Independent Bookstore Day falls on the last Saturday of April each year, but Twin Cities literary organization Rain Taxi is giving local booklovers five whole days to celebrate with their annual Twin Cities Independent Bookstore Passport.
From Wednesday, April 23, to Sunday, April 27, the passport will be free to pick up at 37 bookstores across the Twin Cities. Getting a store’s stamp provides a coupon for a future visit, and the truly dedicated can collect stamps and be entered to win prizes.
“The Twin Cities are very fortunate to have so many great bookstores,” Rain Taxi executive director Eric Lorberer said. “I think people get really into how many stores they can visit and get turned on to new places that might not be on their normal path.”
Lorberer said some of his favorite stores are Magers & Quinn in Uptown, DreamHaven Books & Comics in Standish and Birchbark Books, the bookstore of famed Ojibwe author Louise Erdrich.
University of Minnesota students don’t have to go far to pick up a passport, since this year the University of Minnesota Bookstores are participating.
Independent Bookstore Day began as California Bookstore Day in 2014. The event expanded nationwide just a year later in 2015 with support from the American Booksellers Association, which took over management of the day in 2019, according to Shelf Awareness.
This year’s number of bookstores on the passport is record-setting, partly because this is the first year Rain Taxi has included used bookstores, like Dinkytown’s own Book House, on the list.
Co-owner of the Book House, Matt Hawbaker, said he had been trying for more than five years to get the store on the passport.
“With both our location and being on the second floor of our building, we’re always trying to think of ways to get more foot traffic here,” Hawbaker said.
Open since 1976, the Book House is somewhat of a last bastion of historic Dinkytown. According to Hawbaker, it is the last independent bookstore standing out of the five that were originally in the neighborhood.
Hawbaker also said being near the University influences the store’s inventory, with much of its inventory coming from cleaning out professors’ offices.
The result is an extremely wide variety of old and rare books, from leftist literature to smutty paperbacks.
“This is the place to dig for things,” Hawbaker said.
For all five of the passport days, customers with punch cards will get two punches for every $5 instead of just one. The Book House will also have a 20% discount on all books on Independent Bookstore Day on Saturday, April 26.
Another unique indie bookstore near campus is the volunteer-run Mayday Books, located in Cedar-Riverside near the eastbound Washington Avenue ramp.
Mayday, a subterranean shop which specializes in left-wing literature, has not sold books for profit for 50 years now, instead selling them 15-20% below their cover prices.
“We are an independent source of news and analysis, and we have stuff here you won’t find anywhere else,” said Craig Palmer, Mayday’s de facto manager.
Palmer, who has been a part of Mayday since 1980, said the store has been on the passport for about five years. Their limited hours of 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday, though, might make it more difficult to stop by.
Still, Palmer said Mayday is a unique store for independent thinkers.
“We’re an all-volunteer operation of people dedicated to making a better world,” he said.
Though it may be tempting to try to hit all 37 stores during the passport period, Lorberer stressed the importance of taking one’s time while visiting each store, which he said are important cultural institutions year-round.
“Our consumer culture takes where things come from for granted. We’re giving up more for convenience than we realize,” he said. “Books are the record of our humanity, and supporting these stores means supporting the real-life cultures of our local communities.”