Columbia's Skylark Bookshop named one of '150 Bookstores You Need to Visit Before You Die'
To literature lovers, their favorite bookstores represent a home away from home. These are places of great taste, great comfort — and, of course, great temptation.
And the legends of farther-flung bookstores form destinations of the mind: places to plan a vacation, or at least a detour, around.
A new book spans the globe to round up "150 Bookstores You Need to Visit Before You Die" and a beloved Columbia shop is on the list.
Downtown indie Skylark Bookshop makes author Elizabeth Stamp's list in the book, released this spring via Belgium-based Lannoo Publishers. Skylark owner Alex George noted the store's inclusion in a recent social-media post.
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"We're a little thrilled about it," he said in the video posted to Facebook and Instagram. George praised the beauty of the book's design and its many photographs devoted to the particular angles and features of each shop.
Stamp's book visits every continent save Antarctica, and Skylark is in fine company among North American bookstores. Among the others featured: Books are Magic (Brooklyn, New York), City Lights (San Francisco), Powell's (Portland, Oregon), Bart's Books (Ojai, California), Semicolon (Chicago) and Left Bank Books in St. Louis.
"There is something special about each bookstore in this book, whether it’s wondrous architecture, a highly specialized inventory list or the impact it makes on the community it serves," writes Stamp, an American author who waxes nostalgic about her hometown bookstores in Wheeling, West Virginia within the book's introduction.
Skylark forms a sort of indie book oasis with Yellow Dog Bookshop on the same south side of Ninth Street. In addition to a varied inventory and kind staff, the storehouses events such as in-person and online author talks, a number of story hours — including Drag Story Time — puppy yoga, book clubs, a regular knitters' nest gathering and more.
More: Drag Story Time, a pre-pandemic favorite, returns to Skylark Bookshop
"150 Bookstores You Need to Visit Before You Die" is available, of course, at Skylark. Learn more about the shop at https://www.skylarkbookshop.com/.
Aarik Danielsen is the features and culture editor for the Tribune. Contact him at adanielsen@columbiatribune.com or by calling 573-815-1731. Find him on Twitter @aarikdanielsen.
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Columbia's Skylark one of '150 Bookstores You Need to Visit Before You Die'
