Covington, LA
Twice during the past few days I've visited the '2nd and Charles' store located on Rte 190 in Covington, Louisiana. These are my first-ever visits to this new chain.
2nd and Charles apparently is an offshoot of 'Books A Million', but unlike BAM, 2nd and Charles mainly sells used books. Along with used video games; comic books, CDs; a healthy selection of geek culture-based action figures (Aliens, DC Comics characters, Marvel Comics characters, Walking Dead characters, etc.); and strangely enough, even.........musical instruments ?!
The store's newer inventory is limited to display tables and shelving of current release hardbound books, puzzles, playsets, etc., mainly in the sci-fi and fantasy genres.
The front area of the store is plentifully stocked with Impulse Purchase items: vinyl bobblehead mini-dolls of DC comics characters, racks of trading cards, cheap sunglasses, 3-D laser-cut paper models of cars and tarantulas (!?), and all manner of candies based in licensed Geek Culture icons.
The store is huge, with wide, spacious aisles.
As far as my particular experiences with this one store go, 2nd and Charles doesn't have much in the way of used sci-fi, fantasy, and horror paperbacks, particularly those of the years 1968 - 1988, the era covered here at the PorPor Books Blog.
Only a portion of the store's shelf space is devoted to fiction, and simply trying to find the used paperbacks is something of a chore, because all the fiction books are shelved alphabetically by author, rather than by genre / subject. And the predominant format in the 2nd and Charles inventory is hardbound books.
So (based on my visits to this one store, of course) I would say you are NOT going to find DAW books from the 70s and 80s, ACE books from the 60s and 70s, Bantam Spectra titles, Baen Books, Doubleday SF Book Club hardbound editions, Ballantine Books' Edgar Rice Burroughs titles, etc., etc.
What few sci-fi paperbacks I saw on the shelves were from within the past 10 years.
2nd and Charles does segregate some books by genre. For example, I saw shelf space devoted to Star Wars and Star Trek:
I did take advantage of 2nd and Charles's large selection of graphic novels. Predictably many of these were volumes of The Walking Dead , and compilations of poor-selling titles from publishers like BOOM and Dynamite and Valiant.
However, because they were running a special on multiple purchases of used graphic novels, I was able to get used copies of the Planet Hulk and World War Hulk omnibuses for $20 and $30, as well as some All Star Western graphic novels from DC's 'New 52' imprint for under $5.00 each.
The verdict ? Based on my visit to this one store, 2nd and Charles is not going to be a go-to place for used sci-fi, horror, and fantasy paperbacks, However the sheer size of the place and its large inventories of Geek Stuff likely will make it worth visiting every now and then.
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