Editor's note: I invited Ward Schumaker, a book lover who has done several limited edition artists books, to give Bay Area DART subscribers a tour of one of his favorite hangouts.- Peggy Roalf

The first time I stumbled into William Stout Architectural Books, a fellow browser exclaimed, "Look! I found one in English!" At the time-and this goes back thirty years-that was truly a surprise: Stout's specialty was foreign language architectural books, brought back from vacations in Europe and sold out of his living room. Today, the collection has grown to fill two floors of a handsome building in San Francisco's historic Jackson Square. A good 70% of the books are in English. No longer a single-subject library, Stout's basement is filled with equally fine works on art, graphic design, photography, illustration, and other related fields. On a rainy day, there is no place I'd rather be.

Photographs by Vivienne Flesher, courtesy of the artist.

Descending the staircase, the first book to grab my eye was, fittingly, Thomas Demand: L'Esprit d'Escalier, (or, The Spirit of the Stairway-a French phrase suggesting the kind of person who thinks of the right retort only after having left the situation in which to use it). Those familiar with Demand's photographed models won't be fooled by the photos; others will be delighted to find that they've been taken in. A plus: essays by David Foster Wallace, Dave Eggers, and others.

Next, An Atlas of Drawings by Luis Perez-Oramas. Packed in a box are a booklet and six delightful folios of drawings, grouped according to subject. The folios are accordion-folded so they can be set up and enjoyed as sculpture. The connections between the drawings--at least at first--seem random, but that's part of what makes it work as a piece of art.

Il Libro Come Opera d'Arte (The Book as a Work of Art) by George Mafei is a compendium of the most influential and important artists books of the last century featuring covers and interiors in full color; a humble-looking book with great presence. I have many books on the subject, but this is another one I must get.

At the opposite pole, Super Normal--Sensations of the Ordinary, by Jasper Morrison and Naoto Fukasawa. Super Normal pleads for respect to be given to the ordinary: milk bottle, vegetable slicer, soy sauce container---each object photographed as quietly as an early Ed Ruscha paperback. I want to keep this book near my drawing table as a reminder of the power of plain.

Like many illustrators, every few years I again fall in love with Jose Guadalupe Posada, the Thomas Nast of Mexico. Posada, Illustrator of Chapbooks, by Mercurio Lopez Casillas, gives me a chance to do that on the cheap: full color, 220 pages, only $20. So often Posada is shown in black-and-white, but this books reminds us that his work was often printed on gaudy colored papers--yellow, pink, green, blue. Color makes a world of difference, transporting us into another culture, another aesthetic, another time.

Finally, Lessons from Bernard Rudofsky: Life as a Voyage contains the wisdom of this insightful writer and essayist who thrilled many of us when we were young, with books like Architecture without Architects. "I believe that sensory pleasure should take precedence over intellectual pleasure in art and architecture," he said, and the reproductions of his fabric patterns and interiors, his books and photographs, prove what such thinking can produce. A real thought starter, perhaps a life-changer.

On my way out, store-manager Alan Silver reminded me of the books William Stout itself publishes: books on architects like Jim Jennings, and the celebrated printer, typographer and book designer, Jack Stauffacher. Or foreign books rarely found in the US, like Ten Years of Typoteca Italiana by Sandro Berra. And that 50% of Stout's sales are now done on the web. But shopping on the web would mean missing out on the pleasure of prowling through stacks and stacks of wonder, the odor of all that ink and paper, in a bookstore where there may not be a single volume that doesn't interest me. I'll do my shopping in person.

William Stout Architectural Books is located at 804 Montgomery Street, San Francisco, CA 94133; phone: 415.391.6757. Please check website for hours and directions.

Artists Ward Schumaker and Vivienne Flesher live and work in San Francisco. Ward will be showing some of his hand-painted books at Meridian Gallery, opening January 24^th. Vivienne's first book of photographs, Alfred's Nose (Harper Collins, 2008) debuts in April.