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Books Are Magic Opens in Brooklyn

Author Emma Straub and her husband, Michael Fusco-Straub, opened Books Are Magic in the Cobble Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, on April 29, Independent Bookstore Day, just ahead of its planned opening date of May 1.

“We can’t promise perfection, but we promise to do our very best! There are books on the shelves and smiling booksellers at the ready,” Straub wrote in an e-mail ahead of the event.

Upcoming events at Books Are Magic include Adam Rubin and Daniel Salmieri, the team behind Dragons Love Tacos and the recently published Dragons Love Tacos 2: The Sequel (Dial Books); Edan Lepucki, for Woman No. 17 (Hogarth, May 9); and Straub herself, for the paperback release for Modern Lovers (Riverhead Books, May 30).

Bookmarks Breaks Ground on Storefront

Literary nonprofit Bookmarks, located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, will open its bookstore this summer, reported the Triad City Beat. Bookmarks invited future customers to view the construction site at a groundbreaking ceremony on April 29.

The store will feature a Foothills Brewing café, bleachers for story times, and conference rooms; authors John Grisham and Daniel Wallace are already scheduled for events. The official opening and ribbon-cutting will take place July 8.

“It’s an exciting addition to support our mission,” said Beth Seufer Buss, Bookmarks’ community outreach and facilities manager.

Tribeca GalleryCafé & Books to Open Second Location

Watertown, Wisconsin’s Tribeca GalleryCafé & Books is planning to open a new store in Milwaukee’s Freshwater Plaza development, which will also be home to anchor store Cermak Fresh Market as well as Jimmy John’s sandwich shop, a fashion boutique, and more, reported the Milwaukee Business Journal. The 180,000-square-foot development space will also include 76 apartments.

Earlier this month, Tribeca GalleryCafé & Books marked its 10th anniversary with a two-day celebration featuring live music, author events, sales, and cake.

Saturn Booksellers on the Move

After 19 years in its current space, Saturn Booksellers in Gaylord, Michigan, is relocating to a new storefront “33 steps to the east,” owner Jill Miner wrote in an e-mail to customers. The new store will be located at 127 West Main Street.

The store will close on Sunday, May 7, to begin the packing process, and later that week a book brigade will help move inventory into the new store. Miner said she hopes to reopen in the new location on Monday, May 15.

Saturn Booksellers celebrated its 25th anniversary on Independent Bookstore Day, April 29.

BookPeople of Moscow, Gibson’s Bookstore Named “Best Of”

In Moscow, Idaho, BookPeople of Moscow was voted “Best Local Shop” for the Spring 2017 “Best of Moscow” lineup in the University of Idaho’s The Argonaut newspaper.

In the Argonaut’s full-page article about the bookstore, BookPeople owner Carol Spurling said, “I feel like I am contributing to civil society… I’m just making a place where people can be out in the world, interacting with people and having a civil dialogue, or even just to say, ‘Good morning, how are you?’ It’s what makes a community, is places like this. It’s not just retail.”

In New Hampshire, Concord’s Gibson’s Bookstore was named best bookstore in Yankee Magazine’s “Best of New Hampshire” Editor’s Choice Awards.

Gibson’s Bookstore, independent since 1898, “does everything right — from its thoughtfully curated staff picks to its roster of more than 100 author events each year — in a space that practically demands that you claim a nook with a stuffed chair, while its displays pull you in like a friend with an armload of books,” Yankee Magazine wrote.

Bookie’s Paperbacks Raises Funds for Accessible Bathrooms

Keith Lewis, owner of Chicago’s Bookie’s Paperbacks & More, has launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise $15,000 to bring handicap-accessible bathrooms to the new and used bookstore, reported DNAinfo.

The bookstore is moving to a new, larger location this summer, which will be accessible to customers with disabilities throughout, but will keep its original storefront — to be renamed Bookie’s Annex — as a venue for events. The campaign aims to raise funds for handicap-accessible bathrooms at both locations, which requires reframing the rooms to expand the size and adding grab bars, automatic lights, and new toilets and sinks.

“We regularly have customers in wheelchairs who are forced to remain in the front of the store while their family members shop — or who don’t bother to come in at all. This just isn’t acceptable,” Lewis wrote on the campaign page.