At this bookstore, browsers can read the arms on the man

Some people go to Pazzo Books to buy secondhand books, some for a quiet place to read, and some to check out Brian Nealon's arms.

Interested in "Henry IV," "The Inferno," or "Notes from the Underground?" Pazzo co-owner Nealon, 23, has them all. Not only on the shelves. But excerpts are on his skin.

The Rutgers English major adores the classics, and his body art is as eclectic as he is. He can't say why he chooses this form of expression, or even why he chose any particular selection. But when inspiration strikes, he takes the quote to Fat Ram's Pumpkin Tattoo in Jamaica Plain, where tattoo artist Claire Voillemot asks no questions.

"Memento Mori" -- or "remember thy death" -- especially grabs Nealon. In the late Middle Ages, a "memento mori" was a talisman of sorts meant to remind people of their mortality. To Nealon, Falstaff's reference to one in Shakespeare's "Henry IV" holds "a delicious morbid" resonance.

Though a devotee of Charlie Chaplin, Nealon prefers dark messages for his four tattoos. Yet another example is his tattoo of Dante's well-known personified tree trunk, topped by a human head.

His other love is math, particularly solving equations. Nestled on a hairy left arm is "2 x 2 does not = 4." Dostoevsky.

When Brian and his brother Tom, 33, decided to open a secondhand bookstore about a year and a half ago, the venture suited their styles. Collectors for years, they had stored books at home, with friends, in cellars. Isn't that what booklovers do?

They spent every weekend at yard and library sales. With 800 books in store, they are aiming for 1,500. They are still scouting academic titles, literature in translation, Spanish and French language books, and scholarly religious work.

Once they decided to become entrepreneurs, they studied everything they could find on how to open a secondhand book store. "Not that much out there, actually," Tom Nealon says. Perhaps they will write their own book, they think, focusing on their specialty, which is trading books on the Internet. Seventy-five percent of their sales come through the wires.

Their website, ChooseBooks.com, cites new and used books, out-of-print and rare editions, autographs and ephemera.

But such impersonal commerce loses flavor in the translation. Pazzo (Italian for "crazy") in the flesh is sensuous. You can sink into soft sofas, browse in spacious airy rooms, and soon, burrow in the basement. The opening of that new space should occur after Thanksgiving; this Thursday, Roslindale resident Stanley Gross will read from his self-help book, "Pathways to Lasting Self Esteem."

You might hit an art opening at the store, a practice the brothers hope to resume once renovations are complete. You might join the quirky regulars, expected by the brothers every Friday night. Or be left by a mom to play chess. The owners don't mind. They like children.

Ten years older than his brother, Tom Nealon has always been the one with the most books. He had been a stockbroker and paralegal. An English major at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, he credits his mother for the boys' shared passion. "While some kids sneak their books to read under the covers at night, our mother knew and let us get away with it," Brian says. "She also discouraged us from watching TV."