Category: Bookstores

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How Octavia Butler Inspired a Pathbreaking Black-Owned Pasadena Bookstore

On Nov. 22, after weeks of trying to find the right space for her dream, Nikki High signed a lease for a 621-square-foot space on North Hill Avenue. This is where she began in earnest to plot out her independent bookstore. Octavia’s Bookshelf would feature books by Black, Latino, Indigenous writers and other authors of color in the same neighborhood where Octavia E. Butler, the store’s namesake, lived and found inspiration for her novels. Read more

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In Praise of Good Bookstores by Jeff Deutsch

Deutsch, director of Chicago’s Seminary Co-op Bookstores, offers an eloquent and inspiring paean to the community bookstore … A deeply read and engaging guide, Deutsch presents the bookstore as “a necessary part of the habitat of a lively intelligence in touch with the world” and observes that a good bookstore must not only understand the many needs of its customers but must also provide the conditions for discovery. Read more

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Remembrance of Bookstores Past

New York City is home to wonderful bookstores, but there used to be so many more of them to choose from — from Coliseum Books, just south of Columbus Circle; to Ivy’s Curiosities and Murder Ink on the Upper West Side; to the dearly departed St. Mark’s Bookshop in the East Village. By one count, there were 386 booksellers in Manhattan in 1950, including almost 40 on a six-block stretch of Fourth Avenue. (By comparison, there are fewer than 100 in the city now.) Here’s a look back at a few old favorites. Read more

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Why used books make the best travel souvenirs

Stores that sell new books are pretty, clean and sell great swag. I love them. I take pictures of them. I spend eagerly on their tomes and tote bags … But for me, the true treasures are buried in the funky, sometimes-musty secondhand shops, where a great find is like kismet. Read more

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