Motte & Bailey Used & Rare Booksellers
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Motte & Bailey Used & Rare Booksellers
@mottebooks.com
11 followers 31 following 36 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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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."
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
Reposted by Motte & Bailey Used & Rare Booksellers
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
Reposted by Motte & Bailey Used & Rare Booksellers
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
Reposted by Motte & Bailey Used & Rare Booksellers
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
Reposted by Motte & Bailey Used & Rare Booksellers
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
mottebooks.com
Happy Book Lovers Day, one and all !

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_Lo...
Book Lovers Day - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
August 9, 2025 at 4:56 PM
mottebooks.com
Also arriving are some cool new Photography books, to be added into our photography section. Check out the new arrivals in the shop and online on our website.
#annarbor #usedbooks #photographers #photographybooks
July 23, 2025 at 4:58 PM
mottebooks.com
For those new 1960s Brides out there.. Mrs. Wason has all the cooking tips in this new arrival! Come visit her book and all our other cooking & culinary books at the shop.
#usedbooks #annarbor #cookbooks #vintagebooks
July 23, 2025 at 4:55 PM
mottebooks.com
Enjoy #MotteMonday

Hint: not about books :)
July 21, 2025 at 2:26 PM
mottebooks.com
Interesting new arrival : the oversized TINTIN POSTER BOOK

Surprising scarce, but some great images from the books. Come by and take a look at our shop for now, but find it on our website next week. #tintin #annarbor #books #posters
July 19, 2025 at 3:19 PM
mottebooks.com
Sadly can't say I've read much Michener, but maybe I'll start with this gem :
bsky.app/profile/bran...
brandonfriedman.bsky.social Brandon Friedman @brandonfriedman.bsky.social · Jul 18
"In each civilization some men run wild. If we're lucky, we control them early. If not . . . ."

Hoo boy. I'm reading James Michener's 1963 novel Caravans. This scene, which takes place in 1946, is between a former Nazi and an American diplomat. The Nazi calls it. 🧵
"It proves what I've always suspected. The things we did in Germany . . . the really dreadful things, are what men have always done . . . In each civilization some men run wild. If we're lucky, we control them early. If not . . . ." "To be specific," he said, "I haven't been to America but I've seen your films and read your books. I'm positive that in your country there would be no difficulty in finding S.S. volunteers for . . . ." (Continued) James Michener Caravans 1963 P. 204 ". . . the job of collecting Negroes and throwing them into concentration camps." "Wait a minute," I cried ccondescendingly. "Herr Miller!" he replied, pulling my face close to his. "Don't you you know in your heart that you could do to the Negroes what we did to the Jews?" I said quietly, "Don't judge us by the fact that we have a few sick people." "You have an endless supply," he assured me. "We turned ours loose on Jews. Some day you'll turn yours loose on Negroes." "But never Buchenwald," I resisted. "In the beginning, never," he agreed. "Your sensibilities would not permit it. Your Bill of Rights . . . But after two or three years of total propaganda . . . the president, churches, newspapers, cinemas, labor unions . . . don't you understand that you would find many Americans eager to shoot down Negroes with machine guns?" "No," I announced confidently. "Herr Miller, you're an idiot," he stormed. James Michener Caravans 1963 P. 205
July 19, 2025 at 3:08 PM
mottebooks.com
Here's a Poster a lot of people ask us about - a little hard to see from reflections, and we added a bit to drive the point home. #NoTyrants

We don’t have extra copies, but you can find out more about this poster at :
bsky.app/profile/ryan...
Poster in a winder that reads "No Tyrants! and No Kings!" With a new Yorker cover of Trump with fake medals goose-stepping like Mussolini
July 18, 2025 at 3:00 PM
mottebooks.com
Hello all -

We just got in a lot of leatherbound Easton Press books of literature in lovely shape. Below is a picture of some of them. If you are looking to add to your collection of Easton press works or just want a great looking copy of a favorite classic, drop by.
#booksky #usedbooks
2 wooden shelves of multicolored leatherbound books
July 5, 2025 at 10:20 PM
mottebooks.com
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."
July 5, 2025 at 10:12 PM