San Francisco has stolen my heart. This quirky, fun city gets better every time I visit. There are numerous coffee shops on every corner and tiny bookstores on every other street. The city has a vibe of its own. A vibe that is both hipster and high end at the same time. This forms for an interesting selection of people on the streets. I love people watching. People watching in San Francisco is ten times more fun.

Another thing about the city that I love is the used book stores. There are so many used and independent book stores. So I’ve decided that I would visit one book store every time I’m in the city and document it under the category ‘Book Mark’.

Adobe Bookshop is an adorable, messy little store nudged between a vintage shop and a Chinese restaurant. The store is long, narrow and the shelves overflow with books. The end of the store has a small art gallery for local artists to display their work. Like any other book store/library, there is a smell of old books and worn out pages in the air. They have a wide range of books, fiction, religion, sci-fi, children’s books, history, etc. If you look close enough you can find recent hard cover books for less than half the price.

Adobe is a very welcoming place.  The center of the store has various arm chairs and sofas arranged haphazardly for anyone to enjoy their afternoon siesta.

The store first opened it’s doors on January 2nd, 1989 and now after twenty four years they are on the verge of closing due to the high cost of renting. The older gentleman walking up and down, packing away books is, I guess,the owner. My heart broke watching him take books off the dusty shelves where they have resided for so many years. Shutting down any business is terrible. But seeing books being packed away feels like locking away all the stories that haven’t been told.

Although there was a 75% discount on all the used books and we bought ten books for only twenty dollars I was sad to see a book store run in to decline. I’ve only been to Adobe once but that was enough for it to find a place in my heart.