at Pershing Square and walk one block south on 5th Street.

The collection depth varies by genre. Popular fiction and classics dominate. Philosophy, art, and history sections run deep. Niche subjects thin out quickly. For rare books, the Annex curates carefully, but prices reflect true market value. The dollar bins reward persistent digging but require patience.

The Last Bookstore hosts author readings, book clubs, and occasional live music. Check their website for current programming. The space can be rented for private events.

Why It Matters

Physical bookstores keep closing. Amazon and ebooks made running an independent shop nearly impossible. The Last Bookstore survives by offering something online cannot replicate: physical space that invites wandering, discovery driven by chance rather than algorithm, and books treated as objects worth touching and admiring beyond their text. The art installations and historic setting turn browsing into an experience people travel specifically to have rather than just a means to acquire reading material.

Owner Josh Spencer named the place ironically in 2005, assuming it would fail like most independent bookstores. Two decades later, it stands as California’s largest new and used bookstore and one of the most photographed in the world. That survival matters beyond commerce. It represents a different relationship with reading and culture, one where books exist as physical objects in shared space rather than pixels delivered by algorithm.