Support Your Local Independent Bookstores

What would Reed Richards be without his journals, weeklies, and textbooks to study? What would Peter Parker be without his school library? Bruce Banner? Tony Stark? Riri Williams, Amadeus Cho, Hank Pym, Lunella Lafayette, Beast?

Each of these characters, and countless more across the mighty Marvel Multiverse, became who they are by reading, studying, learning and evolving thanks to the creativity and knowledge they found in books. Just like the real-world writers and artists who tell their stories.

For many Marvelites, local independent bookstores were the first place they experienced the wonder and inspiration from stories, and we here at the House of Ideas want to remind readers of the vital importance of these places. To find your favorite local independent bookstores, visit the American Booksellers Association for more information.

"Independent bookstores are the heart and soul of many communities across the country," says CHAMPIONS and OUTLAWED writer Eve L. Ewing. "They're more than just a place to buy books—they're a place for gathering, a safe place to hang out, they're job providers, and they are cultural hubs where people can go to meet local authors and connect with other folks about things they care about."

"Independent bookstores have been life-changing for me," agrees novelist and SPIDER-MAN NOIR scribe Margaret Stohl. "When I was in elementary school, every single book I read (many!) came from the hands of one particular clerk at Campbell's Bookstore in Westwood Village, who had a new pick waiting for my mom each week. I've written 18 books and graphic novels now, and to this day nothing compares to the honor of discovering one of my books is a 'staff pick' on an indie bookstore's shelf.

"But even before my first book, Beautiful Creatures, was published, my co-author Kami Garcia and I were adopted by Jonathan Sanchez of Blue Bicycle Books, in Charleston, South Carolina, where our novel was set. Two years later, the three of us co-founded YALLFest, now one of the biggest teen and youth book festivals in the country, because it was something good we could do for a community that had been so good to us.

"Churchill said, 'We shape our buildings, and thereafter our buildings shape us,' and you could say the same thing about a bookstore. Independent bookstores are made from the sweat and blood of people who love books; independent bookstores are where readers and writers and, yes, heroes are made."

Visit BookWeb.org for more information on how to support your local indie bookstores!