We occasionally go to the Brattle Book Shop in Boston. The shop touts itself as an "Antiquarian" book store, but they have a somewhat limited selection of old books, and personally I think the most collectible books are snapped up quickly by insiders or folks who have an "in" with the shop's operators. All the same they do have a lot of inexpensive used books (less than $5) for a large amount of them, and occasionally you can find something in there that is worth picking up. My wife went with the purpose of looking for books that might help identifying the antique jewelry she sells. I had no particular goal in mind, but I wound up getting over $60 in books myself, almost all architectural/castle associated. I'd recommend these if you could find them at a local used book shop, none were more than $15.
Castles of Britain, by Christine and Bamber Gascoigne
Castles, by Charles W. C. Oman
American Castles, by Julian Cavalier
The Construction of Gothic Cathedrals, by John Fitchen
The first three are pretty much just interesting to look at and worth browsing for some ideas as to construction detail. The final book gives some very detailed information regarding how cathedral construction was done, and it looks like some of the information could be used today to build a structure; everything from the mathematics behind vault construction to how wood was cut for bracing the structure in a decorative pattern.
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