Alabama, Bookstore Tourism

Court Street Books – Florence, AL

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Court Street Books has been open for just a couple of years, but when you walk in you get the feeling they’ve been around much longer. It’s just so obvious that they know what they’re doing. These are book people.

The shop has an incredible offering of both new and used books all sitting on the shelves together. It’s always fun knowing you might trip over a book from years ago that you missed and that you can compare used and new book prices. They also had lots of discount carts with 30% prices.

I got to Court Street Books around 5:30pm on a Wednesday and there were lots of folks still hanging around, attending an event, buying coffee, picking up books and just enjoying being in the presence of other book folks.

One of my favorite things about Court Street Books is that they maintain an online storefront on AbeBooks listing all of the older and more collectible books that come across their desks when folks are selling their used books. I wish more shops did this. They also maintain a pretty robust events calendar and loads of stickers, pins, and shirts all over the shop.

There are plenty of reasons to visit the quad-cities area of Alabama. When you do go visit, I recommend putting Court Street Books on your agenda.

Court Street Books
610 S. Court Street
Florence, Alabama 35630
(256) 633-0469
hello@courtstreetbooks.com

Alabama, Birmingham, Bookstores, Events

Indie Bookstore Day – Birmingham, AL Tour

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Tomorrow is Independent Bookstore Day! It’s always such a fun day to get out and celebrate the need for indie bookshops in our communities. The goal is simple – just get out, if you can. Here’s a handy map where you can type in your zip code to see if any of the 2000+ participating shops are near you. (If you don’t have an independent bookshop around you, do check out Bookshop.org. The site is very well done, supports indie shops and is helpful for those living in book deserts.)

Enjoyer Books at Cala Coffee – Independent Bookstore Day 2025

This week I was asked, “Which shops are worth visiting?” This is a tough question to answer as I want to simply say “All of them?”. But that’s not as helpful as I want, so I am offering up a little strategic plan of attack for this Saturday (the rain will be off and on) with an itinerary that would put a few miles on your car, but allow you to visit some really fun shops around town. Maybe next year we can all get together and do a bookstore crawl or something!? (I’m a tad jealous of all these bookstore crawl events.) So just think about it, fellow Birminghamsters… 

Anyway, for all you folks in and around Birmingham, AL, here is what your Saturday could look like tomorrow:

That would have you start out at The Summit, then down 280 to downtown, then Homewood and back to 5th Ave. Pretty easy driving. What changes would you make? There are a few more shops around town. Last year, for Independent Bookstore Day, we closed out the day in Trussville at Bookmarked Paperie so we could get the pimento cheese, chips, and beer at Ferus.

Bookmarked – 2025
Ferus Pimento Cheese – 2025

For those a little farther out, here is a list of all the bookshops that have officially said they are participating around Alabama:

  1. Greene Books – Athens, AL
  2. The Mossy Lantern – Atmore, AL
  3. Auburn Oil Co. Booksellers – Auburn, AL
  4. Burdock Book Collective – Birmingham, AL
  5. Thank You Books – Birmingham, AL
  6. Court Street Books – Florence, AL
  7. Dorothy June Booksellers – Foley, AL
  8. BOOKCLUB – Fort Payne, AL
  9. The Bookwyrm – Huntsville, AL
  10. Blushing Books – Huntsville, AL
  11. The Snail on the Wall – Huntsville, AL
  12. Blue Apple Bookstore and More – Madison, AL
  13. All In Books – Madison, AL
  14. Storylight LLC – Mobile, AL
  15. The Haunted Book Shop – Mobile, AL
  16. The NewSouth Bookstore – Montgomery, AL
  17. Hyperbole Books – Montgomery, AL
  18. The Second Story – Pratville, AL
  19. Ernest & Hadley Booksellers – Tuscaloosa, AL
  20. Sweet Home Books – Wetumpka, AL

There are some good ones on there.

Than You Books on Indie Bookstore Day 2025

Wherever you are, I hope you have a wonderful weekend and have a good book nearby.

Bookstore Tourism

Riverstone Books – Pittsburgh, PA

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I recently got to explore the Squirrel Hill area of Pittsburgh, PA and had a wonderful time inside the Riverstone Books location there. This shop is much bigger on the inside than it looks from the street and is worth popping in.

My absolute favorite part were all of the Staff Recs. While there were a few titles that you run across just about every Staff Pick in just about every shop, these on the tree by the front door were an eclectic mix of topics and form. Such a celebration of why read books, just inside the door.

The shop has a lot of new books to choose from as well as lots of cool sidelines and gifts for folks who like to spend time with books. If you’re in the area, it’s worth a stop.

Riverstone Books – Squirrel Hill
5841 Forbes Ave
Pittsburgh, PA 15217
(412) 422-2220

Site News, Things to Read

Things to Read – Edition 0005

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I feel like a bear coming up out of a hibernation and I am glad to be back out in the open. I had to check out and log off for the first of the year. For the job, we have offices in Minnesota just outside the cities and in all honesty – I just could not deal with what all was going on. But, I am happy to report that after getting some Signal groups going, participating in a few boots on the ground efforts helping solve a few small real world needs, and catching up with good friends at Winter Institute, I have found my footing again. Community, folks. That’s the part I had forgotten. Chatting with book folks. Chatting with outdoors folks. Reading a few really good books. Those are the pieces I’d started to take for granted and lost sight of.

I’m lucky to have gotten to spend lots of time outdoors across the country the past few weeks, working, hiking, chatting, and reading. Plus, visiting some new indie bookshops (which is always good for the soul). 

I have a ton of blog reading to do and even more Mastodon scrolling, but as much as I enjoyed being unplugged and focusing – I’m looking forward to being active online again.

I hope you all are well and have a good read nearby. And I hope we get to chat soon.

In an effort to get back in the groove, here are three links that I found interesting that you might too:

I really enjoyed scrolling through this Gen X catalog from Type Punch Matrix. If you are of a certain age, you may as well. Just smiles all the way around.

The history of American publishing is a fascinating subject to me and I ran across this post while doing some research which tried to answer the question, “Was a Mobile bookstore closed for selling a copy of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”?

I am interested in how publishing and authors are responding to AI and am anxiously awaiting for solutions (whether from the industry or end consumers simply asserting their preference). I did find this piece by Sarah Hall and this one about a certification start up in the U.K. as good jumping off points for recent conversations with folks I do not see eye to eye with.

Books, Publishing and Birmingham