Independent Bookstore Day 2022

Harvard Book Store joins bookstores across the country for Independent Bookstore Day, a day for celebrating what makes indie bookstores special!

#DiscoveredAtHBS: Discover a Book at Harvard Book Store This April

Part of what makes bookstores special is that you never know what you might discover in the stacks or on the staff recommendations wall. Enter our "Discovered at HBS" raffle this April by emailing info@harvard.com or posting on social media, and tell us about a book you discovered at Harvard Book Store or on harvard.com that you didn't come in looking for. How did you discover it? Was it from a staff recommendation card, or a window display, or did the title just leap out at you off the shelf? Use #DiscoveredAtHBS in your post or email (and post before May 1, 2022) and we'll give away one $100 gift card to our favorite entry!

Audiobooks from Libro.fm

Celebrate Independent Bookstore Day all week long (4/25–5/1) with us and Libro.fm, your source for audiobooks that support independent bookstores! Shop the special sale, get a free audiobook when you begin a membership or refer a friend. Learn more at www.libro.fm/ibd.

Exclusive Merchandise

Special exclusive merchandise will be available in-store, in-person only, beginning at 9am on April 30th. Quantities are limited. Learn more about these items here.

• Indie Bookstore Day Blackwing Pencils, Box of 12, $29.95
• Independent Bookstore Day Hotel-Motel Key Tag, $5.95
• Indie Bookstores Are My Jam Exclusive Mug, $16.95
• When One Book Closes, Another Book Opens, A Reading Journal, $9.95
• 2022 Independent Bookstore Day Tote Bag, $10
• Leigh Bardugo SIX OF CROWS IBD Tote Bag, $20
• World's Smallest Kite DIAMOND, $8.49
• World's Smallest Kite AIRPLANE, $9.49
• BOOK OF NIGHT by Holly Black bookmark, FREE
• CHANDELIER by Mieko Kawakami, FREE
• I READ DANGEROUSLY by Azar Nafisi buttons, FREE 
• Independent Bookstore Day Mad Libs, FREE
• READ IN FULL COLOR: BUILDING BRIDGES activity booklet, FREE
• READ LIKE AN ARTIST by Austin Kleon zine, FREE
• Indie Bookstore Day Bookmark, FREE
• “I Visited An Independent Bookstore Today” Stickers, FREE

Just what does Independent Bookstore Day celebrate?

Independent bookstores are not just stores, they’re community centers and local anchors run by passionate readers. They are entire universes of ideas that contain the possibility of real serendipity. They are lively performance spaces and quiet places where aimless perusal is a day well spent.

Indie bookstores, whether dusty and labyrinthine or clean and well-lighted, are not just stores, they are solutions. They hold the key to your love life, your career, and your passions. Walking the aisles of a good bookstore means stumbling upon a novel from India that expands your heart. It’s encountering an art book that changes the direction of your life. It’s the joy of having a perfect stranger steer you toward the perfect book.

In a world of tweets and algorithms and pageless digital downloads, bookstores are not a dying anachronism.  They are living, breathing organisms that continue to grow and expand. In fact, there are more of them this year than there were last year. And they are at your service.

“Consumers control the marketplace by deciding where to spend their money. If what a bookstore offers matters to you, then shop at a bookstore. If you feel that the experience of reading a book is valuable, then read the book. This is how we change the world: we grab hold of it. We change ourselves.” —Ann Patchett, bestselling author and co-owner of Parnassus Books