Welcome To Gently Used Books!
We're located in the Douglassville Shopping Center, right next to Redner's market and across the street from Ace
Hardware. The shopping center is just northwest of the intersection of Highways 422 and 662 (Old Swede Road)
in Douglassville.
Our store is open Monday thru Friday from 9am to 7pm, and on Saturday from 9am to 4pm.
We also operate Gently Used Books Plus, an eBay store where we sell books of all kinds,
plus collectables, electronics, toys and more. More information and a link to our eBay store
is on the "Shop On-Line" page of this website.
10% Off Coupon For New Customers
We extend this special invitation to visit our store: a "10% Off for New Customers" coupon,
valid on any book purchase.
PS: If you're already a Gently Used Books customer, we encourage you to "tell a friend" about
us by printing the "New Customer 10% Off" coupon and giving it to them!
Click below to view and print the coupon:
"New Customer 10% Off"
Operation Paperback
Beginning in September 2008, Gently Used Books started collecting cash donations for "Operation Paperback" - this
great program sends paperback books to our troops stationed around the world. Because of the generous support of our
customers, we have been able to send money each month to Operation Paperback.
In June 2009, the Operation Paperback folks officially named Gently Used Books as a Partner! Our logo is now on the first
page of their website, right under Barnes & Noble. What an awesome tribute to our wonderful customers!
Helping Operation Paperback to support our troops is easy - just place your donation in any amount in the
in the bowl at the register. Thanks in advance for joining with us to support this program, and showing your
appreciation for our troops!
Click below to visit the Operation Paperback website and learn more about this great program:
Operation Paperback
Serving All Of Berks County, PA - Exeter, Reading and Pottstown
Gently Used Books store is in Douglassville, in eastern Berks County, about 6 miles east of the Exeter
(really Exeter Township) area of Reading, or 11 miles east of the Mount Penn area of Reading, or 13 miles east of the
Shillington area of Reading and about 5 miles west of Pottstown and North Coventry. The Douglassville Shopping Center
has plenty of off-street parking, and being right on Highway 422 makes it easy to get to our bookstore from just about anywhere in
Berks County, Montgomery County or Chester County.
Click to Unfold Basic Direction Info
The official mailing address for Gently Used Books is 19 Douglassville Shopping Center, Douglassville, PA 19518,
but you won't find that address in MapQuest or Google or Yahoo maps. Gently Used Books is right
next to Redner's Market, about 1/4 mile northwest of the intersection of Route 422 West and Route 662
(Old Swede Road).
More landmarks: The Douglassville Shopping Center and the Gently Used Books bookstore are across the street
from the new Ace Hardware, behind Michael's Restaurant and the Rite-Aid Pharmacy Store,
and catty-corner from the Douglassville Post Office.
On our Maps and Directions page, we have more detailed information on our
Maps and Directions to Gently Used Books
page that will help you get here to our bookstore.
Gently Used Books is an easy drive for anyone coming from nearby
Berks County or Montgomery County, Pennsylania towns like Amity Township, Birdsboro,
Exeter, Exeter Township, Pottstown, Stowe, Mount Penn, Reading, Kenhorst, Shillington,
Wyomissing, West Reading, Gilbertsville, Boyertown, North Coventry, Lower Pottsgrove,
Upper Pottsgrove, Royersford, Sanatoga, Spring City, Limerick, Earlville, Greshville, St. Lawrence,
Blandon, Yellow House, Jacksonwald and Oley.
If you're coming from any of these locations and need help with directions, or if you have any questions about the
Directions page on this website, just call us at the bookstore. Our telephone number is (610) 385-0766, and we'll be happy to help you.
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Store Hours
- Monday thru Friday ~ 9 to 7
- Saturday ~ 9 to 4
Current Promotions
Did you know that we trade books? Or that we have a "Booker's Dozen" deal? Learn more about these programs on our
Current Promotions page.
A Note From Store Owner Mona DeWalt:
As a bookseller and the owner of Gently Used Books, I'm excited about the new store for so many reasons. It's in a much more visible and convenient
location, and it's three times larger than the original store, so we don't have to stack books all the way to the ceiling.
Now we're able to 'spread out' more and create more display areas and feature areas. And we're able to create a
much more 'shopper-friendly' atmosphere.
