For a visiting student without a car, Los Angeles is a difficult city to make home. It’s vast, sprawling over almost 5,000 square miles, with an infamously poor public transport system. The Last Bookstore is tricky to reach – an hour’s journey from my apartment, but well worth the pilgrimage. While I treat all bookstores as sacred spaces, this spot in downtown LA is uniquely beautiful.

The Last Bookstore is California’s largest used and new book and record store, having opened in 2005 in a downtown loft. It has grown since then to 22,000 square feet, a softly lit labyrinthine collection of books and records, with space for literary, musical and theatrical events. Slices of chocolate cake were handed out at a book signing I attended – and that secured my undying devotion.

Photograph: Kim Garcia

The Last Bookstore encourages selling and trading of books and records based on its fluctuating inventory needs, as part of a mission to “keep the paper and ink book business alive in an era of e-readers and digital downloads”.

The bookstore downstairs is exciting enough, but the best treasures are kept upstairs. Visiting the mezzanine level, browsers are greeted by hanging books, suspended in flight as they erupt from a bookcase. Further on, there are tunnels built from books, hidden side rooms with more than 100,000 used books for sale, plus freestanding sculptures and mobiles. This is the Spring Arts Collective, an eclectic space displaying the work of five artists: it’s filled with sculptures and paintings, bold prints and metalwork.

The Last Bookstore’s home page tells a bleak truth: “What are you waiting for? We won’t be here forever.” Independent bookstores are in decline as online booksellers dominate the market, but I’m rooting for this one to be the last bookstore standing.

• 453 South Spring Street, lastbookstorela.com