⚡️ Our Favorite Bookstores
(and we want to know yours too!)
This week, I asked community members to share their favorite smaller independent bookstores (we know and love McNally Jackson and Elliot Bay and Powell’s but cmon, what else is there!). Here’s a few of their suggestions — and we’d love to hear your favorites too! what are we missing?! let us know in the comments!!
📚 we looove third spaces and books and cafes and …
roughly organized by geographic location
US West Coast
Washington:
Left Bank Books (Seattle): “collectively owned and you can buy books for incarcerated folks as well as migrate right up stairs for storyville coffee afterwards” – Yu-Won; “the first bookstore I’ve been to where I actually want to read everything on the main display and have spent multiple hours looking through staff recs. also bought Logic there and small fun zines!” – Anna
Couth Buzzard Books (Seattle): “Besides a great name they also have a small space in the back they clear out a couple times a week for tiny concerts, poetry readings, and community jam sessions” – Zeb
Estelita’s Library (Seattle): “The warmest community space, library, and bookstore oriented towards social justice. The space & books at the library are free to use!” – Jessica
Serendipity (Friday Harbor): “In the San Juan Islands in the Salish Sea there is a tiny used bookstore called Serendipity and it has the weirdest and most wonderful set of books I have ever witnessed” – Jacob
California:1
Walden Pond Books (Oakland): “truly dizzying” – Jacob
Bibliomania (Oakland): “very dusty but pleasantly so” – Jacob
US East Coast
New England:
Montague Bookmill (Montague, MA): “Far and away from any urban area, but cafe + well-curated used books in an old gristmill over a river” – Nate
Twenty Stories (Providence, RI): “They curate exactly 20 books every month to sell in store!” – Huayu
Northshire Bookstore (Manchester, VT): “A lot of thoughtful notes on basically all of the shelves. Has quiet and louder areas, as well as a cafe - welcome to spend some time there :)” – Andrei
Pennsylvania:
Whistlestop Bookshop (Carlisle): “It's been around since 1985, wonderful vibe, great selection of books, and most importantly a bookstore cat named Mulan, who is nonplussed by humans but friendly anyway.” – Ben
Iffy Books (Philadelphia): “very cool” – Tommy [ed note yeah this poster speaks for itself]
New York:
Bluestockings (Lower East Side): “unapologetically queer and radical, a worker owned co-op, and they have a free shelf for those in need (with hygiene products and snacks and more!)” – Alexa
Yu and Me Books (Chinatown): “an Asian American owned bookstore that specializes in books by AsAm/immigrant authors!” – Huayu
Around the world!
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada:
Words Worth Books: “Every Saturday I would go there with my dad to get his favourite newspaper.” – Adriana
Prague, Czech Republic:
The Globe Bookstore and Cafe: “Truly a dream with two levels of books, and a delicious cafe and brunch menu in the back! – Serena
Hanoi, Vietnam:
Go West Library: “I used to come here a ton as a teenager to read (was my way to learn English!) and I’m just obsessed with the view, the niche selection of books and how knowledgeable the librarians are :”))” – Anh
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🌀 microdoses
really enjoyed this piece on the “erotics of infographics,” by Ben Lee for Gawker. Starts out meme-y, but then we start getting to substance: “Data journalism’s masturbatory indulgence of infographics lays bare an all-consuming fetishization of data.”
to follow up on Roe from last week — there’s a lot of one-liners going around about period tracking apps, but here’s a well-researched explainer from an attorney, an engineering professor, and policy researcher with good news and bad news (good — you can prob still use your fav app; bad — there’s A Lot Out There to be careful about in general)
bookstores are so beautiful we are crying & throwing up & literally shitting our pants… although maybe we shouldn’t trust wikipedia toooo much since apparently chinese-language russian history has basically been fanfiction for a while
honestly yeah, AGI to the back of the line we have lots of other stuff to worry about
💝 closing note
Last call to register for tonight’s conversation with Lee Vinsel on maintenance as politics and praxis — get the zoom link here, and read our review here!
Take us on a bookstore date (or five)!
Reboot team
edit 6.30: The Last Bookstore has been removed due to multiple accounts of…. just bad shit (linked thread is just one ex)
moe's in berkeley! :)
I'm living in Austin and really like Book People and Half price, Boston also has Brookline bookstore which has a calming vibe