Location: 3241 P St. NW
Readers’ pick: Second Story Books
I have an itch for vintage postcards that always needs scratching.
Luckily for me and my bank account, The Lantern Bookshop on Georgetown’s P Street has a bounty of used books, paintings and cards out of the way of the mainstream M Street. The shop is entirely run by volunteers, who resell used books to raise money for scholarships and internships at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania.
The smell of aging paper greets you as you walk into the pastel pink townhouse. Aptly named, the Lantern makes me feel like Harry Potter walking through the restricted section of the library in his invisibility cloak and a glowing lantern in hand. As you peruse through the vintage titles, you feel like a 20th-century student unbridled by Google or ChatGPT, foraging for the perfect book to aid me in finishing an assignment.
The signed, antique books on the first floor boast the rarity of the bookstore’s offerings. Those who gravitate more toward the works of Anthony Bourdain and Barefoot Contessa can find books on travel and cooking on the main level.
After talking myself out of buying some cookbooks, I made a beeline for a stack of postcards sitting atop of a small bookshelf. They were 20 cents a piece, and I rifled through the stack to find some additions to my collection before settling on a few cards advertising Malaysian tourism, an art deco card of people partying and a card with a photo of a brown bear with its mouth open, ready to catch a fish.
Like any good bookstore, the Lantern has a creaky staircase that leads to a second floor of books and other vintage goods. History, novels and poetry books lined the yellowed walls — at least, those parts of the walls not covered by bookshelves. I gravitated toward a little room dedicated to art, picking a large black book with white details swirling around the cover.
Ready to check out with my postcards, I squeaked down the staircase to meet the friendly volunteer on the first floor. The payment system is as old school as the books, and the volunteer scribed the record of my purchase down with pencil and paper, using a printed out guide to calculate the tax.
Along with my purchase — which the volunteer said was the first of the day as of that afternoon — customers also get a butter colored bookmark with information on the store. I left the Lantern satisfied, spending just shy of $2, bounding down the squeakless-brick steps in front of the townhouse thinking of whom to send my postcards to.
