Online book browsing

While there are many things to like about online bookstores (discounted prices, free shipping, access to countless titles), there are also certain disadvantages. For example, you can’t look at more than a few “preview” pages online as you make the decision to buy or not buy. You can’t attend book clubs or author signings. And you can’t read the staff’s handwritten recommendations—or get a good feel for the local community as you shop (yeah, independent bookstores!).

But one element of brick-and-mortar stores has come to the Web: browsing the “front tables” for intriguing titles in a host of genres. Chicago’s much-loved Seminary Co-op Bookstore has managed to make this work at The Front Table, where every week it highlights new and interesting works in fiction, history, sociology and more. For the week of July 25, I counted more than 200 books on display; click on each cover and you’ll find a book description and ordering information.

Seminary Co-op’s main store is located in the basement of the Chicago Theological Seminary, next to the University of Chicago campus in Hyde Park. It stocks “the largest selection of academic volumes in the United States.” Nearby, the Co-op’s 57th Street Books carries general interest titles; a third store, the Newberry Library Bookstore, is located a few blocks west of Michigan Avenue.

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