May is just around the corner, but before we leave April behind, there’s one special book-related event we can’t forget: Independent Bookstore Day. Held on the last Saturday of April each year, Indie Bookstore Day is a national one-day event that celebrates the beauty of independent booksellers. And why celebrate the indies?

Because they do so much more than sell books! They’re spaces for community, performance, and solitude. Not to mention, a nation-wide party filled with live music, readings, contests, barbecues, exclusive books and merch (not to mention CAKE) is always something I can get behind.

In the spirit of Independent Bookstore Day, we’ve decided to highlight some of the most unique, peculiar, and downright awesome bookstores in New York City. These aren’t just any old stores—these booksellers are the definition of quirky, whether it’s the distinctive genre they stock, the services they offer, or even the way they sell their books.

Molasses Books (Bushwick): Molasses Books is your typical independent bookstore, complete towering shelves of fiction and nonfiction books, plenty of seating, and a bar where you can barter used books for drinks. *record scratch* Yes, you read that right: Molasses will take your used books in exchange for beer, wine, tea, or coffee! Molasses Books is a prime spot to spend a few hours with friends or alone with your trusty laptop. And if you stay late doing work, you can always reward yourself with the store’s happy hour—they have $5 wine from 6 to 8 p.m.
770 Hart St, Brooklyn NY 11237 ・ www.facebook.com/MolassesBooks

Community Bookstore (Park Slope): Opened in 1971, the Community Bookstore has become a staple in Park Slope. Not only do they sell titles on unique subjects like the refugee experience, immigration, and New York City history AND run a second store called Terrace Books in Prospect Park, but they boast an impressive lineup of events (in fact, on April 10th Ms. Madeleine Albright herself did an event for the store!). As if that weren’t enough, the store has been home to a community of curious creatures over the years: the current bookstore cat and unofficial mascot, Tiny the Usurper (pictured right), as well as turtles, rabbits, and the occasional bearded dragon or two. Because when you think of indie bookstores, you think of bearded dragons, right?
143 Seventh Avenue, Brooklyn NY 11215 ・ www.communitybookstore.net

Mysterious Bookshop (TriBeCa): Picture this: you’re walking down an empty street in Tribeca one stormy night. You look up to see a curious gold sign that wasn’t there before. As you approach the foggy storefront, you start to feel uneasy… What is this place, you ask? Why, Mysterious Bookshop, of course—the country’s oldest mystery-only independent bookstore! They specialize in mystery of many kinds, including Detective, Crime, Hardboiled (not eggs, to be clear), Thrillers, Espionage, and Suspense. They also sell signed first edition books, host 5-10 public events per month, and boast a massive Sherlock Holmes section. Just don’t even think about leaving with something you didn’t pay for: as the sign in their store notes, “nobody shoplifts from a store that knows 3,214 ways to murder someone.”
58 Warren Street, New York NY 10007 ・ www.mysteriousbookshop.com

The Corner Bookstore (Carnegie Hill): Nowhere is as dedicated to making children fall in love with reading as The Corner Bookstore. While the store sells history, biography, travel, cookbooks, and much more, their specialty is children’s books, especially considering their proximity to many of the city’s private schools. The store offers special charge accounts for children, so young readers can put books “on their tab” (just be careful your kid doesn’t get hold of your credit card), and neighborhood kids have the opportunity to read advance copies of books and write reviews, which are printed in The Corner Bookstore’s newsletters. Future publishers, reviewers, and authors: this is the store for you.
1313 Madison Avenue, New York NY 10128 ・ www.cornerbookstorenyc.com

Idlewild Books (West Village & Brooklyn): Parlez-vous Français? Well, you could if you stopped at Idlewild Bookshop. Not only does Idlewild specialize in guidebooks, travel-related fiction, and glossy photo books, but the shop also offers some of the best foreign language classes in the city; they have courses in French, Spanish, Italian, and German. Be advised that their Brooklyn location only offers classes, no books. To shop and learn, you need to check out their West Village store.
170 7th Ave South, New York NY 10014 ・ www.idlewildbooks.com