out out out of the house!,  urban life

The Last Bookstore!

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I heard about The Last Bookstore from a friend a while back but never ventured all the way to LA to visit it until Lubna and I went to The Happy Place. (You know how we are about LA traffic…) Since The Happy Place was a little lack-luster we wanted to maximize our day in LA and this was just the thing. I punched it into my google maps and away we went!

Parking was about $10 in a lot down the block and around the corner but I think it was totally worth it. What a wonderland we discovered!

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Wandering the downtown streets of Los Angeles to find the bookstore was an adventure in itself. Side story: my phone was dying and I could swear we picked up a few colorful characters just following us around. It kind of gave me the heebie-jeebies.

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But we made it to the bookstore and we were so amazed! Look at that book arch hallway? What the what?!! Lubna and I weren’t really there for the books so we sort of continued our photographer-model date and took pictures of each other.

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It was a blast.

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So naturally a week later when we took to the kids to the King Tut exhibition for Payam’s mom’s mother’s day gift, we HAD to visit it again!

But hold up. Let’s look at some pictures from our trip to the museums:

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Awwww…. Happy Family Bonding time! Payam’s brother, Ramin, is visiting from out-of-town so he came too. As you can see, Bug got quite a kick out of being taller than him with the help of a curb. They are doing this now. This morning Bug says, Mom, I think you are getting smaller. To which I say, No daughter, you are getting bigger etc etc etc…

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Here’s Bug being moody in the garden outside of the Natural History Museum. You know how it is… Tweenagers, hormones, moods bla bla bla. She cheered up eventually.

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They LOVED The Last Bookstore! It was like exploring Hogwarts Library. Long corridors going every which way, secret rooms, weird art installations, stacks and stacks and stacks of books piled every way you can imagine: color order, vertical, horizontal, in an arc… you get the picture.

Payam actually really enjoyed the books and found quite a few to take home. I’ve been on a no-spending spree so I didn’t find any but I could have and as soon as I start spending again it is definitely on my list of places to stop. They had a whole room just full of art books and coffee table books that I could seriously get lost in.

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We wandered and wandered. There are art galleries upstairs. The girls bought a few artsy pencils with the words “nope,” “not a people person,” “I can’t even” on the side. That was a fun laugh.

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We perused the vinyl section, admired the vintage clocks and radios turned succulent planters and went on our merry way feeling very cultured and amused. Then we sat in traffic for fifty-two hours to get home. The end.

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3 Comments

  • Evilisa

    I love these pictures! Payam’s mom is super pretty.

    Bug IS tall. My 17yo is taller than me now. It freaks me out

  • Lynne

    Please take me next time I’m over for a visit. I have no spondoolics at the moment but am dreaming of another Canada/America trip next year to see family and friends.

    Did you ever go to the book shop Shakespeare and co when you were in Paris? xxx

    P.s.In Hye on Wye ( just 40 mins drive from the farm) there is a whole town devoted to book shops!!! Viva le livre!

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