The Bookshelf: One of the Best Second-hand Bookstores on Oahu

If you are on the island of Oahu and looking to purchase used books, one of the best second-hand bookstores on the island can be found in Moiliili (mo-eely-eely). The little town sits directly below the University of Hawaii Manoa campus, and “The Bookshelf” is located in Puck’s Alley (corner of University Avenue and South King Street), a student-oriented shopping area right at the bottom of the road that leads to the campus. It can’t get any easier for college students to get a good deal on something to read.

The Bookshelf is clean and orderly, with an excellent selection of books from every genre. Tourists and locals alike can appreciate the Hawaiian section, with Hawaiian literature, history, biographies and autobiographies politics, plants, and arts and crafts. If you are on vacation and looking for souvenirs for children back home, you are sure to find something spectacular and distinctly local.

If you are the Hawaiiana collector type, take a peek at what they keep behind the counter. That’s where the highly valued used- books are kept, stuff from back in the days of black-and-white photography, missionaries, bare feet, and unadulterated Hawaiian culture. Sometimes you might find something from the days when “Hawaii” was known as “Owhyee”.   Of course, they have other used hard-to-find books as well.  Like the Greek bibles I was looking at the other day.

If you are on the other end of the spectrum, not looking to spend a hundred dollars on a collector’s item, just looking to have something to read while you make it through the peanut butter and jelly week, you can find something here. The dollar shelf always has a variety of things to read; you never know what might show up there. Those bargains are all marked at ninety-six cents and with tax come out to an even dollar. The only better deal than that is the library, but they make you give it back!