Mid-Autumn Chinatown Book Sale

A wide variety of Asian, Asian-American & Pacific Island-themed and authored books — children’s books, cookbooks, fiction, graphic novels, history, etc. — will be available.

A Book A Day fundraiser

Bindlestiff has partnered with A Book a Day for several years to place children’s books in West Philadelphia public schools. They’ve also organized author visits, worked with students to create a book-themed mural, sponsored writing contests, distributed free books through community organizations and mobile dental clinics, etc. Their annual fundraiser is on Saturday, October 7 from 1-4pm at the University City Arts League. Kids’ focused band Ants on a Log is performing, authors Thembi Palmer and Kat Yeh will read and sign books, kid-friendly fun crafts can be made, and anew, one-of-a-kind project will be unveiled! More details and optional RSVP here:  https://www.eventbrite.com/e/alphabet-soup-with-a-book-a-day-tickets-707191708437?aff=oddtdtcreator

2024 Calendars

Our 2024 calendars and planners have started coming in. We have Nikki McClure, Radical Jewish and Patel’s Start Where You Are on hand (with others, including the Solidarity Forever labor history calendar, on order), and also a large selection of Slingshot planners in three different sizes.

2024 Slingshot planners

Dollar Stroll, Thursday Sept. 7

Weather permitting (there’s a chance of rain, and we don’t take books out in the rain), we’ll be offering a wide selection of books at $1, and some books for $3, during the Baltimore Avenue dollar stroll, from 5 to 8 pm. The store will also be open late to accommodate strollers.

Ragged Hours

Several volunteers recently left Philadelphia to study (from Chicago to Dublin), and others are adjusting to new work schedules as we move from summer to Fall. As a result, our schedule will be a bit unpredictable for early September, as we train and work in new volunteers and figure out what hours we can reliably cover.

We expect to be able to open pretty much every day on the schedule (Tuesday through Sunday, closed Mondays), but not necessarily for every shift. Some days we might open late, others we may have to close early. So it might make sense to call first (215.662.5780) if you’re making a special trip. Saturdays (Noon – 7) and Sundays (Noon – 5) should be completely reliable; right now, Tuesdays are looking the shakiest.

Bindlestiff Best-Sellers

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

Charles Yu, Interior Chinatown

E. T. A. Hoffmann, The Nutcracker (picture book)

University City: History, Race, and Community in the Era of the Innovation District

Crying in H Mart: A Memoir

Sea of Tranquility: A novel

Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower

bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions

Madeleine Miller, Circe

Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead: A Novel

David Graeber & David Wengrow, Dawn of Everything

Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents

Ursula K Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

Samin Nosrat, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking

R F Kuang, Yellowface: A Novel

R F Kuang, Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution

Ling Ma, Severance: A Novel

James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

Jeff Vandermeer, Annihilation

Amal El-Mohtar, This Is How You Lose the Time War

Cory Silverberg, You Know, Sex: Bodies, Gender, Puberty, and Other Things

Lamya H, Hijab Butch Blues: A Memoir

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

N K Jemison, The City We Became: A Novel

Mariame Kaba, Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care

Alice Wong, ed., Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century

Larry Mitchell, The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions

K O’Neill, The Moth Keeper: (A Graphic Novel)

Eva Chen, A Is for Awesome!: 23 Iconic Women Who Changed the World

Diana Murray, Goodnight, Veggies (board book)

2023 Philly Book Crawl

The Philadelphia Bookstore Crawl is a yearly (at least, that’s the plan!) celebration of Philadelphia’s wildly vibrant and wonderful bookstore scene, the last Saturday of every August.

This year’s will take place on Saturday, August 26th. Details at https://www.phillybookstorecrawl.com/ Bindlestiff Books will be open Noon to 7, with a range of give-aways including Book Crawl totebags.

We also have free copies of the new Philadelphia Bookstore Map, showing pretty much every new and used bookstore in the city. (descriptions, paintings, and of course the map)

Baltimore Avenue Dollar Stroll

Bindlestiff Books will be selling a variety of children’s and adult books for $1 as part of the Baltimore Avenue Dollar Stroll Thursday, June 15, from 5 pm to 8 pm. The store will also remain open that evening. Stores and vendors will offer a wide selection of food, gifts, theater tickets, etc. along Baltimore Avenue from 40th to 51st streets, for $1 to $5. Gretchen Elise will be performing at the 40th Street trolley portal; there will be a block party at 48th with live jazz, and face painting and other activities near the HMS school.

Bindlestiff Best-Sellers

These are our best-selling titles for the past two months:

Charles Yu, Interior Chinatown

Mike Weilbacher, Wild Philly: Explore the Amazing Nature in and around Philadelphia

Peter Brown, The Wild Robot Escapes

Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart: A Memoir

Matthew Reinhart, Shapes: My First Pop-Up!

Rosa Chang, My Indigo World: A True Story of the Color Blue (picture book)

Anne Richardson, Octopuses have Zero Bones: A Counting Book About Our Amazing World

bell hooks, All About Love

Mac Barnett, Twenty Questions (picture book)

R.F. Kuang, Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution

Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents

Ross Gay, The Book of Delights

Jessica Fern, Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy

Jenny Odell, Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock

Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

Marea Goodman & Ray Rachlin, Baby Making for Everybody: Famioly Building and Fertility foir LBGTQ+ and Solo Parents

James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

Ursula Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

David Grann, The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder

Maia Kobabe, Gender Queer: A Memoir (graphic novel)

Elif Batuman, The Idiot (fiction)

Carmen Machado, Her Body and Other Parties: Stories

Elsa Mroziewicz, Peek-A-Who Too?

Dan Simmons, Hyperion

West Philly Treasure Hunt Saturday

Using one-of-a-kind A Book a Day maps, children can navigate their way across West Philly to collect treasure (books!) from ten Little Free Library locations hosting amazing titles. Each Little Library location has new books focused on a specific theme, like Outdoors, Beach, World Languages, Superheroes, Graphic Novels, and more!

For the first time, we will also have a location for books specifically for the little ones. We are giving away over 400 brand-new books to take home, add to your library, and share with family and friends.

You can pick up larger, nicely folding, laminated copies of the trreasure maps at the Walnut Street West Library, 40th & Walnut Street; Bindlestiff Books, 4530 Baltimore Avenue; or the Family Resource Center at Penn, 3615 Locust Walk, from May 10 through May 19. You can download copies here!

Finally, to celebrate a successful day of treasure hunting, come by the Walnut Street West Library, 40th & Walnut Street, Saturday, May 20, at 12 pm to see a fun, silly, and invigorating performance by the children’s musical group Ants on a Log!

Stay tuned to the A Book a Day Instagram for some sneak peeks of the books.