Dog-Eared Books Visits St. Louis Bookstores: Highlights and Reflections
Last week, almost half of your Dog-Eared staff ventured to St. Louis for the Heartland Fall Forum. While there, we visited six different St. Louis stores (and would have seen even more, if we’d had the time!). As Indie booksellers, one of the great delights of visiting other indies is seeing how other bookstores go about doing this work. Each bookstore has lessons for us to learn, and we deeply enjoyed hitting the books (don’t pardon the pun—I’m rather proud of it) in that regard.
Betty's Books is a new shop focused on manga, graphic novels, and kid's books located in Webster Groves. The bright, pop-arty interior felt so lively and inviting, and the curation at this store gave us plenty of ideas on how to continue developing our own graphic novel sections (and how we might go about bringing back our own manga section!), and Tanvi and Emily especially loved their collection of zines. We found kindred spirits in their staff and adored thier fresh and eager enthusiasm for their new venture (Betty's just celebrated their first birthday!).
Another exciting discovery here was their connection to author, illustrator, and graphic novelist John Hendrix. We love his YA graphic novel The Faithful Spy (among others), and were downright giddy over their connection to him. Overall, this store was a refreshing delight.
Next we visited Subterranean Books. Founded in 2000, we discovered they had only moved into their current location in 2021 (As for the name, maybe the previous location was underground? It entirely escaped our minds to ask!) When we arrived well before the conference-hosted bus tour arrived, we found the staff busily preparing for all the booksellers who would soon be visiting. As we strolled through the store, it was obvious the collection here was loved and curated, and the care for they had for the store at large was plainly felt.
Another cool aspect of this store was its location—right in the heart of a historic cultural district colloquially referred to as The Loop in University City, Missouri, on the western edge of St. Louis. The area is peppered with plaques along the St. Louis Walk of Fame commemorating famous St. Louisians, including Chuck Berry, who performed more than 200 times at Blueberry Hill, the iconic live music venue where we grabbed delicious ruebens for lunch, just a hop, skip, and a jump from Subterranean.
Founded by students in 1969 as a leftist collective to sell underground, counter-culture, feminist, and anti-establishment literature, this bookstore is legendary. Left Bank Books boasts decades of committed community involvement and investment thanks to the commitment of owner Kris Kleindienst, who's spent nearly half a century in bookselling and was honored as the Voice of the Heartland by the Midwest and Great Lakes Independent Bookseller Associations.
The warm customer service and excellent curation we experienced at Left Bank, paired with their commitment to the people of St. Louis, offer a shining example of what an independent bookstore can mean to a community. One particular aspect of this store we loved (among many, including the custom tea blends based on each of their bookstore cats) was how they shelved their used section—instead of the orderly rows of shelves like the new books, the used section was winding and close. Given that most used-book shoppers love the treasure hunt, this style of shelving made the used books feel like they were being discovered, like you could uncover true gems from their depths. Whether this was the intent or not, we don’t know, but it was definitely an effective choice!
The Novel Neighbor, also located in Webster Grove not far from Betty’s Books, had a lot that felt like home in this almost entirely female-run bookstore. We loved poring over their staff picks shelves, finding the bookseller whose collection of books most closely aligned with each of our tastes (leading to exclamations of “I’m such a Cassie!” or or “Haley has amazing taste”). They had a great collection of gift items, and stickers separated in different fandom file folders (making it easy to find delightful Fleabag and A Court of Thorns and Roses stickers).
We were particularly pleased to speak with their social media manager, Cassie, whose work we've admired from afar and who often visits Ames with her Ames-native partner. Mariah felt like she was meeting a celebrity with how often Cassie appears on her TikTok for you page, and couldn’t wait to share the excellent books she’s read at Cassie’s recommendation. The cherry on top? Their awesome conference opener party, with craft cocktails and karaoke!
Visiting Main Street Books in St. Charles, Missouri's, historical riverfront shopping district is like stepping onto the set of a Hallmark movie (and one of the booksellers alleged this street was the inspiration for the Main Street in the new release Small Town Big Magic by Hazel Beck). The street is paved in bricks and the buildings date back more than 200 years. Filled with delightful little boutiques, restaurants, bakeries, spice shops, and more, we were entirely enamored. The first day we went, the shop was closing early as they too were attending the Fall Forum, and the ladies working were generous enough to let us get a peek in. The weather was perfect, the trees dropped perfectly golden fall leaves, and the ladies of Main Street Books welcomed us with the unique joy of fellow book lovers.
Their historical shop was a delight to explore, filled to the brim both upstairs and down with books and other merchandise. and the Little Women purse Amanda purchased from their Well Read accessories garnered countless compliments at the conference. You could make a delightful weekend out of going to visit St. Charles’s charming main street with this bookstore as an obvious highlight.
The last place we had the pleasure of visiting was EyeSeeMe African American Children's Bookstore. While raising their children in St. Louis, the founders of this bookstore sought a source for literature featuring positive representations of the African American experience. When they came up with scant options in their schools and community, Jeffrey and Pamela Blair decided to create the resource they so desired for their children by opening EyeSeeMe in 2015. Eight years later, EyeSeeMe's shelves are bursting with books whose covers feature Black children and adult role models. All of the books were chosen to help have beneficial representation and stories about African American culture and history. Though they focus on children's books, they also have plenty of young adult and adult titles to peruse, as well as non-fiction ones, too. The staff member working was friendly and warm (the owner Jeffrey was attending the conference himself at the time), and we loved chatting with her. The store felt like a love letter to their children and community, and is an obvious boon for St. Louis itself. The love for this bookstore is undeniable and their owners' efforts and expertise in curation is outstanding.
Each of these bookstores had something different and interesting to offer the St. Louis community, and we hope that if you’re ever there visiting that you’ll continue supporting indies by popping in to check any one of these out.
