Our Story

About Vagabound Books

Vagabound is an online-first, sometimes in-person, book store. The store sells used books from the Vagabound’s personal collection only going up for sale after the Vagabound has read them. These books represent a collection assembled from decades of a reading practice centered on literary fiction, criticism, drama, and a small amount of essay/non-fiction. Specializing in somewhat-uncommon texts, the books listed on this site demonstrate certain interests such as Japanese and American modern fiction with a reasonable amount of books-in-translation.

The physical form of Vagabound resides in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and appears at events where book stores may not normally occur, such as farmer’s markets or neighborhood sales. If you’re interested in where Vagabound might pop up next, follow us on Instagram or sign up for our mailing list.

Our sales philosophy

We sell books in “reading copy” condition, meaning that there may be annotations, marginal notes, or personal ephemera included therein. In all cases, we recieved these texts in this condition. We pass them on to you as artifacts that reinforce the idea that books, even if consciously collected, are meant to be read.