PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Saturday marks the second annual Philadelphia Bookstore Crawl, where lit lovers around the city can pop into local bookshops for giveaways and special events.
It’s a choose-your-own-adventure type of crawl, with no designated route for Philly’s literati. More than three dozen stores are participating with deals, giveaways and book signings.
This will be the first crawl for sci-fi store Multiverse and its co-owner Sara Hughes, after setting up shop in Chestnut Hill last year.
“There’s a really strong small business district here, and so there’s really great support and collaboration,” she said. “That’s just exciting to kind of grow beyond just being a bookstore but actually being an important space in the community.”
Christopher Cirillo, manager of Philly AIDS Thrift at Giovanni’s Room, said the Philly Bookstore Crawl showcases one of the city’s strengths.
“One of the cool things about Philadelphia is it’s a very ‘bookstore town,’ and in all the places that I’ve lived I find that Philly has a really great independent bookstore scene that I don’t see replicated in other places,” he said.
“[The Book Crawl] encourages people to explore different neighborhoods in Philadelphia than the ones they might be most familiar with,” added Hughes.
Cirillo said last year’s event created a lot of buzz.
“Really super exciting to see people that we’ve never seen before coming in the store, excited about books, talking about the next store that they were gonna go to. Brought a lot of life into the store,” he said.
And, he said, the event gives diverse shops the chance to find like-minded patrons.
“Everybody has their own niche audience that they’re looking for. And then the opportunity for new people to be invited into the spaces and to discover what Philly has to offer, as far as bookstores go, is great.”
For an interactive map and a list of participating shops, visit phillybookstorecrawl.com.