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Motte & Bailey Used & Rare Booksellers
@mottebooks.com
11 followers 30 following 41 posts
Motte & Bailey is a what - a medieval Norman castle, a wooden palisade rising on a mound of earth.
We're an open #bookshop specializing in the many kinds of history, alongside Lit, SF/F, Kids books & more. #Michigan #rarebooks #usedbooks #booksky
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mottebooks.com
Motte & Bailey Used & Rare Booksellers @mottebooks.com · Jul 5
Thanks for dropping by! The thread below is an introduction to Motte & Bailey Used and Rare Booksellers in Ann Arbor, Michigan - our story, our shop, our stock, and our bookselling philosophy. /1
#usedbookstore #indiebookstore #Michigan #AnnArbor #booksky #usedbooks #rarebooks
Bookmark with a man reading and the saying "the more one reads the more one sees we have to read - John Adams."
Reposted by Motte & Bailey Used & Rare Booksellers
noethematt.bsky.social
Genuinely one of the coolest things I've ive ever seen

#Discworld

www.yankodesign.com/2025/06/17/e...
Entire Discworld series turned into a rotating book wheel - Yanko Design
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAdnN0TDZ5w To say that the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett has a cult following is one of the biggest understatements in book world. It's a pretty long series but ...
www.yankodesign.com
February 2, 2026 at 2:52 PM
mottebooks.com
The coming end of Mass Market (small) paperbacks

www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...
Last Call for Mass Market Paperbacks
After years of steady sales declines, the format will largely disappear next year.
www.publishersweekly.com
February 2, 2026 at 8:36 PM
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kojamf.bsky.social
Mychal Threets
@mychal3ts.bsky.social
Happy Black History Month
February 1, 2026 at 4:46 PM
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britfantasysoc.bsky.social
Cheshire-based @matthewspalmer.bsky.social was rather excited when a new fantasy-focused bookshop opened in a nearby village. Just before Christmas, he met with the owner, Abby Munro, and spoke about the journey to opening Paper+Word.

britishfantasysociety.org/how-to-make-...
A photo of the book shelves at Paper+Word, full of romantasy novels by the likes of Sarah J Maas. Superimposed over this is the text: Living the Dream - Opening a Fantasy-Focused Bookshop.
January 25, 2026 at 4:16 PM
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tiffanyleigh.bsky.social
If you are only now learning about THE WESTING GAME, written by Ellen Raskin in 1979 & winner of a Newbery Medal, find it and read it NOW.

It's the best puzzle mystery novel ever, and is illustrated and typeset by Raskin herself (who started as an illustrator and book cover designer)
Cover to the deluxe anniversary edition of Ellen Raskin's book "The Westing Game." The illustration (by Raskin) is of a four story, gabled house made entirely of huge green $1000 dollar bills. Blooms of fireworks explode over and behind the house. A gold Newbery Medal seal is affixed to the cover.
January 17, 2026 at 1:41 PM
mottebooks.com
Another gripe - why do folks underline almost an ENTIRE page? Doesn't that kill the effectiveness of focusing on a passage? A post-it note is far better. Then you don't have to grumble about the bookseller paying you less for a book cuz it's marked up like an F1 track after a race.
#usedbooks #books
a man with a towel wrapped around his head is asking if we just not
ALT: a man with a towel wrapped around his head is asking if we just not
media.tenor.com
January 8, 2026 at 11:45 PM
mottebooks.com
Not sure why booksellers asking high dollar for books they say are 1st editions and take a ton of pictures, yet not ANY images of the copyright page - the one page that has the most convincing info of a first printing in most cases. Seems damn odd to me.
#usedbooks #bookshops #bookbuying
a woman says " any reason for that " while looking at something
ALT: a woman says " any reason for that " while looking at something
media.tenor.com
January 8, 2026 at 10:00 PM
mottebooks.com
I want to go to there.
bsky.app/profile/pete...
peterbreuer.bsky.social Peter Breuer @peterbreuer.bsky.social · Jan 7
Hamburgs schönste Buchhandlung ist wieder da: Dank der Stiftung Denkmalpflege Hamburg und der Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung ist der Pavillon der Bücherstube Stolterfoht wieder in dem Zustand, in dem ihn Greta Stolterfoht 1949 bezog.
Ein Foto des renovierten Pavillons der Bücherstube Stolterfoht in Hamburg.
January 7, 2026 at 8:37 PM
mottebooks.com
Lake Superior State has their annual "Banished Words" list up :

www.lssu.edu/lake-superio...
Lake Superior State University Announces 50th Annual Banished Words List | Lake Superior State University
Media Contact: LSSU Marketing, marketing@lssu.edu SAULT STE. MARIE, Mich. – It’s time for a golden anniversary. Celebrating five decades of linguistic commentary, Lake Superior State University (LSSU)...
www.lssu.edu
January 3, 2026 at 3:42 PM
mottebooks.com
We often get offers to advertise in broad markets. However, used book selling is odd. Broad advertising results in MORE books being offered to us & very few sales. A great idea if you need stock, not so much if there's already 75+ boxes on the floor & 12 more in your car.
#usedbooks #bookstores
a black and white drawing of a stack of books and papers
ALT: a black and white drawing of a stack of books and papers
media.tenor.com
December 19, 2025 at 5:10 PM
mottebooks.com
And for over 30 more new arrivals at Motte & Bailey, from Ancient History to Modern Bengal India, look over the list at :

