Masks still required at Bindlestiff

While all Bindlestiff volunteers are now vaccinated, for the safety of our customers and staff we will continue requiring customers and staff wear masks while in the bookstore for the next several weeks.

Bindlestiff Bestsellers

These are our best-selling books for the past month:

Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart: A Memoir

Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower

Bell Hooks, All About Love: New Visions

Jericho Brown, The Tradition (poems)

Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun

Torrey Peters, Detransition, Baby: A Novel

Amanda Gorman, The Hill We Climb: An Inaugural Poem for the Country

Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Carole Lindstrom, We Are Water Protectors (picture book)

Kelly Depucchio, Oona (picture book)

Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web

Mariame Kaba, We Do This ‘Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice

Dav Pilkey, Dog Man: Mothering Heights

Micha Archer, Daniel Finds a Poem (picture book)

Junot Diaz, Lola: Edición en español de Islandborn

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

Jessica Love, Julián Is a Mermaid (picture book)

Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer: A Novel

Bindlestiff Bestsellers

These are our best-selling titles for the last month:

Christine Kendall, The True Definition of Neva Beane

Alice Walker, Hard Times Require Furious Dancing: New Poems

Torrey Peters, Detransition, Baby

Bell Hooks, All About Love: New Visions

Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun

Ross Gay, The Book of Delights: Essays

Jericho Brown, The Tradition

Anna Malaika Tubbs, The Three Mothers: How the Mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and James Baldwin Shaped a Nation

Carole Lindstrom, We Are Water Protectors (picture book)

Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower

Robin Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

Brandon Taylor, Real Life: A Novel

Mikki Kendall, Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot

Colin Whitehead, The Nickel Boys

R.O. Kwon, Kink: Stories

Brit Bennett, The Mothers

Barack Obama, A Promised Land

Matt Haig, The Midnight Library

Anna North, Outlawed

Gloria Anzaldula, Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza

50th anniversary of Media FBI burglary

Fifty years ago, activists raided the FBI office in Media, seizing thousands of documents on FBI spying and harassment of a wide range of activist movement. Now an official state historical marker marks the site where the citizens’ committee to investigate the FBI struck. As Inquirer columnist Will Bunch notes,

The suitcases of FBI files that the eight burglars, including the mastermind of the scheme, the late Haverford College professor William Davidon, made off with that night revealed stunning secrets about the lengths to which Hoover’s FBI not only spied upon, but sought to disrupt, legitimate dissent over the war as well as the movement for Black civil rights. The best-known discoveries exposed the existence of COINTELPRO, a massive, covert government operation to harass activists on the left, and efforts to surveil and harass the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., including the notorious 1964 letter in which a top FBI official sent MLK a tape of sexual liaison with an anonymous suggestion that he kill himself.

Could there be a better time to read Betty Medsger’s compelling book, The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover’s Secret F.B.I.? We’re putting copies in our window to mark the occasion. It reads like a thriller, and it documents the criminality of an agency that continues to violate civil liberties to this day.

Bindlestiff Bestsellers

These are our best-selling titles for the last month, in descending order of sales:

Barack Obama, A Promised Land

Matthew Burgess, Drawing on Walls: A Story of Keith Haring (picture book)

Yaa Gyasi, Transcendent Kingdom: A novel

Ottessa Moshfegh, Death in Her Hands: A Novel

Brit Bennett, The Vanishing Half: A Novel

Elena Ferrante, The Lying Life of Adults

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

N.K. Jemisin, The City We Became

Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of our Discontents

Carmen Machado, In the Dream House: A Memoir

adrienne maree brown, We Will Not Cancel Us: And Other Dreams of Transformative Justice 

Jessica Love, Julián at the Wedding

Christine Kendall, The True Definition of Neva Beane

Madeleine Miller, Circe

Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower

Dan Pilkey, Cat Kid Comic Club

Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures

Ernest Cline, Ready Player Two

Aimee Nezhukumatathil, World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments

Rumaan Alam, Leave the World Behind

Yotam Ottolenghi, Sweet: Desserts from London’s Ottolenghi

Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies

Bindlestiff Books featured in new book promo film

Bindlestiff Books plays a starring role in a short film promoting the debut novel by Philadelphian Elizabeth Green, Confessions of a Curious Bookseller. The book is set in a used bookstore in the “heart of West Philadelphia,” steps from Clark Park. In the film our store plays the part of the used bookstore (though of course we have never sold used books), and the author plays the part of the proprietor of said store. The novel itself is epistolary, told through email messages, journal entries and tweets that chronicle her battles to keep the store open and reboot her life. We have the book in stock, you can find the film here.

