Reston's Used Book Shop - Northern Virginia

a hole-in-the-wall little used bookstore on the shores of Lake Anne

May 12, 2025

A friend of mine lives in walking distance from this charming, well-stocked, under-organized little shop so a small bunch of us took a weekday morning stroll (homemade teas in hand) to visit it the other day & can all my Spring days be spent just like this? k, thx.

They also care a small selection of new books at 1/2 off the back-cover price!

My haul:

RED PAINT: The Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk, by Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe (2022) —Elissa Washuta’s blurb sold this one for me: “Red Paint is a miraculous book. Sasha LaPointe walks us through the sites of her evisceration while rebuilding a home within her body using sturdy materials: rose quartz, cedar bark, red clay, and the words of her ancestors. With each potent sentence, she shows us what access to power looks like. She shows us how to become whole”. (I loved Washuta’s 2021 White Magic.)

ALL OUR HIDDEN GIFTS by Caroline O’Donoghue (2021) —this book pulled me in with its cover (displayed outwards) & sold me with the first few lines of its summary: “Ladies, meet The Housekeeper card. Now, she can be your downfall, or she can be your start. And she only wants the best for you, like she never got for herself. She sees you at the bottom, and she’s coming down to help.” Featuring a rebellious queer teenage MC & a dusty pack of tarot cards she found while serving detention cleaning out an old closet at her school. Super excited to have more queer (sapphic/witchy) Irish literature on my shelves/physical tbr!

A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA by Richard Hughes (1929) —a work of Welsh classic literature that’s been on my tbr for a while but I guess I’ve been waiting to stumble upon just the right edition. I couldn’t pass this one up.

Speaking of perfect editions… I also found these three copies of some of my favorite books in editions I don’t have. 😁

TE KAIHAU THE WINDEATER by Keri Hulme (1987) ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ —this is one of my alltime favorite books so I was very happy to find this fun edition of it.

HOME: Binti Book Two, by Nnedi Okorafor (2017)

THE NIGHT MASQUERADE: Binti Book Three, by Nnedi Okorafor (2018)

I have the omnibus edition of the BINTI trilogy ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ , & I see book one at every library booksale I go to but have never come across books two & three so when I spotted those I knew I had to snatch em up. Especially Home, my favorite of the trilogy, or idk maybe I do like the first one the best, although really they’re just all so dang good.