This Week in Indie Bookstores

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A bookstore in mafia-controlled Sicily refuses to stock a book by the son of a jailed mafia “boss of bosses,” Totò Riina.

P.S.Bookshop, a used bookstore in Brooklyn’s DUMBO neighborhood, is finally closing after a year-long struggle with higher rent.

Arabic bookstores in Istanbul provide support networks for Syrian refugees.

Taipei’s metro system has a bookstore lane intended only for bookstores, but the mayor’s “narrow-minded focus on commercial profit” has allowed department stores that don’t sell books to rent space.

The Strand in New York City has launched Book Hookup, a subscription box service for book lovers offering monthly boxes filled with signed copies and book-centric bric-a-brac.

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 →