Bookstores

A new bookstore called Annabelle’s Book Club LA will open in LA’s Studio City, on November 25. The store will have a YA focus and be “a highly curated collection of books and gifts with a modern point of view.” It is founded by 16-year-old Annabelle Chang, and located in Studio City.

Zibby Owens will open a bookstore called Zibby’s Bookshop in Santa Monica, CA in 2023. The store will be 823-square-feet and focus on “showcasing highly curated titles in an innovative way, spotlighting authors, guiding readers, and fostering community.” Last year, Owens also launched imprint Zibby Books.

Barnes & Noble will open a new NYC location at 3rd Avenue and E. 87th Street in spring 2023. Its previous location in the neighborhood, on E. 86th Street, closed in the summer of 2020. CEO James Daunt said, “It is very good news to bring our bookstore back to the Upper East Side. It was very sad to close in the depths of the pandemic and especially pleasing now to reopen with one that is so dramatically more attractive. We take over a beautiful building with an old-style character with which it is a pleasure to work in creating […]

On Wednesday, November 2, Barnes & Noble will open a new store in Riverhead, NY, in the Riverhead Shopping Center, “the first new Barnes & Noble to open on Long Island in 14 years.” Most recent BN “openings” have been for replacement stores. In this case, they are serving a community that last had a chain bookstore in 2011, when Borders liquidated in 2011.

Longtime Kansas City independent bookstore Rainy Day Books will be sold to a local ownership group, with the deal expected to close in November. Some of the owners of Made in KC, a quickly-growing group of retail shops, have paired with a group of investors and bookstore customers known as Friends of Rainy Day Books, forming a consortium of at least 16 people financing the purchase. Made in KC co-owner Tyler Enders indicates “there are likely to be slight tweaks in the future, including the possibility of adding more locations. ‘We do want to bring more people into the shop, […]

Costco has stopped selling books in Hawaii and Alaska, Honolulu Civil Beat reports. The company told publishers that shipping costs were the a reason to stop selling outside of the contiguous US, but that doesn’t account for sales or returns from local distributors and publishers, who benefitted from the discoverability of the warehouse’s book sections for both residents and tourists. “We knew Costco had the ability to reach a broader market and as a result we’d print a wider selection of books and high print runs,” said Buddy Bess, publisher of Hawaiian publisher Bess Press. “Without that widespread distribution, it […]