Rare Book Shop Near Me in Coral Gables: Books & Books

Books & Books stays open until 11 pm six nights a week at 265 Aragon Avenue, and that late closing is the first reason it belongs on any Miami list of a rare book shop near me. Mitchell Kaplan opened the business in 1982, and the Coral Gables flagship now fills a 1920s Mediterranean-style building listed on the city's historic register. The finds here are signed copies, small-press artist books and South Florida titles that chain stores rarely carry, not glass-case incunabula.

Kaplan, a Miami Beach native, started in a 500-square-foot room two blocks west of the current store. A year later he organized the Coral Gables Festival of Books & Writers, and in 1984 he co-founded the first Miami Book Fair, which he still hosts. Shelf Awareness reported in 2018 that Kaplan bought the Aragon Avenue building outright, which explains why the shop has been able to stay in a prime downtown Gables block while rents climbed around it.

Publishers Weekly described the renovation that shaped today's store: the original tile floor was exposed in places, hardwood was laid in others, and drop ceilings came out of the two front rooms to reveal wide beamed spaces. The building runs about 9,000 square feet, and a fireplace still anchors one room. Walk slowly through the connected rooms rather than heading straight to a register, because the layout rewards wandering more than it rewards a quick search for one title.

A 2008 Time Out listing described a room devoted to antiquarian rarities. The current Books & Books site does not list such a room, so arrive expecting a new-book shop with collectible pockets rather than an antiquarian dealer. The official site keeps a Signed Books list, which is the most reliable way to find first-printing copies carrying an author's signature, and many of those signatures come from authors who read here in person. Ask a bookseller to pull signed stock from the back before you leave.

The strangest shelf in the store is not a shelf at all. EXILE, the nonprofit founded in 2014 by visual artist and curator Amanda Keeley, spent five years as a roaming pop-up artists' bookstore across more than 25 locations. In 2023 its retail side found a permanent home at Books & Books in Coral Gables as the EXILE Book Cart, with an ever-changing selection of independent and self-published print projects. Small editions sell through, so a title you skip today may be gone next month.

Miami New Times called the multiroom store an echo of Borges' Library of Babel and singled out the local section, where South Florida authors get prominent display. That section is where a visitor finds regional titles and small-run local books that rarely reach national chains. If you collect Florida writing, start there, then work outward into the fiction rooms, and look for local debuts that an author has signed at a launch event held in the same building.

Events are the real draw for collectors chasing inscriptions. Miami New Times has reported the flagship hosts more than 60 events a month, and it noted that bumping into a bestselling author or two at a cafe table is common. The Coral Gables Magazine calendar lists Steven Raichlen on October 22, 2026, at 7 pm, and Amanda Keeley with Josh Aronson on October 25 at 7 pm. Buy the book at the register before the talk starts, because the signing line forms the moment the reading ends.

The Cafe at Books & Books runs its own line, (305) 448-9599, and serves breakfast every day from 9 am to 1 pm. The menu covers fresh salads, sandwiches, vegetarian dishes, homemade pastries and desserts, with seating either indoors or out in the open-air courtyard. One honest note: skip the courtyard tables on a humid August afternoon if you are carrying a just-bought signed hardcover, because Miami air is not kind to dust jackets. Take the indoor seats and keep the bag closed.

Weekday mornings after the 9 am opening are the calmest hours for slow browsing, while the rooms fill on event nights at 7 pm and on weekend evenings when Aragon Avenue is busy with dinner and movie crowds. If an author event has packed the front rooms, do not fight the crowd for shelf space; browse the back rooms first, or come back the next morning. Late hours make this one of the few Miami bookstores where a 10 pm visit after dinner on Miracle Mile is realistic.

Treat the signed stock carefully: handle jackets by the edges, keep coffee cups out of the book rooms, and ask staff rather than pulling stacks off the event tables yourself. Phone the store at (305) 442-4408 if you want a specific signed title held, rather than driving across the county on the chance it is still on the shelf.

Aragon Avenue packs three cultural stops into one block. The Coral Gables Museum sits at 285 Aragon Avenue, next door to the bookstore, and covers the planned city's architecture and history. Directly across, the Coral Gables Art Cinema at 260 Aragon Avenue programs independent and repertory film. One block north, the 100 block of Giralda Avenue reopened in 2017 as Giralda Plaza, a pedestrian street lined with restaurant tables, and the half-mile Miracle Mile stretch of Coral Way sits one block south of the bookstore.

This shop suits readers who want an inscribed copy of a new book, artists hunting zines and self-published projects from the EXILE cart, and visitors who want a literary evening with coffee rather than a dusty treasure hunt. Serious antiquarian collectors looking for leather sets and early printings will find less here than they might expect from the old Time Out description, and should treat Books & Books as the signed-copy and small-press stop on a wider book crawl around Miami-Dade.

Books & Books is at 265 Aragon Avenue, Coral Gables, FL 33134, phone (305) 442-4408. Store hours are Monday to Saturday 9 am to 11 pm and Sunday 9 am to 10 pm. City Garage 2 is at 220 Aragon Avenue, close by, at $1.00 per 24 minutes with an $18.00 daily maximum; street meters run up to $3.50 per hour. The free Coral Gables Trolley runs Monday to Saturday from 6:30 am to 10 pm on its Ponce de Leon route, a short walk from the store.