Lost City Books: Washington DC Travel Guide (4.7★)

A bookshop that outlasted the strip

Adams Morgan’s 18th Street changes its storefronts often. This shop has been on it since 1981. Lost City Books deals in used and out-of-print titles, stacked across several floors of a rowhouse-scale building, a short walk up from the corner of Columbia Road.

Many longtime residents still know it by its old name, Idle Time Books. Whatever you call it, it remains one of the quieter stops on a street known mostly for bars and late-night pizza by the slice.

Reaching 18th Street NW

The nearest Metro is Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan on the Red Line. From there it’s roughly a 15-minute walk:

• Head east on Calvert Street.
• Cross the Duke Ellington Bridge over Rock Creek Park.
• Turn left onto 18th Street NW. The shop is on the block north of Columbia Road.

Dupont Circle station, also on the Red Line, is a longer walk north up 18th Street, about 20 to 25 minutes, through Kalorama. Street parking in Adams Morgan is tight, especially on weekend evenings, so the train is usually easier.

Browsing the floors without the crowd

Weekdays stay quiet for the whole of opening hours, 10am to 9pm. That makes a weekday afternoon the easiest time to work through the shelves slowly. Weekends are a different story. From 12pm–7pm the narrow aisles fill up, and squeezing past people on the stairs becomes part of the visit.

If Saturday is your only day, arrive at 10am or come after 7pm. On Sunday it closes at 8pm, so the evening option shrinks to one hour. Leave at least 45 minutes. Out-of-print stock rewards patience, and the upper floors are where people who give up early never get to.

Shelf manners for a used-book shop

Used bookshops run on their own habits, and following them makes the visit smoother:

• Ask at the counter. Staff in shops like this usually know where a subject has migrated to. That beats scanning three floors blind.
• Reshelve carefully, or hand books back. Stock is often shelved by section rather than strict order, and a misplaced book is effectively lost.
• Handle older copies gently. Out-of-print editions can have fragile spines and dust jackets. Lift them from the middle of the spine, not the top edge.
• Check before selling. If you hope to trade books in, ask at the counter before carrying a box across town.

Browsing without buying is normal. The shop is still under the radar with most visitors to the city, so a quiet, unhurried browse fits the place.

Around the block

The shop pairs easily with a half-day in the neighbourhood. Meridian Hill Park, also called Malcolm X Park, is about a 10-minute walk east on 16th Street. It is known for its cascading fountain and for the drum circle that gathers on Sunday afternoons in warmer months.

Back on 18th Street, the strip south of Columbia Road is lined with Ethiopian, Salvadoran and other restaurants, plus the jumbo-slice pizza counters Adams Morgan is known for. If you came in from Woodley Park, the National Zoo sits just beyond the Metro station on Connecticut Avenue.