Aladin Books, LA

I could buy almost Korean books even it was disconected.
They were triying to help me. They found the used book from Korea.
After 1 week, I got my favorite book!
Really, they are awesome!!!

Maybe Amy came on a bad day. Definitely did not smell like chemicals– smelled like fresh books mmmm!
You can choose to pay a one time fee of $ 5 for a lifetime membership. Members receive a 30% discount for all books in store and 25% discount for special orders (they’ll order specific books if they don’t have it in stock). Also, keep in mind that the online prices for almost anything are almost always going to be cheaper than the in-​store prices.
They have everything! Childrens books, English learning books, Korean learning books, magazines, newspapers (not Korea Times and joongang ilbo but legit newspapers from Korea), novels, poems, Korean bibles/​dictionaries, comic books, cookbooks, music books, CDs, diet books, tech books (for customers who look for «smartphone 4s» guidebooks ahahaha).
Chairs are available throughout the store so feel free to sit and peruse the books before purchasing. Classical music is always playing so enjoy the free music, too!

Aladin has an online store. If you place your order online, you can elect to have them shipped or pick them up here or their two other locations in OC.
My mom wanted to get some Korean books right away so we went here. As soon as we walked in, it was really stuffy in the bookstore and it smelled like chemical cleaners (like the ones used in restrooms at fastfood joints). It was June and it’s LA… at least open the door for some ventilation or turn on the AC or something. My mom and I started looking around to locate the books my mom was looking for and I began to get light headed from the smell.
Books were not hard to locate. They were well organized and their locations relatively intuitive. This is also a pretty new place so it was clean inside. Because it was so stuffy and smelled of harsh chemicals, you definitely can’t hang out here like you would at a Barnes and Noble but we were not expecting that. Had it not been for the nasty woman working there, I would have given this place 3 stars.
When we located the books my mom was looking for, we took it to the register and asked the woman how much they were. Usually, prices are not noted on the books so you have to ask how much they are. Different places have different formulas on calculating book prices so we aked her how much the books were. The price that she gave was different from their online price so my mom asked why. She seemed very irritated by the fact that we were questioning her. She angrily went on to her computer, snatched the book from us to look at the title. She then told us– it’s out of stock (online). We already knew that and we were going to buy the book anyway… we were just curious why there was a difference between online and the brick and mortar store… we didn’t launch a personal attack on you– chill. So I said, we just want to know why the prices are different (btw, it was only like a 10% difference so it was no big deal). She looked up bitterly and said, then buy it online.
I honestly wanted to smack her for her rudeness. I wanted to leave and go somewhere else (seriuosly, there are so many bookstores in K-​town) but we were there already so we got the book. As you can imagine, we won’t be returning here. I’d rather go to the bookstore located in the Koreatown plaza (which has super awesome air conditioning albeit a bit crowded) or the Aladin on Western and 8^th street (the lady who works there is super nice and helpful).

Huge selection of Korean books ranging from romance novels to children’s math helpers. Nice interior, friendly & knowledgeable employees. I loved the pictures of people reading, going around all walls.