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This bookstore has a very special collection of rare and expensive books

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The following is a transcript of the video:

Sydney Kramer: Welcome to The Last Bookstore, a sprawling shop in Los Angeles where the written word is still alive. At 22,000 square feet, it's the largest bookstore in the entire state of California. You can get almost anything here, but they're most famous for their collection of rare and expensive books, and we're here today to find out how much one of those pricey page-turners will cost you.

Katie Orphan: There are a lot of factors that go into a book's rarity, and there are a few different ways that it happens. Obviously, titles that become significant. So, you've got things like "The Sound and the Fury" or "The Grapes of Wrath," titles that are older but people value highly, still talk about, still read. If you can find an intact first edition, first printing with a jacket, that's worth a lot of money because that book is significant to someone. If a title itself, or an author themselves, becomes precious to a reader, that can increase the value of a book because that reader is willing to spend a lot to have an important artifact.

Sydney Kramer: They carry anything from contemporary titles to rare, out-of-print copies. This first edition of Ernest Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises" costs $1,200. The cost is partially due to an errata on page 181, where the word "stopped" is spelled with three Ps.

This is all so cool, I'm like, "Oh, my God, was that, like, a first edition Jack Kerouac?" "Is that a first edition William S. Burroughs?"

Orphan: Yes. Kramer: Oh, my God.

Orphan: Yes, to both.

Kramer: The most expensive book sold at The Last Bookstore was a signed, limited-edition copy of Jack Kerouac's "Visions of Cody." It cost $2,300.

Customer: We've been here a few times before, but it seems really cool, it's a really good atmosphere, especially for sitting down reading and finding thousands of new books.

Kramer: Here's a book about me. This is great, and all the people here are just so appreciative of having the opportunity to really kind of look through all these books. I mean, even if you go into a standard bookstore now, they don't have a selection like this. So, the question is: Are rare books a good investment?

Orphan: I think, in the same way that an investment in art is a little bit risky, you don't know what artists are going to become major artists later on and whose work will increase in value and whose work will just sort of stay at the same level of value, I think books are similar. There are some books that are always going to have a lot of value associated with them. You know, if we're talking, like, "First Folio" Shakespeare, first edition Charles Dickens, first edition Jane Austen, those, I think, are going to have a stable, if not increasing, value.

Kramer: Collecting rare and expensive books definitely isn't for everyone, but that's not all they're known for here at The Last Bookstore. They have an entire section of $1 books, so you can really get anything you're looking for and discover something new. The staff is extremely helpful, and everyone here seems really eager to share the love of reading with anyone who walks in the door.
https://www.businessinsider.com/bookstore-has-collection-of-rare-and-expensive-books-2019-10
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