My Top Five Awesome Chicago Indie Bookstores
(Ranked subjectively in order of love, which means in order of how much they calm me and make me feel at home, which is totally unfair, but this is my list.)
1. 57th Street Books / the Seminary Co-Op
@57thstreetbooks @seminarycoopbookstores | Hyde Park
The seminary co-op once lived in the basement of a literal seminary. Both of these indies are winding and warm, and you can actually buy stock in the bookstore for only $30 and get 10% off in the form of customer credit. 57th Street Books is my neighborhood bookstore; the Seminary Co-Op, my college bookstore; and both make me feel like I’m home. They’re where I get 90% of my books.
@openbookstore | West Loop / Pilsen
Open Books is a nonprofit used bookstore that provides literacy programs for more than 5,000 K–12 kids a year that range from novel-writing to reading help. I worked two blocks away from the West Loop location all last summer, and I miss being able to go there on my lunch breaks. They have an awesome staff and host community events and book clubs, plus the books are cheap!
3. Women and Children First
@womenandchildrenfirst | Andersonville
Check out the most amazing feminist bookstore in the land. It’s an amazing bookstore, packed with awesome recommendation shelves that will send your diverse reads bookshelf into overdrive. I watch their author events page like a hawk: they’ve hosted Kate Schatz, Roxane Gay, Jacqueline Woodson, Gloria Steinem, Anne Patchett, and more.
@bookcellar | Logan Square
I haven’t spent as much time as I wish I had at The Book Cellar. It’s a small, cozy place off the main street of Logan Square, with both coffee and beer to satiate your thirst as you bury yourself in a book. It holds a special place in my heart because my boyfriend brought me there both last year on birthday and this year to buy a Christmas book, and because they stock my favorite beer.
I stumbled on Volumes Bookcafe on a day when I was anxious and discovered a signed staff recommendation: All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders, which was one of the most under-appreciated fantasy/sci fi releases of 2016, but which I managed to read thanks to Volumes. They had coffee and beer and insanely comfortable armchairs. I spent only about an hour there, but it’s clearly a well-curated and comfortable bookstore.
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