Explore the best independent bookstores in Jackson, Mississippi, including Lemuria Books and Impression Books. Cozy kids’ reading nooks, rare finds, and toddler-friendly browsing.
Once again, I only had a little time to explore the city of Jackson, Mississippi with a toddler in tow, but I will be headed back here again when I get a chance. There are two unique book stores in Jackson that I need to explore again. They are both widely different but very special. I wish I had planned a couple of additional days here just to spend more than one afternoon book hunting.
Impression Books – Made a Good Impression even without the Golden Doodle
Impression Books is located in Flowood Mississippi, just outside of Jackson. It is in an odd little plaza. (address: 5417 Lakeland Dr, Flowood, MS 39232). I decided to head off to this bookstore since a friend stated that it had a lovely children’s area within the store. Sadly, my daughter decided to take a nap in the car on the drive there. Grandma stayed in the car with her while she slept with the A/C on while I ventured along.
My friend was right that the book store was really child friendly. There was a cute dollhouse and truck playing area, as well as a couch and a rug area. However, when I walked in, I thought that it might be an all used book store. That isn’t typically my scene, so I was about to walk out. Then the bookseller (maybe owner?) greeted me and started chatting up the store. They do take donation books, they buy some remnants, and they do order some new books. The bookseller was very involved, asked a lot of questions to help me, and knew his bookstore. I honestly believe if I lived in the area, he would make a great friend. He has a perfect listening ear, and knows when to let others read and peruse. I decided to take a chance and look over the bookstore based on the enthusiasm of the staff, and I was glad that I stayed. You never know what gems you can find when you have book lovers running a store.
I was the only one in at that time, and having the place to myself really gave me the opportunity to enjoy each shelf without bobbing around someone. Some of the books were new, some were used. But it was hard to tell the difference since the standards for a used book were so high. This isn’t the book store you go to to find a new bestseller, but it is the type of bookstore you should go to when you want to revisit work from a few years back. There were several books that I picked up that I realized I hadn’t bought five years ago when I had the chance. Sometimes I buy the bright and shining new titles and authors, and I forget to look at some of the other authors. This bookstore reminded me of the power of revisiting old aquantices.This bookstore gave me the opportunity to take a second look at books I had passed by. They weren’t necessarily the bestsellers of their time, but that didn’t mean that they didn’t have value.
I found several middle school books I want to try next year with my class. The middle school genre section was about average in size. There was a large Christian Book section. They had a decent mystery section, and their fiction section was several shelves long. I also loved the children’s section. There were plenty of picture books to enthrall young readers, and elementary books to dive into. There were no staff picks on the shelf, you did have to find your own choices. However, the staff was exceptional, and if I had questions they would have been able to answer. Their enthusiasm for books was wonderful. They also bring in an adorable dog on certain days, however I wasn’t there on the right day.
It was also fantastic as a bookstore in the fact that my wallet didn’t have to die to walk out with books. I think that they have books for five dollars and eight dollars. They also had a teacher discount I believe. I walked out with five books for 21 dollars. Mississippi as a state has a median salary of 55,000 for a household. As a child, my family didn’t often have money to buy books. While I love the library, sometimes owning a book made me feel special as a child. I needed bookstores like this as a kid, and there are many kids today that need bookstores like Impression Books. Affordable books can help make kids readers.
Impression Books made a very good impression on me! Here is a link to their website. https://impression-books.com/
Lemuria – Serious Book Lover Haven
Lemuria Books is located on the second story of a small indoor shopping plaza. Once again, it seems like an odd plaza (maybe it is just a Mississippi thing). Their address is 4465 I-55 STE 202, Jackson, MS 39206. Finding the parking lot can be a little hard, and we did have to go around to get in.
I put this on my list of bookstores to visit because they are a little obsessed with first editions. I am not usually obsessed with getting the first edition, but there are a few first editions that I have in my personal collection. The Lemuria website drew me in on the idea of adding a more modern vibe to a first edition. When people usually think about first editions, they consider classic books, not modern day novels. But Lemuria books runs a first edition club for multiple genres that are modern day books. I was fascinated by the idea on the website, and I wanted to see if the bookstore lived up to the hype.
