This Week in Indie Boosktores

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A charity bookstore in Swansea, Wales, had so many copies of Fifty Shades of Gray that the store built a fort.

A Georgia store needs a superhero after more than $200,000 worth of comic books were stolen.

One of the Hong Kong booksellers who disappeared last year amidst mainland China’s censorship sweep has vowed to quit the book trade.

A Japanese man in Osaka has turned his home into a secondhand bookstore.

A Kuala Lumpur bookstore that has served a million customers will be quietly shutting down.

A bookseller in India is hoarding coins and comic books.

Nashville’s newest bookstore fits inside a van, and that means it can bring the shop to its customers.

Art book publishers Phaidon worked with New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art to open a popup store.

Kate Gale, managing editor of Red Hen Press, explains her love of indie bookstores.


Ian MacAllen is the author of Red Sauce: How Italian Food Became American (Rowman & Littlefield, April 2022). His writing has appeared in Chicago Review of Books, Southern Review of Books, The Offing, 45th Parallel Magazine, Little Fiction, Vol 1. Brooklyn, and elsewhere. He tweets @IanMacAllen and is online at IanMacAllen.com. More from this author →