Around Indies

Everyone’s Books’ 30th Anniversary Benefits Local Shelter

At its 30th anniversary party on December 11, Everyone’s Books in Brattleboro, Vermont, is inviting customers to take part in a raffle to benefit the Brattleboro Overflow Winter Shelter, the Keene Sentinel reported. The bookstore, owned by longtime peace and anti-nuclear activists Nancy Braus and Rich Geidel, specializes in books about social change and the environment and multicultural children’s books. It also offers bargain and remainder books and a large selection of bumper stickers, pins, T-shirts, and cards on issues from peace and justice to women’s rights and the state of the government.

Raffle prizes include a one-night stay at a bed and breakfast, a $15 store gift certificate, a tote bag and T-shirt, and a one-year membership to the store.

Loganberry Books Turns 20

Loganberry Books, which is located on Larchmere Boulevard on the border of Shaker Heights and Cleveland, Ohio, celebrated its 20th anniversary with a party on December 6, featuring live music, book presentations and signings, birthday cake, and refreshments.

The store, which is owned by Harriett Logan, features more than 100,000 new, used, and rare books and includes collections of children’s and illustrated books, women’s history and literature, leather-bound and modern first editions, and fine and performing arts titles.

Since its beginnings in 1994 in a space shared with an oriental rug dealer, the bookstore has grown significantly. In 1997, the two businesses annexed the adjacent storefront, and in September 2003, the bookstore left the rug store behind and moved to a new location, which tripled its space and available inventory.

Classic Lines Bookstore Opens in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill

Dan Iddings, a Cincinnati native who arrived in Pittsburgh in 1993 to be an assistant director of the Carnegie Library system and later became the director of the Pennsylvania Academic Library Consortium, has opened Classic Lines Bookstore in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that that the store opened six weeks ago in a 1,000-square-foot space at 5825 Forbes Avenue.

“I’d always wanted to do this,” Iddings told the Post-Gazette, “and it was after the Borders in East Liberty closed that I began to think seriously about it.”

To prepare for his new venture, Iddings attended a workshop for new and prospective booksellers run by Paz & Associates, sought advice at an entrepreneurial center run by the University of Pittsburgh, and worked at a friend’s store to gain retail experience.

The store’s book inventory is supplemented by gift items, including vintage ornaments, posters, and works of art.

“Business has been better than I expected,” Iddings told the Post-Gazette. “The responses I’ve gotten from people who come in have been amazing.”

Stone Alley Books and Collectibles to Move

Galesburg, Illinois’ Stone Alley Books and Collectibles is moving next month from its location on Seminary Street to 238 East Main Street and will share space with For the Win, a card and gaming shop, radio station WGIL reported. The new arrangement is a natural fit according to Stone Alley owner Ben Stomberg, because the two businesses have many of the same customers.

“One of the things I look forward to with partnering with For the Win, is that if I had any inkling of how popular gaming was when we first opened the store, we would have been selling gaming right from the get-go,” Stomberg told WGIL.

Stone Alley will be open every day until Christmas in its current location and is offering a Buy 1 Get 1 Free special on used books for the holidays. An exact opening date for the new location has yet to be determined.