#books #usedbooks #booksky #newarrivals #ancienthistory #india

www.mottebooks.com/new-arrivals...
www.mottebooks.com
December 14, 2025 at 6:24 PM
mottebooks.com
2 Uncommon British Revolver titles :

Stamps and Skennerton
.380 Enfield No. 2 Revolver
Greenhill Books, 1993

Layman
The British Bulldog Revolver : the Forgotten Gun that Really Won the West!
Mowbray. 2006

See them on our new arrivals page here:

www.mottebooks.com/new-arrivals...
December 14, 2025 at 6:19 PM
mottebooks.com
Kind of counter-seasonal, but -
For sale :
Alan Boureau
Satan the Heretic : The Birth of Demonology
Chicago, 2006

You can order this from out website, link below
#books #Satan #Medieval #Demonology #Aquinas #usedbooks

www.mottebooks.com/details.php?...
December 14, 2025 at 5:43 PM
mottebooks.com
Not often we get a two-fer like this on a house buy - the Ash & Lake book was sitting on top of the Broel Book:
#usedbooks #books #frogs #bookshop #booksky #usedbookshop #rarebooks
December 11, 2025 at 10:19 PM
mottebooks.com
DECEMBER SALE!

Choose 3 books & get the cheapest FREE if $12 or less!!!

Any # of books - 3,6,9, etc.
Cheapest books of the entire group are free

Excludes consignment books, small, mass market paperbacks

#usedbooks #annarbor #booksale
December 4, 2025 at 6:47 PM
mottebooks.com
Amazon now listing books as so much price per kilo is peak modern online bookselling, no doubt.😂👍

How embarrassing for them, if they ever could be embarrassed. Just unthinking one size fits all online retailing.
September 20, 2025 at 8:56 PM
mottebooks.com
We are the best academic history bookshop between Chicago & the East coast, and Toronto & the Gulf of *Mexico*. Come see our extensive holding in Ancient, Medieval, Military. US, European, Indian, Transport, MesoAmerican & other areas of history.
#usedbooks #history #ancienthistory #historybooks
Shelves of Ancient History books with wall decorations. Shelves of European & Asian History books with wall decorations. Shelves of Automobile and Train books with wall decorations. Shelves of American History and History of Science books with wall decorations.
September 11, 2025 at 9:44 PM
mottebooks.com
New Arrivals Friday!

This week we have few non-fiction leather bound Easton Press titles, the first bits of a large Indian (south Asia) history collection, interesting & timely US history books, & a smattering of culinary, lit, and art books.
#books #usedbooks #EastonPress #newarrivals #history
Three shelves of book on our new arrival section, some face out, most spine forward.
September 5, 2025 at 4:53 PM
mottebooks.com
I picked this up at a storage locker on Sunday. It's an ad for little French clockwork car toy - Auto-Radar 2003 by Joustra - from the 1940s with multiple movement directions. The toy goes for a small chunk 'o change today. I'll put it in the car section for decoration.
#toys #cars #ephemera
September 1, 2025 at 10:18 PM
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anniekostyk.bsky.social
This beautiful mural is painted on a magical little bookstore called Rainbow Booksellers, right in the heart of Milwaukee, Wisconsin! 🌈📚 #books #bookstore #milwaukee #wisconsin #booksky #art #mural #readsomething 😍
August 5, 2025 at 2:12 PM
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nxnorthwoods.bsky.social
Plus La Crosse is home to what might be the best bookstore in the Midwest, Pearl Street Books. Or at least the most architecturally pleasing.

#bookstore #photography
#architecture
Looking down at the rows of bookshelves as an employee checks stock at Pearl Street Books. A man reads a book at the end of a 20 or 30 ft high bookshelf accessible by ladder only. The view from the winding staircase of bookshelves from floor to ceiling.
August 15, 2025 at 3:59 AM
mottebooks.com
Happy Labor day! Remember all the different workers of the country, from fields to homes to factories, & all their efforts at fairness & organizing gave us over the years.

For a great & well written if long history by an excellent storyteller try :

“There is Power in a Union” by Philip Dray
September 1, 2025 at 4:34 PM
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tomgauld.bsky.social
My latest cartoon for @theguardian.com books
A character walks into a shop. The sign reads: “Books” Across the floor of the bookshop, past the bookshelves, is a stair down with a sign reading: “Used Books” Across the used books floor is a stair down marked: “Antiquarian Books” Across the antiquarian books floor is a stair down marked: “Forbidden Books of the Elden Ones” Stalactites hang. Strange tomes sit on plinths. Unearthly creatures scuttle in the gloom. A figure stands before a cash desk where a cyclopean, tentacled staff member says: “Yes, we do have the new Stephen King but it's back up on the ground floor.”
August 24, 2025 at 4:46 PM
mottebooks.com
1/ In these days of targeting almost all Immigrants, we came across a book showing the great contribution of just one of these.

Leslie Buswell volunteered for the American Ambulance Field Service & had a book of letters about his war experiences published :
#ww1 #immigrant #militaryhistory #books
Cover of a book titled AMBULANCE NO. 10 by Leslie Buswell Frontispiece with an image of the author Leslie Buswell and the opposite page dispalys the title page of Ambulance no. 10
August 12, 2025 at 6:26 PM
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drkarrschmidt.bsky.social
This Is NOT A Chain Binding

But what the heck kind of pastiche IS it? Book from 1621 in the Greenlee Collection at #NewberryLibrary.
Parchment bound book with later-looking leather strapping and weird metal floral clasps. And some chains, but they're not serious.
August 9, 2025 at 12:54 PM