Gettysburg Book Cellar

I did not like this used bookstore, and that is really saying something.
It is not quite a cellar, but it does require a half-​stairs down. It is dusty and slightly cluttered. There is also a cute girl working the place. So it does well on charm (no cats, unfortunately).
That’s about it. The prices are way too high for the quality of product. Even in an identical store in Chicago, the books would not price this high. Most of the books are old hardcovers; you will not find a paperback Life of Pi or Undaunted Courage in here. So perhaps the extra dollars are charged for antiquity. The problem is that, besides being old, many of the books are too beaten up.
They do have quite a few first editions, if serious collecting is your hobby. Also, my mother found an 8– or 10-​volume Beatrix Potter set for only $ 20. So perhaps there are deals to be found if you are extremely lucky.
The «cheap» paperbacks are a joke. A dog-​eared Pelican Henry V should not be $ 4. This stuff should be $ 1, tops.
My theory is that, in this small town, inventory does not turn over very quickly; therefore, they must sell at a higher price to meet their overhead and/​or turn a profit. Higher prices mean fewer sales, which means low inventory turnover… and thus the snake eats its own tail.
So besides the disparity between prices and quality, my main beef is that I just didn’t enjoy browsing. The books are old and not to my interest. Well, they did have plenty of blips on my radar… but I wasn’t willing to pay $ 10 for the Updike «Rabbit» books, or Breakfast of Champions, or Saul Bellow’s Herzog, or a 127-​page Steinbeck novel.