Members of our Gently Used Books extended family of readers who shopped at our old location
will find our new store is much bigger, brighter and more conveniently located, plus we have lots of
free parking! When you come in you'll see just how much we've improved everything - you find three times as much space for
browsing, selecting, and reading, plus you'll see our Children's Book Room has been expanded to over four times its former size!
You can read more about Mona's background and how opening
Gently Used Books was the fulfillment of a dream on our About Us page.
We're In The Newspapers!
Here's a link to the Pottstown Mercury
article about Gently Used Books that was in their 11/23/2007 issue.
Here's a link to the Reading Eagle
article about Gently Used Books that was in their 12/31/2007 issue.
A press release from October 2007 when we moved into the new store can be viewed here on this
page by clicking here:
Click here to Show or Hide the Press Release on this page
If you prefer, you may read the Press Release on its own page:
Press Release 10/31/2007 By Gently Used Books
Gently Used Books Press Release
For Immediate Release
Date: 10/31/2007
Subject: Gently USED BOOKS, Douglassville, triples size 2 1/2 years from opening first store!
On June 1, 2005 Ramona DeWalt found her dream coming true. After thirteen years as a bookseller with Borders Books and Music in the Lancaster, and then Reading, PA stores, she was opening her own bookshop in the Amity Square Shopping Plaza in Douglassville, PA. This would be a bookstore very different from the style she had grown up in. Gently USED BOOKS 1,100 square feet were stocked with only 15,000 books, and they were ALL used, though only gently.
What did carry over into Ramona's new store was a clean, brightly lit and comfortable shopping environment. Neatly organized and displayed rows of custom built shelves were brightly painted to show off the colorful book covers and spines in the easiest shopping manner possible. A used bookstore never looked so good.
However, over the next two years an amazing thing happened! Mona's simple and easy to understand trade in policy gave many book-lovers the opportunity to buy a book at half or less the cover price, read it, and trade it in for book credit to buy another title even cheaper. Her willingness to take donations of any books even if she personally could not sell them meant book-lovers didn't have to see their former treasures tossed in the trash. Ramona passes a few on to her husband's hobby, an Ebay Store called Gently USED BOOKS PLUS, and most to other book re-users like libraries, churches, or Goodwill Industries. The result? Mona's business grew faster than she or her husband Pastor Ken DeWalt of Hope Church in Douglassville ever imagined.
By the end of 2006, with an in stock inventory doubled to about 30,000 books and more than cramped quarters Ramona began to look for a new and larger location for her books. After much searching, she found a near perfect site, the former Wine and Spirit Shoppe location in the Douglassville Shopping Center. The State Liquor Store had moved recently into much larger quarters in the newest building in the center, and their old location, right between Redner's Market and A-Z Video was a wonderful place to locate a bookstore. The location also offered a generous 2,900 square feet of elbowroom to move what became by opening day, October 16th, 2007, an inventory in excess of 40,000 books.
One of the real attractions of the old Gently USED BOOKS was its Children's Book Room, and the new store has a Children's Room five times at large as the original location. The adult fiction / non-fiction and SALE area is almost twice the size of the entire former store. Step stools line the aisles for ease of reach to those upper shelves. Folding and rocking chairs are conveniently placed to allow the occasional rest of a weary browser's feet. Large windows let in the sun, and the clean, well-lit atmosphere was never cleaner or better lit.
Many former customers congratulate Mona's move, however it's the opening week's crowds of first timers that assure her tripled bills will be paid on time. Ramona now has four part time booksellers on staff, Elysa, Kathy, Stephanie and Audrey. Each of these dedicated book-lovers are trained to not only help you find what you are looking for, they will take down information on any books you desire that they don't currently have and efficiently contact you if they do come in from another book-lover trading in titles. Sometimes the very same day.
Some customers, after walking around what for many is an entirely new concept in book selling, will ask Mona where she goes from here. Her first comment is a hardy, "Nowhere!" since she and about twenty friends are still recovering from the weekend move of 40,000 books to the new location. However after a moment she'll usually just smile and say, "Excuse me, but I've got to help those customers with their boxes of books they want to trade in." There seems no doubt that Gently USED BOOKS is in Douglassville to stay, and who knows how soon Ramona will be wondering where to stock her eighty thousandth book.
Find GENTLY USED BOOKS, Douglassville, at:
http://www.gentlyusedbookspa.com/
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