Announcing our December partner bookseller: Greenlight!

Sarah at Greenlight makes it official.

Every month Book Post teams up with a indie bookstore to link to our pieces and highlight local book communities. This month’s bookselling partner, drum roll please, will be Greenlight, of Fort Greene and Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Brooklyn! Greenlight, was founded in 2009 when two bookselling and publishing veterans, Jessica Stockton Bagnulo and Rebecca Fitting, left their cubicles behind and enlisted the help of neighbors and friends and book-industry supporters to bend their labors to building a store in the Fort Green section of Brooklyn. (The Times reported on their quixotic effort at the time.) The nineties had seen a bloodbath in independent bookselling, with the number of independent shops falling 40 percent nationally in one five-year period, and New York City was in the midst of a rout of the great bookselling institutions that had contributed to its reputation as a literary capitol. But the twenty-first century has seen a spirited revival in independents, around the US and in New York; and Greenlight caught and nourished the currents that have made Brooklyn an oasis of literary life. Even though Greenlight is only a few miles from the haunts of corporate giants, it remains steadfastly a neighborhood place, committed to nourishing the reading life of Brooklynites of all sorts. And, by the way, it anchors a constellation of NYC bookstores founded and operated by women: Greenlight, McNally Jackson, Books are Magic, the Astoria Bookshop, and Bronx bookstore-in-the-making, The Lit Bar. Plus its logo was designed by the legendary book-arts shop, Purgatory Pie Press; half of which (we won’t say the better), Esther Smith, has done so much to preserve and update the art of bookmaking. We’re offering Greenlight shoppers who spend more than $100 this month a free one-month subscription to Book Post! Icing on the cake! We’re happy to extend the offer to Greenlight’s online shoppers: just send us your receipt at info@bookpostusa.com.

Speaking of gift-giving: Why not give the gift of Book Post! People have too much stuff anyway, eh? Surprise them with something new, both a pleasant little morsel of reading in their day and a share in a project supporting writers, bookselling, independent publishing, and restoration of a common culture. You can still give a year’s subscription at our discounted launch rate; or—a give little one-monther as a great little bon-bon for that friend to whom you want to send something small. Spread the word.

Happy holidays to you all, dear readers, and thank you for supporting Book Post. Wish us luck in the year ahead!