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Support Independent Booksellers! Today is Buy Indie Day!!
Post by Willy Blackmore, Special to LAist
Los Angeles, as many metropolitan areas around the country, has lost a number of independent bookstores over the past few years. They have closed for a variety of reason—many spurred by financial difficulties or other unavoidable events, such as Long Beach’s literary institution Acres of Books which met its end after being forced out by a redevelopment project.
Regardless of what brought them to closing their doors, the loss of a bookstore is a loss to any neighborhood. Despite all of the cries of the death of book and the end of reading, independent bookstores are treasured by their customers as refuges of ideas and quite, an integral part of a community where one can browse for hours, finding countless new books to read or sharing recommendations with a clerk or another customer. If you’ve only ever had a Borders or Barnes & Nobles close at hand, you don’t know what you’re missing. And for those that have lost their local store, we feel your pain.
To support and celebrate the many indies that are still in business around the country, Indie Bound, a non-profit affiliated with the American Booksellers Association, has put together Buy Indie Day
Indie Bound has a convenient map that will help you find which independent bookstores are located closest to home. We’re thinking of picking up our book at either Skylight Books in Los Feliz or Small World Books in Venice. Where will you go? And what book do you plan on buying?
Photo by Lori Nyx for LAist
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Right now, LAist has lost $1.7M in annual funding due to Congress clawing back money already approved. The support we receive from readers like you will determine how fully our newsroom can continue informing, serving, and strengthening Southern California.
If this story helped you today, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.
Your tax-deductible donation keeps LAist independent and accessible to everyone.
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