CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — On the second floor of the Fine Arts Building on Michigan Avenue, the small-but-busy Exile in Bookville is gaining popularity by mixing books with music.
Music like a Phil Collins’ cover of the Supreme's “You Can't Hurry Love,” which played over the speakers on a recent trip into the independent bookstore. Co-owner Javier Ramirez said it’s just a sample of what plays at the store every day.
“I think it's a little more upbeat and jaunty and so unlike Phil Collins, to be honest,” he said.
Ramirez is one of the store's co-owners. He said the playlists have quickly grown in popularity among customers — with some asking Ramirez to share the login for their Spotify playlists. That's no coincidence, he added. Music is in the store's DNA, whether it comes through in niche playlists or an impressive vinyl collection.
“People generally walk straight to the vinyl section and start flipping through,” he said. “Whether they buy something or not, they go right to that and start flipping through.”
The store's owners love music so much that they even named the entire store after their favorite album: Liz Phair’s “Exile in Guyville.”
“We wanted to make our music love be known and that's a perfect way to do it: a play on that album,” Kristin Enola Gilbert is a store co-owner. “It has Chicago ties, and we wanted to sort of cement that Chicago identity, and that music identity in our bookstore.”
Gilbert said she and Ramirez opened the store in 2021, after first being online during COVID. The shop is neighbors to author studios, theaters and violin shops.
She said being located in the Fine Arts Building just made sense.
“Any type of art really is created here,” Gilbert said. “A lot of authors and illustrators worked in this building and produced in this building, so it was a natural fit trying to carry on that literary tradition the Fine Arts Building has.”
Along with music, she said it was also important for smaller works and underrepresented voices to be a feature of the store.
“We are very proud and do our best to give as much attention, table space, shelf space to small, independent publishers, translated works, things like that — that you don't necessarily find at every bookstore, and you certainly don't find at Barnes and Noble,” Gilbert said.
She said that the wide range of works doesn't go unnoticed, especially among tourists.
“We have people all over the world say, ‘I've looked all over the world for the book everywhere. I can't believe I'm finding it here,’ or ‘You have such a great representation of other countries and other authors and ethnicities and races,’” Gilbert said.
That kind of community, Gilbert added, is what makes running a bookstore in Chicago so rewarding:
“Chicago is a great, great, great city and has a wonderful literary history and tradition and community, and we couldn't ever want to be anywhere else.”
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