HERE'S TO 2023!

We here at MPB wish you, one and all, a healthy, happy and altogether fulfilling New Year.  In this ongoing tumultuous time of Covid and its various manifestations, we continue to take the necessary precautions to keep all our visitors and customers safe and comfortable during their time here.

Our stock continues to be replenished and, as ever, we hope that as you browse our newly rejuvenated website you'll be able to find -- with ease and speed -- all you may be looking for, and even items you've had no idea we have among our treasures.

Virgin-Atlantic Underground LA: Exploring the city’s hidden haunts 4-4-16

Monday April 4, 2016

Underground LA: Exploring the city’s hidden haunts
by EllaBuchan 
The glitz, gloss and glamour of Hollywood is all very well, but to find the real Los Angeles you have to scratch beneath the surface, open unmarked doors and wander down unassuming alleyways. From hidden boozers to secret rooftop gardens and a network of tunnels used during Prohibition, here’s how to see underground...

Louis Vuitton Recommends

Saturday November 28, 2015

The new Louis Vuitton City Guide of recommended elite 'Must Sees' is now out -- and once again Mystery Pier Books has been selected for inclusion. Here's their article:
"On paper, Mystery Pier Boioks is right next door to the Book Soup shop. When you get there, the reality is quite different, as it's deliberately hidden from the street. You reach...

NOT HEALTHY TO MAKE ASSUMPTIONS

Sunday July 26, 2015

Interview by Scott Laming

If you were a famous Hollywood star looking for a sophisticated gift or, as is more likely for the majority of us, perhaps you happended to be a serious book lover in the LA area, you would eventually find your way to Mystery Pier Books.

Turn off Sunset Boulevard onto a stone path, through blooming flowers, to a....

JUST PUBLISHED IN WINDSOR LOFTS 06-05-15

Friday June 5, 2015

Mystery Pier Books: The Collector’s Choice
Published on June 3rd, 2015
Written by: windsor

Mystery Pier Books has been in business for ages, and one visit will convince you that it’s something special. Head down the well-hidden entryway and wind through a narrow passageway to the store, which looks a bit like a transplanted English cottage surrounded by flower beds. Step inside and...

Another Interview

Thursday April 23, 2015

We're excited that this coming Sunday, April 26, famed documentarian John D. McMahon returns to Mystery Pier to film us as a six-years-later interview, follow-up to the amazingly successful three-part YouTube video he did on us back in 2009. That series generated such an enthusiastic and exuberant response, domestically and around the world, that we look forward to his visit...

Alaska Airlines Magazine March 2015

Tuesday March 3, 2015

MYSTERY PIER BOOKS featured as one of the four 'Hidden Gems of Los Angeles' in the March 2015 issue of the Alaska Airlines Magazine (others being the Annenberg Space For Photography, the Huntington, and Amoeba Music). Article reads: "(This) literary gem is hidden away on Sunset Boulevard in an old house. Inside, you'll find a first-edition bookstore where rare volumes...

We're really, REALLY Trying!!

Monday February 9, 2015

First a bit of explanation and a bid for your kind patience. This new site of ours obviously requires hours and hours (if not days and weeks) of adding and refining new titles, current titles, photos, descriptions, etc., and of course nothing is ever fast enough for us. Please, PLEASE bear with us. We're trying. We're trying hard. And we'll...

We're flying the Skies

Tuesday November 25, 2014

Just found out today - 25 November 2014 - from a Delta Airlines pilot who came in this morning - that Mystery Pier Books was featured in the Delta Airlines magazine as a highly recommended Los Angeles treasure trove of First Editions.  We're very flattered, and most appreciative.

Bestselling author Michael Connelly -- he likes us, he REALLY likes us!

Monday October 27, 2014

LONDON
Interview by Robert Hull
The Guardian, Friday 24 October 2014

Best-selling crime novelist Michael Connelly on Los Angeles
The creator of the Harry Bosch series of detective novels looks beyond LA’s freeways to bring us a piazza full of mariachi musicians, historic bars, gorgeous views and tiny jazz clubs.

Before I arrived I envisaged the LA of Raymond Chandler: the sun-bleached streets, the dark...

Great New Arrival

Sunday October 26, 2014

MACHIAVEL, Nicolas
[Machiavelli] The Works of the Famous Nicholas Machiavell, Citizen and Secretary of Florence
London: Starkey, Harper, Amery (1680)
$13,500.

Written originally in Italian, and from thence newly & faithfully translated into English.

The highly sought-after, incredibly scarce literary collectible by the father of modern political thought. Folio. Eleven works in one. Complete with general title and separate title for each work. Woodcut chapter...

Great telegram: View it on MPB Instagram

Saturday October 11, 2014

An extraordinary and unique piece! This telegram, sent to General Franco during the Spanish Civil War, translates as "The Spanish Nationalist Committee sends ten thousand dollars as mediation for those reconquering Spanish soil." Sent by the head of the main Cuban cell of Franco's cause, Elicio Arguelles, whose son (same name) is the fisherman and close friend of Hemingway -- the...

Working from home

Monday September 22, 2014

Back in the day, wa-aay back, William Faulkner was working in Hollywood for MGM, toiling at screenplays. One day he asked the MGM head if, instead of coming to the studio, it would be okay to work from home. The executive agreed, and Faulkner walked off the lot. A couple of days later, they tried to reach him at his...

YAHOO TRAVEL SEPT 8, 2014 #1 of the 10

Wednesday September 10, 2014

1 / 10
The Secret Side of Los Angeles: We Present L.A.'s Coolest Hidden Gems
Kenny Porpora
Mystery Pier Books
On the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, next door to Book Soup, there's a nondescript passageway with an ugly black awning that reads, “MP First Edition.” That’s all it says. If you’re curious enough to walk down the alley, it leads to a sort...

The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby

Sunday September 7, 2014

DICKENS, Charles
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby
London: Chapman & Hall, (1839)
$7,450.

London: Chapman and Hall, (1839).  The truly rare original monthly parts, twenty in the true nineteen parts.  An extraordinarily sought-after, valuable, collectible addition to one's library.  Presented and protected in a splendid green half-oasis morocco leather and marbled custom clamshell box with single  rule to board gilt , raised...

Murakami

Saturday August 30, 2014

Our highly valued U.K. true First Editions, First Printings in English, of the new Murakami worldwide sensation, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage, are nearly sold out.  As of today, Saturday of this Labor Day weekend, only two copies left plus one of the only two thousand copies in the black (as opposed to the white) dust jacket.   Additionally, we...