Our 24 favorite Independent Bookstores across America
We’re so excited to release our new Fox Bookmark that we rounded up some of our teams' favorite bookstores across the country!
Brooklyn
We love perusing the shelves at Books Are Magic, opened by author Emma Straub and her husband Michael Fusco-Straub in Cobble Hill after the only other neighborhood bookstore closed after 30 years. They have a great selection, wonderful events, and a large kid's area. There’s also a second location opening soon in Brooklyn Heights!
Based in Greenpoint, this small but mighty bookstore has a large children’s and YA section along with expertly curated stationery, new reads, classics, and best sellers.
Right off the Metropolitan G/L stop in Williamsburg, Desert Island has an incredible collection of independent comics, zines, and art books. The owner Gabe Fowler has created a tight-knit comic community through a lineup of book signing and reading events and putting on a Comic Arts festival. Right next door is the Chicago transplant favorite Quimby's selling literary zines, and politically and culturally relevant books.
Manhattan
With locations across the city, McNally Jackson has a huge selection and great customer service making finding books or getting the perfect recommendation easy. They are also opening a 7,000 square feet location in Rockefeller Center this fall.
Located on the Lower East Side, Bluestockings is a 21 year old community-run bookstore and activist space. According to their mission “Bluestockings offers mutual aid, harm reduction support, non-judgemental resource research and a warming/cooling place that is radically inclusive of all genders, cultures, expansive sexualities and identities.”
Our favorite Japanese go-to bookstore in midtown for a selection of Japanese language and English books, stationery, and manga. After visiting, take your selection and enjoy reading outdoors across the street in beautiful Bryant Park!
In the East Village this small bookstore run by a one-woman show is packed to the brim with out-of-print and hard-to-find cookbooks for any gourmand or food lover!
Texas
Recycled Books This big purple building on the square in Denton was a favorite college town haunt, you could spend hours in the maze of new and used books and records here all at great prices.
Black Pearl Books - Black-owned bookstore based in Austin, TX. They ship nationwide They also run a non-profit and are currently expanding their Redacted Reads Book Club to ensure that even banned and challenged books are available to all.
In San Antonio on a stretch of Broadway near Brackenridge Park you'll find a trove of used bookstores and can easily spend an entire afternoon browsing the shelves at Cheever's Bookstore, Antiquarian Bookmart and Half Price Books just to name a few.
Oregon
Powell's is the largest independent bookstore in America with multiple locations in Oregon and a giant assortment of new and used books, along with regular author events. They also have buying hours to sell back your previously read books (we would use the money for more books, obviously!)
Dog Eared Books, photo from their website.
California
A Coral & Tusk stockist, Warwick's in La Jolla is also the country’s oldest continuously family-run book store since 1896.
This San Fransisco bookstore is a quirky and eclectic mix of new and used books, with a specialty in local titles and small press as well as stationery.
Opened as the first all-paperback bookstore in 1953, San Fransisco's City Lights is both a bookstore AND a publisher, they "publish cutting-edge fiction, poetry, memoirs, literary translations and books on vital social and political issues."
Whet your appetite with this Bay Area bookstore carrying new, used, and collectible books specifically relating to the culinary arts.
Brattle Book Shop, photo from their website.
New England
Cellar Stories is a sprawling warehouse-like building for used books located in Providence, Rhode Island. Also nearby, check out Paper Nautilus a beautiful used bookstore that also sells flea market finds and antiques.
Brattle Bookshop is a famous bookstore in Boston known for its outdoor bookshelves.
For online book shops:
We love that Bookshop.org has a giant selection and good pricing like other big retailers, but gives a portion of its money to local bookstores to help them thrive in a competitive landscape.