In honor of Small Business Saturday, we’re highlighting 4 independent bookstores featured in the newly revised Patricia Schultz’s 1000 Places to See in the United States and Canada, on sale November 29. Shop #IndiesFirst.
City Lights Bookstore, San Francisco, CA
Explore cafe culture at City Lights, the bookstore founded in 1953 by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter D. Martin. City Lights served as a launching pad for Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and other Beat Generation writers and remains an institution of progressive literature and poetry today.
Visit the website here.
Moravian Book Shop, Bethlehem, PA
Bethlehem is a mix of its three distinct eras, parts 18th-century colonial museum, part 19th- and 20th-century industrial giant. and part 21st-century New Economy work-in-progress. On Main Street, the Moravian Book Shop has been in continuous operation since 1745, making it the country’s oldest.
Visit the website here.
Square Books, Oxford, MS
A pretty and prosperous little town about an hour’s drive from Memphis, Oxford is home to literary great William Faulkner, and one of America’s most beautiful campuses, the University of Mississippi, better known as “Ole Miss.” The literary life of the town now centers on Square Books—widely regarded as one of the best independent bookstores in the country. Its finest amenity is a second-story open air porch overlooking “the Square” where you can enjoy a fresh-brewed coffee. Down the street are Square Books, Jr., and a bargain annex, Off Square Books.
Visit the website here.
Toadstool Bookshop, Peterborough, NH
One of the best known towns in the Monadnock region of New Hampshire is Peterborough, home of the noted artists colony MacDowell since 1907. As a fellow at the multidisciplinary artists colony, playwright Thornton Wilder wrote Our Town here, basing Grover’s Corners on Peterborough. The intellectual center of the region, the town is home to art galleries and the well-known Toadstool Bookshop. The shop serves as an informal community hangout.
Visit the website here.
No Comments