Specialty Book Store Opens in Square

Just weeks after the eviction of Starr Books from its Bow Street location behind the Harvard Lampoon castle in June, another book store quietly opened on Eliot Street last month.

A Scholar’s Bookshop—which specializes in out-of-print books, with an academic emphasis—does not plan to advertise its presence until the start of the school year. But it has already gotten a “nice response,” according to owner Howard Feldstein.

Feldstein said he was drawn to opening a store near Harvard because of the academic atmosphere fostered in the University. He said he has wanted to have a location in the Square since he first started in the used books business 15 years ago but couldn’t afford the rents.

He opened Antiquarian Books in Arlington instead, which has since moved to Downtown Boston.

“I’ve been looking for years for a nice little spot [in Harvard Square]. I think it’s a cute little space,” said Feldstein of his small location half-buried below street level, across from the Charles Hotel.

Feldstein, who said he will buy “anything interesting” for the store, said he loves the Square because “people are interested in everything here.” He then proudly announced his most recent purchase—a book about Mormonism dating from the 1800s.

Though Feldstein said he has been collecting books since he was five, he said has never been drawn to new books.

“I find new books boring,” he said. “The great scholarship has already been done.”

His store will instead cater to graduate students and professors searching for older academic books.

“I’ve found that undergraduates rarely do the suggested reading,” he said. “We’re a bookshop for people who do the suggested reading.”

Feldstein has purchased many of these old tomes from Harvard’s greatest minds.

“We buy a lot of libraries from retiring Harvard professors, or those who die,” he said, citing as noteworthy recent acquisitions the collections of evolutionary biologist Edward O. Wilson, Pellegrino university professor emeritus, and Thomas Professor of the History of Science emeritus I. Bernard Cohen—whose collection included a number of Isaac Newton’s manuscripts.

Feldstein said he would brave the toughest obstacles to get his hands on a great book collection.

“I’ve been in attics where the cobwebs were like in horror films, sheets and sheets that you had to break down as you moved forward,” he said. “Once, there were stacks of great Civil War books behind them. Normally, I hate spiders, but in cases like that, I don’t mind.”

Formerly involved with the textile industry, Feldstein decided it was time to switch to the book business when his personal library hit 25,000 volumes.

“It was more than I could possibly need, and it was getting out of hand,” he said.

These days, he comes into his two stores on alternate days and does most of the buying for both.

Feldstein cited the Bible as his favorite book, also saying he enjoys mystical and Kabbalistic commentaries. He also favors books on philosophy, math and science.

But he is willing to yield somewhat to his readers’ tastes. He buys many Greek and Latin classics, which he says have done surprisingly well in sales so far in the Square.

He says he will even buy old Ernest Hemingway editions—which he says always sell well—even if the author is not one of his favorites. But he refuses to purchase any science fiction or mystery stories.

He said he still comes home with three or four books every night.

“I can’t keep up,” he said. “I wish I could live 10,000 years, so I could read all this stuff—and that would only be a start.”

—Staff writer Eugenia B. Schraa can be reached at schraa@fas.harvard.edu.