Of course! Browsing is the best thing about bookstores. Feel free to take a look and see what's around, and if nothing cries out to you, you shouldn't feel obligated to buy anything. (Just don't take a book to the cafe, read the whole thing, spill a latte on it, and then put it back; I can say from personal experience that booksellers don't like that.)

I work in a library and am surrounded by books all day long, and I often like to take a break and do just exactly that very thing at a bookstore. Intriguing titles, well displayed: what more could one want.

I perversely pride myself on having browsed for hours at Powell's without buying a single title. There was something kind of samurai about that, or so I felt.

What it seems we're lacking these days is the old tumbledown messy chaotic used stores that invite one to dig for treasure - the Shoreys and Beattys of yesterday.

Part of my own job is to pester people who are browsing our extensive fiction stacks at the library, though I know well enough to back off immediately if someone wants to be left alone to enjoy a good browse through some stuff that they can't find at their local bookseller, or even at Powell's.

What I would say is NOT cool is to go spend a bunch of time browsing at an independent bookseller, and then squirrel oneself away to order those books online. I know it is commonly done, but I think it makes the angels weep, to say nothing of the booksellers, and is largely responsible for the relative dearth of good live browsing places. If you're going to buy online, they browse online, I say. Of course I couldn't really raise a similar objection about leaving a bookstore browse to place holds at your library: I do it myself, as the newest stuff simply isn't in physical evidence at the library until some months of circulation have passed.

Happy Browsing!

No, and the going rate is ten dollars a minute. If you're not spending that much they have the right to take you into the basement and make Kindle covers out of your skin.

OF COURSE you can browse. Spend all day in there if you want to. I used to methodically scan every shelf in the store; I learned a lot that way. Not so much anymore, but hey. And even if you're just standing there, you're helping make the store look busy.

I agree with Paul, one of the greatest things about bookstores is that browsing is free. But, and perhaps it goes without saying (and I know you're only talking about killing time), I think its important to pay for the privilege of browsing by actually buying the book at the bookstore the times you DO find something you want. Inevitably a book can be found for cheaper online, and I have friends who will browse a book in the store only to try and save $5 buying online, but this is one of those things I feel pretty strongly about.
I don't pledge money to NPR (sorry This American Life and Radiolab, I fully intend to change my evil ways once I get a job though), but I always buy a book I find in the bookstore in the actual bookstore. Perhaps that's just me, but hopefully not.

I almost always kill time by browsing the stacks at Elliot Bay Book Company on Capitol Hill if I am early for a reservation or happy hour or something. I often end up leaving with a book but sometimes I do not. Bookstores are for buying and browsing.