Reading Is Dope
Top 5 reasons to visit Dallas' new bookstore Interabang Books
On July 1, the new bookstore Interabang Books opens softly in the Preston Oaks shopping center at the southeastern corner of Preston Road and Royal Lane, in the same area as Central Market and NHS Grill.
The store comes from independent bookstore veteran Jeremy Ellis; Nancy Perot, daughter of Ross; and Lori Feathers, a lawyer. It will sell fiction, nonfiction, and children's books, and feature a children's stage for story-time sessions.
The store is still a work in progress. Some furniture has yet to arrive, and they'll begin with approximately 9,000 books, with more shipments coming in daily, ramping up to nearly 20,000 tomes in time for their grand opening party on September 11.
Reading a long story about books is hard, so we've assembled the top 5 reasons why Interabang Books is worth a visit:
1. A yes vote for literacy and community. Interabang joins a laudable league of small-scale indie bookstores such as Deep Vellum in Deep Ellum, The Wild Detectives in Oak Cliff, and The Last Word in Fort Worth, in an affirmation of books and sense of place. DFW also gets two branches of Japanese bookstore chain Kinokuniya, in Carrollton and Plano, part of a reaction against digital technology, like those websites that boil everything down to a top 5 list.
2. Fun events. The 5,000-square-foot store will feature a flexible event space with seating for up to 100 for signings, and a children's stage for weekly story times and other programs. On July 15, for example, they'll celebrate the life and literature of Jane Austen on the 200th anniversary of her death. It will include a "lively, loving, and irreverent afternoon of readings, games, and very polite fun, fraught with meaning and potential wealth or ruin."
3. It will stock university press books. That includes books from @UNTPress, @TAMUPress, & @TCUPress. That means you can get books such as All Over the Map: True Heroes of Texas Music, author Michael Corcoran's collection of 42 profiles of most underrated or overlooked Texas music pioneers, including 15 new portraits of Lefty Frizzell, Janis Joplin, and others.
4. It'll have a book club. Book buyer and co-owner Lori Feathers will lead discussions about great new books, both fiction and non-fiction. All are welcome to attend and join the conversation. Sit around and gab about books with other people, maybe coffee afterwards, maybe more, this is not for us to say.
5. It will have that "new bookstore smell." As twitter user @mesjak so poetically puts it: "All those fresh shelves and tables, unscuffed paint, and infinite possibilities."
