Compass Books

Compass Books is a way station for many a traveler. Their sale books have reasonable prices, and they have friendly service. There’s a mind-​boggling assortment of magazines. A copy of
once tided me through a traffic jam by AT&T Park. They have plenty of reading material to sustain the mind&spirit. I saw that they the movie tie-​in book for
with the tiny sticker «The Book that inspired the motion picture»… and, caveat emptor, it has a picture of the Apple cofounder on the Walter Isaacson bio rather than the sexy Michael Fassbender. Just saying. At least the latest Nicholas Sparks romance novels have the leading couples on their covers, along with Eddie Redmayne on the cover of «Danish Girl.»
Compass Books is a fun place to spend time.

Another Terminal 2 @ San Francisco Airport gem! This refined bookstore is stocked with everything one might want to read. For this example, me, it has classic fiction in most recent press, a great selection of graphic novels, countless magazines, children’s books, doohickies and what not. A personal touch is added with a wide range of employee recommendations. One could spend hours in here before a flight. I don’t even have a bookstore like this within fifty miles of my home!

The best bookstore in a great location, Terminal 2 @ SFO!
Everytime I come here I buy something, a book, a gift, something. The selection is excellent, and they know how to sell to their buying public. Well selected merchandise at very good prices. Something for every one, every age.
Great staff, upbeat, engaged, smiling.
Excellent business.
Enjoy!

Chanced upon this neat bookstore at SFO when we flew Virgin Airlines, it was our first time at this terminal. We mostly browsed the kids section with my preschooler. The selection was extensive and they even had toy airplanes and a lot of aviation-​themed children’s books. This would be great for parents who were trying to get their kids interested or at ease with flying or traveling. The best part is all the books on sale and there were quite a few! We ended up bringing home a heavy bag of quality books at a fraction of market price.

Love the book selection and book reviews to help you choose a book. Also there are games and other interesting knickknacks.

One of my usual SFO haunts, Compass Books has been my mini airport oasis for all sorts of reasons. Rather than going to a convenience store and reading an overpriced magazine, I am certain to score better reading material here from a decent collection of best sellers to no namers.
There is the element of killing time, but I should note how many times Compass Books has been a perfect gift spot for last minute ordeals. From greeting cards to small accessories, I’ve been able to find a decent selection of stuff that I wouldn’t find anywhere else in the airport.
It won’t replace one’s usual bookstore, even the chain ones. The condensed sections here make specialty books less likely to be featured but at least it is big enough to keep most folks occupied. The nice folks at the counter make for a nice addition to the experience and have been great at recommending stuff for random occasions.
Lastly, they haven’t given me any grief for sitting down and reading one of their books. The true mark of a bookstore, they score very high for yours truly.

***Walking through Compass Books (at SFO) was kind of nostalgic given how there just does not seem to be many bookstore-​only places in airports anymore; this store seems to have a decent variety of books and magazines though there is not much in terms of refreshments or food; some nice and small but slightly overpriced stuffed animals are also available***
I am not sure what the parking situation at SFO is, but I imagine it is expensive like other airports. This bookstore is within the United terminal so it is only open for airline travelers.

Compass Books is a literary oasis in the midst of cattle car airport chaos. I stop here going both ways (home and away) as this is a nice book shop on its own. Plus, I’m always on the lookout for something to read, especially newspapers, magazines, a travel guide for a future journey, or a thoughtful card for Gayle.

Thankfully my flight made me leave or I would have spent all my money on their fabulous greeting cards! I didn’t look too much at the books, but what I did see was pretty impressive, especially for an airport bookseller. I like that Compass is independent, and I LOVE their greeting cards — so much fun to shop.

Great place and find! They had some good stuff on sale and great things regular priced that I had to hold myself back from purchasing. Going on a big trip I’d rather buy over there. I will definitely stop by when I’m in LAX next!

Magazine collections was spotty for an airport. For being in an airport, I personally look for more periodocals than I do hardback books.
The other thing that annoyed me was the fact that they carried books for children and porn magazines. But zero magazines regarding firearms.
What a skewed sense of political activitism. Then again this was in San Francisco airport, I should have expected such liberal nuttiness.

This is a great bookstore, even for non-​airport bookstore standards. They’ve got a wide variety of everything, interesting photographic prints on the walls, a great selection of local picks and the staff seem extremely bookish (and I mean that with the utmost respect). A great way to spend some time in the airport — and maybe take home a better-​than-​average souvenir.

I have to check this store out everytime I go to SFO. I often find books here that I dont find in mainstream bookstores. I like the accessories likes book marks and plush toys that go with childrens books. Its well organized and pleasant to visit.

Since I had some time to kill before the fight to Redding, this bookshop was the perfect place, to browse around and kill time.
This bookshop is medium sized and sells.
Fiction and non fiction, autobiographies, bookmarks, cook books, magazines, San Fran souvenirs and other stuff I cant remember.
I bought two books for my friends and a San Fran calender 2011 for moi.
I recently gave those books to my friends and the absolutely loved it and I knew these particular books you cant get in London. So Compass they loved ya! I love ya! and when next time I go San Francisco I’m defiantly checking for you again, :)

I might be a tad overenthusiastic, but if you love books and travel a lot you go through airport after airport and see the same book & magazine stands over and over again, a place like Compass Books will make you jump up and down in excitement (if only that didn’t draw attention from the nearby TSA folks…)
No pressure to buy (and by pressure I mean clerks staring you down as you try to kill some time before getting to your next gate). Compass Books is an oasis of reading in the typical airport hubbub — if you’ve got a few hours to spare while waiting for a flight, check this place out. The staff recommendations are pretty standard fare, but there is so much more variety here than the other airport newsstands and their Top 20 books.

«Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.» — Groucho Marx
Of all of my friends, how many have been books? If I were to review a list of people I know, and books I have loved, how many of the former would I rank as less enjoyable than the latter? Of all the people I have met, how many have known me for as long as I have known Hazel and Bigwig, Gimli and Legolas, Robinson Crusoe?
The island of imagination is a blessing and a curse. And for every detached, socially-​awkward child who finds respite from the hostile world in a realm of fantasy, there is another who dwells too long on those foreign shores and finds the doubled-​edge of escapism: the ability to imagine a totally different life creates a dangerous siren song of «what if» that can never be sated, and occasionally cannot be ignored.
At the end of the day, is it not possible that the overly developed imagination is not ultimately a source only of agony? That the developed talent for envisioning an alternate reality leads the dreamer to succumb to the dreams? And what value does the world truly place on imagination anyway? Any place named «Compass Books» must eventually admit that the great masses would rather have their ship steered by the individual who can take them directly from point A to point B, rather than the individual who can imagine the hundreds of adventures that could be launched en route.
And, even then, the notion of a «compass,» a device endlessly compelled in but a single direction, fails to adequately describe the conundrum faced by the overly bookish, who find an infinity of divergent paths placed before them on a daily basis, the quantity and quality of which are limited only by their ability to conceptualize the possibilities. It is akin to piloting the ship, not by the compass, but by the weathervane, which is subject to adjustment at the slightest whim of the winds.
SO, what end to this wandering tale? I can’t dream it for you. You must pick the genre, from a panoply of worthy options: fiction and nonfiction, fantasy, historical, romance, horror, drama, bestsellers and pulp. You might overpay, but everything in life comes with a price, and if you can’t properly tender, you shouldn’t embark in the first place. You may think you’re walking away with a neatly-​wrapped package, in bright and perpetual plastic, but even if the knot inside is not visibly wreathing, anyone well-​versed would know life is never that easy.
And if all if this seems impossibly dense, then let me merely say that I surpassed the mighty 500 and said nothing, a lapse that can scarcely be expected to last. And if you stumbled upon this looking merely for a bookstore in the airport, let me say: buy a copy of Outside, and a copy of GQ, and read them cover-​to-​cover, and don’t talk to me when I have my Ipod headphones in, because this is a clear signal that I have decided not to share my aeroplane trip with you. In the emotional, rather than physical, sense. I have a weathervane to spin, and whatever direction it ends up in is the place I’m going today, and not everyone can join me, but perhaps I’ll send you a postcard.

I love that this bookstore is one of the first stores after security (United terminal). After righting myself from the indignities of security check, it’s nice to get to Compass for a book or magazine for the upcoming trip. Unlike the other newstands-​cum-​convenience stores throughout the terminal, Compass is – hallelujah — a full-​fledged bookstore with a huge selection of fiction, nonfiction, various periodicals and smaller areas for food, health, history, gifts, cards, games, etc.
A recent purchase: _​The Geography of Bliss: One Grumps Search for the Happiest Places in the World_​.
They appear to have less room for features like Staff Picks and other recommendations — the fiction section tends to have just book after book after book lined up side by side, so it could be a bit difficult to discover your next great read unless you already have a selection in mind… nonetheless, I’m glad that Compass Books exists at SFO.

I was recently stuck at SFO for around 8 hours due to American Airlines’ typical incompetence, and this place really saved my sanity. Needing a good book to pass the time with I wandered in here and was pleased with what I found. The selection is quite a bit better than what you’d normally have at an airport bookstore, and I ended up finding a good book to make the unending hell that is flying on American a bit more tolerable.

With some time to spare before a flight back to the nation’s capital, I plopped myself down in the travel section to look over their Central American offerings.
Nothing earth shattering here in terms of selection but no one bothered me as I browsed and the bloke who rang me up was exceedingly friendly.

This bookstore, located smartly and conveniently in the SF airport, is a member of the Books Inc. family. Unfortunately it is that somewhat annoying second cousin who spits food when he talks and makes inappropriate comments to your kid sister.
I finally came in here, after passing by several times, while wandering the halls of the airport and thinking to myself «What the fuck am I doing working in an airport? Does anything, including a bottle of water, cost less that $ 5 because clearly anyone with a retail airport job cannot afford to drink their daily 64 ounces of water on minimum wage. I wonder what will distract me from these thoughts and my impending dehydration.», and there it was, that bookstore I was wondering about, ready to distract me in ways only a bookstore can.
Sadly the employee recommendations and featured books were about as cookie cutter as that large suburban development that Buffy and Biff just moved into. The markdown table, while stocked with items cheaper than my daily allotment of water, seemed to be the castoffs of the clearance tables at the various locations of this stores parent company. Castoffs of castoffs. Wow.
This place is better than the typical gum, tacky souvenir and candy bar magazine stand you usually see in an airport. You know, the kind that has a huge selection of Koonz, King, Steele and enough self help books to make you think you might not want to get on the plane with all of the crazy travelers scooping them up.
Five stars for having 1000 times more books worth reading than your typical airport «bookstore». Minus two for hiding them behind recommendation cards that will have you running for the self help books at that other place.