Storefronts on an Evanston street beside the elevated tracks. Photo: Eric Fredericks from Rancho Cordova, CA, United States / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
Two reading-friendly holidays landed on the same day in 2015. Saturday, May 2, was both the first national Independent Bookstore Day and Free Comic Book Day, and Evanston has shops that fit each.
Bookstore Day goes national
Independent Bookstore Day grew out of California Bookstore Day, held the year before. The Christian Science Monitor reported that the American Booksellers Association watched that experiment before backing a nationwide version, and that roughly 400 stores signed up. Participating shops offered special merchandise, and some Chicago-area stores handed out different pages of an unpublished Stuart Dybek story so readers had to visit several to read it all.
In Evanston, Bookends & Beginnings planned a full schedule of in-store events and deals, along with a community photo album in which customers shared a picture of themselves holding the title of the book that changed their lives. Everyone who submitted a photo was entered in a raffle for one of three $25 gift certificates.
The store opened in June 2014 at 1712 Sherman Ave., the space left by Bookman’s Alley, according to the Daily Northwestern. That shop had sold used and rare books there for more than 30 years after Roger Carlson brought it to Evanston in 1980, and it turns up in Audrey Niffenegger’s 2003 novel The Time Traveler’s Wife. The new owner, Nina Barrett, had hoped for years to open a general independent bookstore in town.
Free comics on Davis Street
Free Comic Book Day is held on the first Saturday in May, when participating comic specialty shops across North America and elsewhere give away comics. Comix Revolution, at 606 Davis St. downtown, took part and planned to open at 10 a.m. to hand out a selection.
Other shelves in town
The two stores were not the only places to browse. Downtown Evanston also had Amaranth Books, Market Fresh Books and Howard’s Books at the time, and Squeezebox Books on Chicago Avenue stocked a changing mix of CDs and vinyl. With mild weather in the forecast, a walking loop through downtown could take in several of them.
For independent shops, a shared date helps. National days bring publicity that a single store could not buy, and customers tend to make a morning of it. A reader who came in for a free comic might leave with a novel from down the block.
Background on Independent Bookstore Day from the Christian Science Monitor; Bookends & Beginnings history from the Daily Northwestern.
Rachel Lindqvist covers community life, the lakefront, dining and the arts for The Evanston Edge.
