NYC Bookstores Offering Delivery + Pick-Up
Support small business when pursuing your literary desires
Shopping might be faster through billion-dollar corporations, but there’s no store quite as charming or magical as the independent bookshop. And even though we can’t peruse the shelves of our favorite indie booksellers right now, while chatting with employees about their recommendations, we can support these crucial businesses by purchasing from them online. Even if you’re not a big reader, most of these stores also have music, gifts, activity kits, and much more on offer. Whenever possible, please consider buying, tipping or donating to their various relief efforts.
Bronx
While community hub The Lit is closed, they’re still selling products online—powered by Bookshop, which is a super-useful resource for supporting local booksellers all over. Boogie Down Books also offers delivery and has countless titles for kids and teens in stock. Shop online for comics and collectables at NY Collector Cave.
Brooklyn
Bushwick’s Mil Mundos Books supplies more to the neighborhood than a good read, it’s also a community space under normal circumstances. With half their titles in Spanish, they are offering free, contactless bike drop-off to several areas; pick-up for others who live locally; plus, free delivery on orders of $50 or more. Books Are Magic, PowerHouse, Spoonbill and Sugartown, Park Slope’s Community Bookstore and intersectional feminist shop and cafe Cafe con Libros have delivery options for online purchases. For kids and teens, Stories has books galore as well as online workshops on zines and chess available. With locations in Prospect Lefferts Gardens and Fort Greene, Greenlight offers new and used books for adults and kids. In Bay Ridge, Bookmark sells everything from novels to puzzles online. Greenpoint’s Archestratus has pick-up and delivery options (and a food market, too) and around the corner Word has an online shop but is also taking phone orders for pick-up.
Manhattan
Sister’s Uptown Bookstore—the oldest black- and family-owned bookstore and community center in Harlem—has hundreds of books for kids and adults, while the wonderful multilingual community bookshop Word Up has fiction and general interest titles aplenty. Also in Harlem, Revolution Books has 6,000+ titles to shop for adults and kids; and Bank Street Bookstore, a resource for children, parents and teachers, is also fulfilling online orders. On the UES, Corner Bookstore is taking email orders, as is Shakespeare & Co. Books of Wonder (with locations on the UWS and Chelsea) has an online shop full of new, old and rare treasures for kids and is hosting virtual story time.
The cozy Greenwich Village store Three Lives & Company has an online order form for delivery—and its staff is available for recommendations. NYC icon The Strand boasts thousands of titles. Bravo’s Book Nook sells everything from plays to coloring books and also has online story time. The very excellent volunteer-run and collectively-owned Blue Stockings online store is up and running. In the East Village, newcomer Book Club offers free bike delivery to various spots in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens and affordable delivery elsewhere. The oldest mystery specialist book shop in the country, The Mysterious Bookshop is delivering their spooky and strange stories worldwide.
Queens
Several book stores in NYC’s biggest borough want you to keep reading. The beloved Astoria Bookshop has contactless, curbside pick-up available—after your online purchase, they send you an appointment link. Kew and Willow in Kew Gardens offers delivery and pick-up options, as does LIC’s Book Culture, who also has two Manhattan locations. Royal Collective is closed for pick-up, but they are taking email orders for delivery for comics and graphic novels—or anything else in stock, including action figures. Silver Age Comics in Astoria has new, old and rare titles online, as well as collectibles. Ridgewood’s Topos Bookstore‘s online shop is full of plenty of interesting queer- and gender-focused reads, plus fiction, poetry, games and more.
Staten Island
JHU Comic Books (also with a Manhattan location) has launched a new eBay store as well as a Shopify site for all adventures from Marvel, DC and lots of independent publishers. If you can’t wait for delivery, Hypno-Tronic Comics (at Stuyvesant Place) also has a curbside pick-up option. For used and rare books, Great Expectations has an online shop full of off-kilter and surprising tomes that will fascinate readers for hours.
Hero image also courtesy of Mil Mundos Books
