Selected Works Used Books & Sheet Music

If only I were to live in Chicago! I would be here every week. Seriously. I found a vintage copy of my favourite book. I can’t really open it out of fear of ripping all the pages out, but I have added it to my collection of awesome vintage books. The owner is super nice, and said I could get in touch with him about any special requests even though I live in Toronto. I miss this store already. Also, I accidentally rode the elevator up to the second floor (operator said he would take me to the bookstore so I said ok), and it was manual and super old and I felt a little like I cheated death, but it was a really cool experience! Do it! Go here. Smell books. Stay for hours.

Now THIS is a used bookstore! Beautiful views of Lake Michigan are framed by stacks upon stacks of used books and sheet music. Check out vintage dime store novels, philosophical tomes, local history and more! And don’t forget to say hi to one of the cutest cats around!
File under: can this entire store be in my future home?

Love this place and the cat and the guy. COME HERE

I really enjoyed this store! The man operated elevators are awesome too. Wonderful selection of random books & at decent prices too! They offer a %15 discount for Students :-D

You might find yourself supporting and visiting this establishment solely to visit the cat. This shop is on the second floor in a very cool building, and to get to the shop you have to ride in an old-​school elevator which is run by a person (shocking-​machines not run by machines alone).
An interesting selection of sheet music (I wanted lots of it, but it couldn’t travel home with me that well — it’d have been crushed in my carry-​on only luggage). Over in the music books, I saw a book of music from the disney movie, ‘Cinderella.’ An interesting assortment of music genres/​instruments are represented. The building/​shop is a bit stuffy on warm days, but the rooms vary. This will help you move along. But, buy a book first, at least one. Mine’s about a canoe trip between Minnesota and the Hudson Bay, sounds kinda awesome to me. Then again, I’m an armchair adventurer. Hopefully, someday… that will change.

Great store. Upon arrival, your secret mission is to find that cat!

A great bookshop! The owner is a good person, hard to find quality these days.

I just visited this bookstore for the first time yesterday and I highly recommend it, especially if you find yourself looking for some semblance of personality in the loop. The bookshop is located on the second floor of the beautiful Arts Building, and the elevator is an antique — You ring the bell and a man who sits all day inside takes the thing down and up — I had never experienced anything like that before!
The shop itself is definitely disorganized, but totally charming. Yes, there is a regal resident cat :) I had some amazing finds — Two Henry Miller U.S. first editions and copies of proofs for a book about him — And very resonably priced at that.
The owner said his shop has been open for about five years now and I hope it stays open for many years more — I was totally delighted to find a place like this in one of the most touristy areas of the city.

I DO love a bookstore with a resident cat.
It automatically makes it a better place.
What a lovely find on the second floor of the Fine Arts Building. It’s like going back in time to a real, honest to goodness bookstore. All kinds of sheet music and gently used books.
And of course, the best thing: Hodge the cat.

Great place, but the bathroom was pretty rusty.

A wonderful place to look for used books and music. The shop is a bit of a pain to get to (got stuck in a gaggle of tiny cello players, and ended up having to take an elevator up 7 floors, then walk down six to finally arrive).
There certainly is a magic about the store, and plan to come back and really fid deep within it. I had to cut my last visit short because the store was way too hot.
They had books from pretty much every category I could think of, covering multiple periods of time. Well worth a stop.

This is what a used bookstore should look like – disorganized and cramped. You never know what you’ll find. I’d definitely return at least weekly if I lived in the area.
(It’s a bit hard to find, if you’ve never been. Inside the Fine Arts Building, on the 2^nd floor, and you HAVE to take the elevator to get upstairs.)

This is a wonderful find of a used bookstore. The manual elevators, big gray cat, and books stacked to way above your head add to the spectacular ambiance. I could (and did) browse in here for hours. They have a great poetry section too!

A magical place for used bookophiles. Resident cat sleeps and stretches. Great nooks and crannies and sheet music and philosophy, history, biographies, non-fiction…oh, I could go on and on. Great views to boot, and with lovely classical music for background.
Did I mention it’s a magical place? It is.

Come and check out this bookstore and more
With sheet music and good used books galore
Sit by the window and look at the view
You’ll walk through the door and know what to do
Hodge the cat will lure you in
You’ll want to come back again and again

My 16 yr old took me to this book store. She loves browsing the shelves here. Today, one of the items she purchased was a book on Prussia. This is a quaint book shop, packed to the ceiling with books & a lot of character. It has wonderful older hardback books, vintage paperbacks, and a lot of sheet music. One could spend days here searching through all of the books. Autobiographies, poetry, foreign language books, art, history, you name it. Reasonable prices. The owner a nice gentleman. What a great place to sit & thumb through an old book. Loved the cat, which was napping on the desk when we came in, and playing with us as we left. Take the elevator to the 2^nd floor and turn right.

