I'm not quite sure why I liked Bookmans so much better than its closest competitor Half Price Books -- there were definitely some cheesy things here, like the rack of tabloids by the checkout. And the weirdly large media section. The nonfiction books were comparable to HPB's used (non-remainder) books -- they must skim off the better books to sell on the internet.
However, the literature & fiction section was excellent and scores points. Also there's a community room, and they were running some kind of kids' reading competition.
I guess the difference is that Bookmans seems to really want to be a socially responsible business that's engaged in the community, while HPB is mostly posing.