Renaissance Books is a large independent bookstore originally located in downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin, specializing in used books. Founded in the 1950s by George John and Erwin Just, it is now owned by Robert John, George's younger brother. The store's former main building (a former furniture warehouse) was five stories high (plus the two-story building next door and another down the block) housing somewhere from 350,000 to 600,000 volumes. The New York Times described it as "like a book collector’s attic, with boxes of used books lining the floor of this century-old former furniture store. But it’s more organized than it looks, with about a half-million books parceled among dozens of categories ('animal husbandry' 'theater practices and problems')". The local Milwaukee Journal Sentinel d