While over in California for my son's wedding, I came across two great bookshops:
The Storyteller - a large children's bookshop in a small Californian town, Lafayette, where the bookseller was very friendly, breaking off what she was doing to take time to chat with me. I noticed the picture books she stocked were exclusively quality hardbacks.
And City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco which was founded in 1953 by the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and is a publishing house as well as bookstore. You can browse for hours in the nooks and crannies of its old rambling premises and sense the presence of great writers; their names are on the posters of past signings hanging on the walls and their words spring up at you from the paving stones outside in Kerouac Alley.
Cambridge would benefit from something like this where Town meets Gown.