Speaking volumes

After weathering the pandemic, Bell’s Books has an easy solution to keep things going: ‘Buy our books’

PALO ALTO >> Faith Bell’s bookstore is stacked wall to wall and top to bottom with the original pine shelving that her dad built when he started the store in 1935 on the bet that one man’s failure would be his success. At just 24 years old, the professorial pipe-smoking bookworm Herbert Bell bought an inventory of books for $2,300 and slowly transformed the stacks of bound paper into a landmark store of Palo Alto and the Stanford community.

Faith Bell, Herbert’s daughter and the store’s current caretaker, tends to nearly 300,000 volumes that fill up a two-story building a stone’s throw away from Lytton Plaza downtown, selling some of the rarest books in the Bay Area at prices likely to stun even the most avid reader. From a $25,000 first edition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy to obscure academic texts and New York Times Best Sellers, Bell’s Books has managed to stay afloat even as other bookstores across the country close their doors.

Though it may seem inconceivable, the tens of thousands of books have moved five times throughout Palo Alto in an attempt to chase the cheapest rent and keep the legacy alive. With the coronavirus pandemic wreaking havoc on retailers across the country, and as the store celebrates its 85th anniversary, Bell’s Books has suffered, too — but Faith Bell isn’t ready to call it quits yet. Here’s what she had to say when she sat down with Bay Area News Group.

Q

How did Bell’s Books get its start?

A

My father was trying to become a reporter in Paris in the ’30s but couldn’t make it so he moved to Pasadena to

PHOTOS BY NHAT V. MEYER — STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Faith Bell, owner of Bell’s Books in Palo Alto, poses with a book from 1833, “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” by Mary Wollstonecraft. When the store reopened, “People came up to me saying this is the first place they came to when restrictions got lifted,” she says.

Faith Bell shows longtime Bell’s Books customer Larry Jones a book about Florida on March 11. Jones has been shopping at the landmark Palo Alto bookstore for over 30 years.