Bingeing Brooklyn Bookstores
Lately, I’ve been having an identity comeback.
For years – while pregnant, nursing babies, riding out a global pandemic, and working more and more and more – the personhood I tended to so carefully in my teens and 20s went to seed.
That’s the thing about time.
For so long, there was such a surplus.
High school years spent memorizing song lyrics, working on my tan (oh the regret!), and plotting my escape from the suburbs.
Whole semesters of grad school that could be summarized as ‘the night out and the hangover.’
Sweaty summers where I circumnavigated New York City in J.Crew statement necklaces and American Apparel circle skirts, thinking I was really something.
And then, just like everyone says, things speed up. In ways that, mostly, are only interesting to you. Responsibilities make for pretty boring writing (not that it’s stopped me from trying).
But lately, after years of laying dormant, my sense of self has surged back.
There are all kinds of reasons for this. One is philosophical: I’m determined to be a person who has something to say and think about other than what she does for a living and the people she’s raising. But most are practical: my kids are now 2 and 4, and less physically dependent on me than they once were. Plus we have consistent childcare – a part-time nanny who my kids love, and whose presence grants me guilt-free time alone.
Mostly, I use that time to work.
Sometimes, to write.
Occasionally, I use it to take long walks or short runs.
And once, last week, I used it to visit six Brooklyn bookstores in a single day.
The luxury!
I started in Bed-Stuy at Dear Friend Books, just blocks from the first New York City apartment Emmett and I shared. The bookstore and wine bar, which opened in 2022, is so beautiful – spare, scandi, a sun-soaked designer’s dream of giant marble slabs, warm woods, and exposed beams. And it’s fancy – the books are rare and vintage, the wine natural, the back patio enormous, and the signature smell courtesy of that famous Flamingo Estates tomato candle. It also has a charming ‘take a rock, leave a rock’ ledge along the back wall that would have delighted my kids.
I bought a book of poetry – yes, this place made me believe I could be a person who routinely reads poetry – drank a glass of something orange and effervescent, took a rock with me, and kept walking …
… a whole 100 feet to The Word is Change, another new-ish bookseller on Tompkins Avenue where everything is packed tightly and stacked tall, evoking a comfortably overstuffed, neighborhood bookstore vibe. The assortment trends towards writing about social justice, but it has everything, really.
Next, I walked north to Williamsburg to visit Quimby’s Bookstore, which intrigued me with its website description of itself as “specialists in unusual publications, aberrant periodicals, saucy comic booklets, and assorted fancies, as well as a comprehensive miscellany of the latest independent ‘zines that all the kids have been talking about.” The store felt like the 90s in a good way – a place where the rules of capitalism are suspended and rough-hewn hand-bound booklets find an audience. It also had a ton of tarot stuff and was packed with people saying things like “you’re such a Leo” to each other, so I moved on pretty quickly.
Also in Williamsburg, I stopped by Spoonbill & Sugartown, which I’ve been dragging my heels on checking off my New York bookstore to-visit list for years because I incorrectly assumed it was a cookbook-centric store (something about the name?). It isn’t (at least not predominantly!). Instead, it’s a beautiful and lively store – tin ceilings! worn concrete floors! that books-stacked-in-every-available-space look I love! – that’s been selling everything from art periodicals to children’s books for almost 25 years. It was the dark-horse happy surprise of my day.
Next, I walked east to a bookstore I knew I’d love long before I stepped inside it: Molasses Books. It’s gorgeous in a very particular lime-washed, crumbling, vaguely European-feeling way, and every customer in it looked like a cast member specifically selected for the task of milling about fashionably. Located on a mostly residential Bushwick street and open until midnight, the store sells coffee by day, alcohol by night, and used books all the time. It’s exactly, perfectly, shockingly my type of place and I immediately texted like ten people about it.
Finally, beneath the hulking shadows of the Broadway JMZ, is Better Read Than Dead, the most metal bookstore I’ve ever been to. Located in an old shipping container at the top of an alley that includes a vintage clothing store, record store, and tattoo parlor, the shop has a well-curated selection ranging from New York City authors to punk zines to a dedicated ‘smut’ section. I bought a $4 copy of Things Fall Apart and a t-shirt that looked more like a Rammstein concert tee than bookstore merch.
By the time I got home, my feet ached, my shoulders burned, and the number of iced coffees I’d drunk exceeded even my bookstore count. It was, in other words, the perfect day.
The type that results in a brand new to-be-read pile.
The kind that makes you want to binge-visit Brooklyn bookstores way more often.
The sort that brings you a little bit closer to your old self.