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Off The Shelf: The Last Bookstore #1

16 Sept 2026 · 2 min

Watch on YouTube

1:45

In this short YouTube segment, interviewer (Speaker A) conducts a vox‑pop style interview at the Last Bookstore in downtown Los Angeles, asking passersby to name the best book they have ever read. Multiple respondents (Speakers B‑G) share a wide range of titles, ranging from classic literature (the Bible, Gone with the Wind, Huckleberry Finn, Invisible Man) to contemporary novels (A Gentleman in Moscow, Leviathan Wakes, Gideon the Ninth, Lee Child’s Reacher series) and beloved children’s books (The Little Prince, Diary of a Wimpy Kid). Each speaker offers a brief personal comment—e.g., the Bible as “breath of life,” Leviathan Wakes as an “awesome introductory space‑opera,” Gideon the Ninth as a “lesbian sci‑fi story that captured me.” The segment showcases the eclectic tastes of Los Angeles readers and highlights how personal experience, genre preference, and cultural nostalgia shape favorite‑book choices.

We're here at the Last Bookstore in downtown Los Angeles, and we're talking to people about their favorite books.
That's like picking your favorite child.
What is the best book you've ever read?
A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway. I just love Ernest. Ernie, I love him.
Ernest, if you're watching this right now— Bible. Why is the Bible your favorite book? It's my breath of life.
I really loved A Gentleman in Moscow. It is about an aristocratic Russian who is imprisoned after the revolution in a hotel.
When I was young, Gone with the Wind. I know that's a timeless.
Leviathan Wakes, probably. The book itself is just such an awesome introductory book to space opera, sci-fi. The Little Prince.
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir. It's like this lesbian sci-fi story that immediately, like, captured me. Diary of a Wimpy Kid.
Close second is Bonjour Triste. It's about Paris in the '20s, and it's—
Man, I have so much to choose from. Huck Finn, Invisible Man by Ellison, The Enormous Room by E.E. Cummings. Really, it's a sort of a deep dive World War I. It's called— it's sort of like spiritual autobiography. Believe it or not, I used to teach Max Brooks' World War Z. Not the movie. Not the movie. But I also read a lot of just straight-up trash, whether that's the Lee Child's Reacher stuff or that kind of thing.
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein, about a child that grew up and was raised by Martians. So Stranger in a Strange Land changed my It, it changed my outlook on people and society and how people connect with other people.