NYC’s Lower East Side’s Pride Book Crawl

I went to NYC’s Lower East Side’s Pride Book Crawl! It was my first one and it was awesome! I bought stickers, bookmarks, zines, and of course, a few books! There were 7 bookstores in all but I got to 5 of them before my phone ran dangerously low on battery so I decided to call it a day. The thing is that my phone’s battery is bad to begin with, my portable charger died and also I was using Google Maps the whole time to navigate. But luckily the Uber I caught back to Grand Central had a charger so I went from 12% to 30% in the 15 minute ride.

Here are the stores on the route. The last two I didn’t get to.

Route
Sweet Pickle Books – 47 Orchard St
Bluestockings Books – 116 Suffolk St
Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks – 28 E 2nd St
Book Club Bar – 197 E 3rd St (at Ave B)
Pillow-Cat Books – 328 E 9th St
Village Works – 12 St Mark’s Place
Yu & Me Books – 44 Mulberry St.

I think my two favorite were Cat Pillow Books (they had a cute cat, I mean, come on!!) and the Book Club Bar. I also really liked the queer owned-and-operated one, Blue Stockings Bookstore, except that they allowed multiple panhandlers in their store who approached me and I felt very uncomfortable. So after being hit up twice for money I hightailed it out of there. Honestly if it weren’t for that I would have stayed longer. They even had a public bathroom and a water station which was awesome.

The Sweet Pickle Bookstore was great too in that they sold jars of different flavored and types of pickles – totally unique! But it was pretty crowded and cramped in there.

I ate a scone and had a “Murder On the Orient Espresso Martini” for lunch – I had to make it back in time for art therapy otherwise I would have stopped for a proper lunch – but it was still a really cool place!

The books I bought were:

-Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens On Our Sex-Obsessed Culture by Sherronda J. Brown (purchased at Bluestockings Books)

-A Gentleman’s Gentleman by TJ Alexander (purchased at The Book Club Bar & signed by the author. Also, they moderated the adult queer panel at Barnes & Noble last weekend and I didn’t realize they’d be signing books so I’m glad I picked this signed one up!)

-Show Me Where the Hurt Is by Hayden Casey (also purchased at the Book Club Bar; a melancholy short story collection I bought off the “blind date with a book” shelf, having only read a description, not knowing the title or author of the book. I am SUPER intrigued & excited to read this one!)

-A Book Lover’s Guide to New York by Cleo Li-Tan (purchased at Cat Pillow Books).