Looking for Mr. Goodbook

Since it's summer you shouldn't be reading anything more ambitious than the latest Judith Krantz But if you are enrolled to take classes while any reasonable human being is discovering the untold joys of a cold gin and tonic after a game of tennis, then your perverse intellectual streak (authentic of otherwise) will probably drive you into Cambridge's many bookstores. If so, you will not be disappointed because browsing is a local specialty and Square bookshops cater to the avid reader with welcoming stacks and close to round the clock hours

If business comes before pleasure, then buy your textbooks at the Coop where the tomes are arranged by course and can be returned for up to three weeks They're not cheap, but they're there--a virtue often conspicuously lacking at more affordable used bookstores But if you have some time to kill and want to scrounge, check the bottom floor of Harvard Bookstore on Mass Ave and the Bookcase on Church St. for a good selection of used texts.

While textbook shopping lasts only a few days, extracurricular browsing is a favored pastime throughout the summer In fact, several stores have done their best to install it as Cambridge's second best free evening out, second perhaps only to the Square's street musicians. Reading International, on the corner of Church and Brattle Sts., is open from 8:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. (even later on weekend nights) or, in the words of one saleswoman, "just about whenever you want." A good thing, too, since this bookshop hosts an interesting mix of scholarly and popular books, periodicals and inexpensive classical records, while messaging your ears with jazz.

Down the block, the Paperback Book smith and Wordsworth also cater to the literate night owl--both stay open almost until midnight every night except Sunday, when they close at 11 p m Skip the Booksmith, however despite a 15 percent discount on hardcover books its stock is predominantly mass market schlock Wordsworth offers a more extensive and inspired collection as well as discounts on paperback and hardcover books Harvard Bookstore another evening favorite, features high quality new release in addition to its extensive collection of used textbooks and paperbacks.

But these spanking late night book fixes smack of quiche eating and for true mustiness you'll have to wander into one of Cambridge's more eclectic bookstores The True Grit Award goes to the Bookcase and the Starr Book Shop (in the shadow of the crane at the corner of Plympton and Mt Auburn Sts) whose stacks of dusty old books will keep you entranced (and perhaps sneezing) for hours. More pristine but not less interesting is the scholarly Pangloss Bookshop on Mass Ave. a haven for would be academics brimming over with learned tomes and obscure journals All three stores are excellent for aimless browsing frustrating for very targeted book searches.

If your specialty is foreign language books, however, you're certain to find le mot juste at Schoenhof's on Mass. Ave. (though soon to move to the basement of a Harvard finals club). Can't read another language? Not to worry, this store has close to a dozen different French-English dictionaries. If your taste runs more to Dickinson than Danish, head around to Grolier Book Shop on Plympton St. Grolier expounds the karma of poetry hang around to catch occasional readings, book parties for modern day Petrarch as well as the Square's most extensive poetry collection.

Inspiration is abundant (though not always cheap) at the Thomas More book shop in Holyoke Center which features religious works But if your tastes are more wanton you'll be happier in the basement of 99 Mt Auburn where the Million Year Picnic stacks show off superheroes not the supernatural comic books and the their lore.