Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Fri, 04 Dec 2009 11:11:53 -0800, Bill Baka
wrote:

Many years ago, I used to make the pilgrimage to the Sunnyvale Fry's,
Ham Radio Outlet, various nearby surplus stores, and then Computer
Literacy Bookstore. After spending far too much money on books, I
started to avoid the bookstore. They solved the problem for me by
moving locations and finally closing in 2001.
WTF? That was one of my favorite stores to hang out and spend $$$ when I
lived down there. What happened? They always seemed to be thriving and
had books on other subjects. Fry's simply never had the books to compete.

I found out the hard way. I prepared an expedition to Computer
Literacy and discovered they were closed. I was seriously bummed as
Stacy's in SF was too far away to drive.

I don't know exactly why they failed, but I think online shopping for
books might have killed them off.

This may help:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Literacy_Bookstore

Is there anything in the Sacramento area or even the Silicon Valley area
anymore?

Dunno. I've been doing most of my book shopping via Alibris and
Amazon.

Total bummer, since I used to be able to flip through a $110 book and
see if it was what I needed. Buying it, shipping it, finding out it was
the wrong one or written like a student paper, and then having to return
it are all a bit too much bother. I used to buy books on sight, having
never even knew the book existed and it was a hot topic to me.

The kinds of super specialized books I buy are in the $200 range and are
out of date sometimes before I get them. Science books mainly.

Bill Baka