Bindlestiff Bestsellers

These are our best-selling titles for the last month, in descending order of sales:

Barack Obama, A Promised Land

Andrea D’Aquino, A Life Made by Hand: The Story of Ruth Asawa (picture book)

adrienne maree brown, We Will Not Cancel Us: And Other Dreams of Transformative Justice 

Yaa Gyasi, Transcendent Kingdom: A novel

Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies

Ernest Cline, Ready Player Two

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

Ottessa Moshfegh, Death in Her Hands: A Novel

N.K. Jemisin, The City We Became

Elena Ferrante, The Lying Life of Adults

Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of our Discontents

Innosanta Nagara, A is for Activist (board book)

Roman Mars, The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design

Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower

Brit Bennett, The Vanishing Half: A Novel

Jessica Love, Julián at the Wedding

Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures

Kiley Reid, Such a Fun Age

Madeleine Miller, Circe

Carmen Machado, In the Dream House: A Memoir

bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions

Brit Bennett, The Mothers: A Novel

Dan Pilkey, Cat Kid Comic Club

Holiday Hours

We are closed Dec. 25.

Saturday, Dec. 26: We will be open Noon – 7

Sunday, Dec. 27: Noon – 5

Closed Monday and Tuesday

Wednesday, Dec. 30: Noon – 7

Thursday, Dec. 31: Noon – 3:30 (and possibly later)

Friday, Jan. 1: Closed

Bindlestiff Bestsellers

These are our best-selling titles for the last month, in descending order of sales:

Andrea D’Aquino, A Life Made by Hand: The Story of Ruth Asawa (picture book)

Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

Yaa Gyasi, Transcendent Kingdom: A novel

bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions

Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower

Leo Lionni, Little Blue and Little Yellow (board book)

Susan Clarke, Piranesi

Elena Ferrante, The Lying Life of Adults

Leo Lionni, Pezzettino

Resmaa Menakem, My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies

Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

adrienne maree brown, We Will Not Cancel Us: And Other Dreams of Transformative Justice 

Mark Stamaty, Who Needs Donuts? (picture book)

Barack Obama, A Promised Land

Brit Bennett, The Vanishing Half: A Novel

NK Jemisin, The City We Became

Ocean Vuong, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous: A Novel

Brit Bennett, The Vanishing Half: A Novel

Kiley Reid, Such a Fun Age

Kacen Callender, Felix Ever After

Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography

Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law

Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions

Ursula LeGuin, Lao Tzu: Tao Te Ching: A Book about the Way and the Power of the Way

Jessica Love, Julián at the Wedding

Bell Hooks, The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love

Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents

Yoko Ogawa, The Memory Police: A Novel

Sepideh Sarihi, My Favorite Memories (picture book)

Jorge Luis Borges, Everything and Nothing

Innosanta Nagara, A is for Activist (board book)

Frank Herbert, Dune

Zadie Smith, Intimations: Six Essays

Mathieu Pierloot, Look, It’s Raining (picture book)

Greta Thunberg, No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference

Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of our Discontents

Upcoming event celebrates Philly authors; notable books of 2020

Words of Revolution; Words of Solace Join Blue Stoop, a home for Philly writers, on Saturday, December 5 at 7pm for a very exciting event! Purchase your tax-deductible sliding scale ticket here.

Words of Revolution; Words of Solace, is a fully captioned innovative video program produced by award-winning Philadelphia cinematographer Aly Spengler and featuring readings from ten of the most exciting voices writing in and around Philadelphia today: Brittney Cooper, Myriam Gurba, Anne Ishii, Airea Matthews, Trapeta Mayson, Kiley Reid, Nikil Saval, Eric Smith, Amber Sparks, and Elissa Washuta. Featured writers will perform words written by their heroes relevant to the ideas of revolution and of solace. Sit back and settle in!

The National Book Foundation has announced its 2020 awards in fiction, non-fiction, poetry, translated literature and young people’s literature: https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-2020/

The New York Times’ 100 Notable Books of 2020 can be found here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/books/notable-books.html