OK, so I finally finished playing with the cat and scoring extra copies of lesser-​known novels by Iris Murdoch, and went and clambered up the ladder to poke around the vintage paperbacks. And now for about $ 12 I have four creaky old 1940s British ghost story anthologies. I am very happy. I plan to curl up on the bus with «The Ghost Book, Compiled by Cynthia Asquith, ¹⁄₆ Net, Hutchinson’s Pocket Library,» and see whether any of the other passengers mistake me for a transatlantic mid-​20^th century ghost commuting to Central London on the Underground from some cheap and dreary suburb. BTW, these things are in the first room to the left of the entryway, past the desk and the host, and sometimes past the cat. (Although I wouldn’t put anything past that cat.)

I am deeply and madly in love with this place — it was instantaneous. This is everything I’ve been searching for and more in a local book shop: quality, character, atmosphere, bargains, and hidden treasure.
You get to ride what has to be one of the last remaining manual elevators up to visit this gem of a shop — fun in and of itself. When you walk in, you are greeted by the kind of bright, aromatic, floor-​to-​ceiling reader’s paradise that you were hoping you would find at the end of your vintage elevator trip. The guy that runs the place is extremely friendly, and very helpful, while his little gray sidekick is a total sucker for attention. What is not to love about a book shop with its own cat, good prices, excellent selection, historic location, and views of the park and lake front?
I can see myself being here quite often now that I work mere blocks away. I hope there isn’t a ‘no loitering’ policy, because I can see spending some lunch hours climbing the ladders in search of treats, or sitting in the chair by the window, reading.

Years ago, Selected Works on Broadway was my favorite used bookstore in Chicago. One day I went by there and found the place empty, and I was sad. Very, very sad. I wrote a Unilocal bookstore list featuring all the decent bookstores which were NOT Selected Works; sometime later, lo and behold, I received a PM from the owner’s wife stating that they had not closed, but merely moved to 410 South Michigan Avenue. O frabjous day! Callooh, callay! I chortled in my joy.
So now I have finally made it down there to check out the place. It’s in the Fine Arts Building – a handsome specimen itself – and you have to take a hand-​operated elevator up to the second floor (be sure to thank the bloke who mans the stool). I was afraid that the fancy new setting would detract from the charm of the shop, but the first glance dispelled all my trepidations. Same creaky floors and profousion of books with just the right amount of clutter (truthfully, very little, but enough to make it feel cozy). They’ve given up a little floor space, I think, but have higher ceilings, so it seems like a wash on total shelf space. And LIGHT! Lots and lots of gorgeous mid-​autumn Sunday afternoon sunlight. This makes me so happy.
And they have a new cat! The old cat was a friendly soul, but very stinky. The new one is a gorgeous, soft-​furred, grey mischief-​maker who will claw at your leg when you sit down and sprawl in the middle of the floor right behind where you stand. But I’m already fond of the little devil, and s/​he lends a lot of character to the place, so it’s okay.
Oh, and there are books, haha. Lots and lots of books at decent prices. Even though I’m on a book-​buying moratorium, this was a special occasion. Browsing their history sections always nets me a couple of finds – in this case, a paperback on the four English royal Georges and a larger tome on Richard III. There’s plenty of fiction, not to mention religion, philosophy, drama, and poetry. Plus a huge table full of musical scores, librettos, and the like. Check the northernmost room for a large selection of «classic» paperbacks, with such salacious titles as The Gynecologist, a tale of unspeakably shocking misdeeds! There might be some good gag gifts hidden on those shelves.
Even though it’s no longer the northernmost stop on the patented David R. Lakeview Bookstore Tour, and South Michigan Avenue is way off my beaten path, I’m still going to call Selected Works my favorite used bookstore in Chicago. I could happily spend hours in there browsing the stock and playing with that cat.

I’m a connoisseur of bookstore cats, and this one is rad. It’s sneaky, lolly, pettable, and it will climb a ladder or a bookshelf so it can bite your shoulder.
Also while I was there, one arty chick was in the fiction section posing nude in a chair with a book while another took pictures.
Overall it was a fine feline experience. The books aren’t bad either, unbeatable given the location on Michigan Ave. (You have to take the elevator up, but you can walk down.)