The first thing you experience when you walk into the building of Lemuria books, is the smell from the fantastic cafe/bakery. We didn’t have lunch, so we stopped in to eat before veiewing the books. We ate every bite on our plates. This for me is a bonus. I am not a huge fan of bookstore/coffee shops. I get why owners do it, but it often irritates me. However, this cafe/bakery is completely separate but it helps add to Lemuria’s ambience.
Lemuria Books is like that golden gem of a book store. You know that no matter how many times you go there, you are going to discover a new book to love. I was blown away with the store setup, the amount of novels, and its eclectic taste. It is quirky, has excellent books with enough new releases and obscure gems to make you stay awhile, and it feels like walking into a wonderfully cozy library.
For me, the best thing about Lemuria books is that it lets you wander. I have never been that individual to stick to a section of the bookstore. My mom could always find my brother quickly since he was in the scifi or history section. With me, my mom always had to track me down. Sometimes I was in cooking, or manga, or spiritual, or history, or art, or fiction. I was everywhere in the bookstores and I still wander through them today. When people come to my house, they are shocked by how eclectic my library is. Lemuria Books is like my home library, it has a little of every genre.
What I like though is that it doesn’t just have the obvious books. It is easy to have The Lord of the Rings by Toilken, but finding a copy of the Farmer Giles of Ham is harder. There were many authors I loved on the shelf, but I didn’t just see their most famous work, I got to see their less famous works. I loved finding new aspects to my favorite authors. There were multiple rooms and different seating areas to curl up with a book. I love winding my way through a bookstore. There were nooks and crannies in this bookstore so you felt like you could be alone even if there were twenty people in the bookstore. I really liked how calm and peaceful it was. It had the feeling of a library, but more like a personal beloved library.
Like Impression Books, there were no staff picks on the shelf. I don’t always need a staff pick to wander over to a bookshelf, but given the sheer volume of books, they could have done a better job of showcasing various novels in each genre. Now, I personally love the look of Lemurias Bookstore, but one could argue that there was no visual space, and that all you could see was spines. The bookshelves are extra tall, so you can’t always seen the books on the top two shelves in certain sections. I don’t mind that in bookstores for the adult section, but I would say that the children’s section and middle school section could have used the opportunity to add visual space. While there was a rack that showed off some of the books, the shelves themselves needed a pop of book covers for younger readers to delve into.
If I had a serious complaint about Lemuria Books it would be the staff. They were not very attentive. I really needed a book that was way too high for me to reach, and there was no one in sight. There also wasn’t a usable step stool to get to the novels. When I finally found two booksellers, they were engaged in a very personal conversation and the other book seller was ringing people up. There were probably four people working the store, and yet, they didn’t seem that friendly. They seemed more interested in signing people up for an event. When they realized that I was a tourist, they didn’t bother with me. I think if I had been a regular customer, I would have gotten fantastic service. However, they don’t seem attentive to anyone not in their first editions club, or a non local.
Given how much money I usually spend at bookstores, they should have been a little more attentive. I didn’t purchase the two books I couldn’t reach. And honestly, with a little talking up of a book, you can get me to purchase it. I am an easy mark. These booksellers seemed more focused on building the store’s social media and club events than the actual customers in the store. I walked out with only two books. I got a very expensive book (out of print book) that I would never find listed on Amazon or Ebay (I have tried both). This particular book was something I had always wanted, and so I splurged to buy it. The other book was an interesting middle school book that I am eager to try with my classes. My total was $52.90. The out of print made it worth every cent. However if the staff had gone the extra mile with me, they would have made three times that amount from me. There were hundreds of books I wanted in that store.
Look, I am nitpicking. I did love Lemuria and if I lived in Jackson, my rent money would be going to this bookstore. This is the kind of bookstore you pursue as a serious book lover, but if you are hoping for a little more interaction with the staff, you might want to spend some time elsewhere.
Here is a link to their website: https://www.lemuriabooks.com/default.asp
