John K King Books

Information may not be reliable

for your Holiday shopping needs.
(Sorry, no Rare Book Room or Art Annex access during these Sunday hours)

John King Article in the Detroit News 07-21-2010

Welcome to John K. King Used & Rare Books. We are Michigans largest used & rare bookstore, and one of the largest bookstores in the country. Our main store in downtown Detroit actually consists of two buildings: a four story bookstore in an old glove factory where most of our stock is kept, and another building directly behind (once the Otis Elevator Building) with offices, storage, a large collection of Art books, and a Rare Book Room. While the four story store is open regular hours (9:30am to 5:30pm, Monday through Saturday), the Rare Book Room and Art book area are open by appointment only. However, the books in the Rare Book Room (some 20-30,000 books) are available for browsing and purchase on our website, www.rarebooklink.com. While the main store stock is not on a database or website, it is organized by subject and author within the store for easy shopping. If you cannot make it to our store to browse for a certain title, please email us at kingbooks@aol.com, and we can have someone check our shelves for you. We also have two other stores within the Detroit area: The Big Bookstore at 5911 Cass Avenue, near Wayne State University in Detroit (313-831-8511), open 9:30am to 5:30pm Tuesday through Saturday; and, John King Books North at 22524 Woodward Avenue, just south of Nine Mile Road in Ferndale, Michigan (248-548-9050), open 11am to 7pm Monday through Friday, 10am to 6pm on Saturdays, and 12noon to 5pm on Sundays. Neither of those stores has its stock on a database, either, but the staff will be happy to check if you call in your requests.

Lately, Detroit has become Hollywood Mid-West with the filming of dozens of major Hollywood motion pictures here. For the past month or so, weve been working with the crew from the upcoming film The Double as they film in and around Detroit. Last month, the crew took over the Rare Book Room at our store for a few days to film an intense scene with one of the stars of the film, Richard Gere. The scene barely a page of dialogue took about 7 hours to film, but it was exciting nonetheless to meet Mr. Gere and his co-star Odette Yustman. Everyone was nice and professional, and the Rare Book Room is just about back in order.

To top it all off, we were honored with a visit from another star of The Double, Martin Sheen, a couple of days ago. He came in to look at books and meet and greet the staff (and anyone else who recognized him). We dont have pictures of Mr. Sheen, but he did sign our guest book, and we expect him back in the next week or so while hes in town.

When the movie comes out, look for some of our furniture and books in the movie. The crew borrowed a big desk for Martin Sheens character to sit behind (on a chair they borrowed from us, too), a statue, some old pencil sketches and oil paintings (a block of old buildings here in downtown Detroit was for a day transformed into a Paris street), and other items.

Heres a link to the movie information on IMDB:

Heres a link to some photos we took on the day of the shooting in the Rare Book Room (note: you wont see any stars in these photos they had their own staff photographer that day, and we didnt want to intrude):

John Kings beloved dog, Winkie, died this past February at the age of 12. Johns friend, Miriam, penned this poem in Winkies memory:

Your bark was sharp, imperious,
demanding of attention and often ill timed.
But, oh, what spirit, spunk and

John King Books was mentioned on the February 27, 2010 broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion!!! Follow the link below to hear the radio show, taped in front of a live studio audience at Detroits own Fox Theatre!

http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/++++++++++++

Sprite and the NBA recently filmed a commercial here at the store that was shown during the NBA Slam Dunk Competition. Here's a link to the commercial on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGs4_opxpWM&feature=related

A customer has posted a photo essay on the bookstore...please follow the link below:
http://motorcityblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/photo-essay-john-king-used-books.html

Want to see what our bookstore looks like?
A customer of ours has uploaded two YouTube videos shot here at John King Books in April 2008.

We Buy Books and Libraries!
Please email or call us if you are selling one book or a collection of books.
We are particularly interested in books concerning Military History, Michigan and Detroit, the Auto Industry, Signed books, First Editions, Stationary Steam Engineering, Bible Reference, Chess and Checkers, Slight-of-Hand Magic, Incunabula and Early Printings, etc.
We are not particularly interested in old Text books, Readers Digest books, Book Club books, books in bad condition, rejects from garage sales, etc.

According to Mother Earth News, 30 Million trees are cut down to supply the paper for new books EACH YEAR!
Save a forestread USED books

BALLADS AND SONNETS [EDWARD BURNE-JONES COPY].
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel.
Ellis and White: London: 1881. 7.75 x 5.25, gilt decorated blue cloth, 335pp + one page of ads, covers very worn, extremities bumped and fraying, top of spine torn, hinges quite loose, bookplate of former owner, contents toned with scattered foxing. FIRST ED (SD) INSCRIBED "E. Burne-Jones from his old friend" AND SIGNED BY AUTHOR, WHO ADDS "1881." WITH EDWARD BURNE-JONES "THE GRANGE, NROTH END ROAD FULHAM" BOOKPLATE. Burne-Jones and Rossetti were two of the leading figures in the Pre-Raphaelite Movement.