Bookhouse

Easily the best bookstore in the DC area. I spend hours just walking through the house (it is an old frame house, filled with old and curious books - works of history, literature, regional studies - illustrated books, everything you can desire or imagine. And all in an atmosphere of reverent silence and that high-mass incense of old wood and books.

Tucked away behind the walls of an unassuming little house is an utterly astonishing second-hand bookshop, an extraordinary selection of rare and choice works with outstanding strength in American national, regional, and military history; genealogy; art; architecture; and more. The shop does not advertise and one might, as I did, drive past it for years without realizing it was there. The proprietor, a treasure in her own right, plans to retire and close the shop circa 2011, so do not miss the opportunity to make its acquaintance before then. You may find yourself adding it to that shortest of book-lovers' lists: the unforgettable bookshops against which all others must be measured.