I lo-o-oved AVH when I was in high school. I made so many good
finds there, and in retrospect so many other finds that I didn't
appreciate at the time and wished I'd splurged to pick them up.
At some point in the 90s, AVH went downhill, in my opinion. The
quality of their used books - talking mainly science fiction here -
really declined, to the point that I would find maybe one book
every four or five visits (spread over 3 years, since I don't live
in the area anymore). They started carrying new books, which held
no attraction for me since I always bought new books elsewhere
(usually patronizing indy stores near where I lived, since I didn't
live in the area anymore).
By the year 2000 I went there more out of nostalgia for my younger
days than because I actually had success finding books there.
I don't really know what happened to cause its stock - the stock I
was interested in, anyway - to decline like this, the policies of
used bookstores being something of a black box for me. But, based
on my own experiences I'm not surprised it went out of
business.
Alas.
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