BAM Picks Brownstone Books
By Felicia Pride -- Publishers Weekly, 1/25/2008 2:30:00 PM
Beginning this month, Brownstone Books, an African-American oriented bookstore located in Brooklyn, will take over the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s bookstore, which was previously handled by Manhattan-based Shakespeare & Co.
Crystal Bobb-Semple, who opened Brownstone Books with her husband in 2000, said that BAM approached Brownstone to take over their store because it was looking to partner with a local Brooklyn bookseller. Bobb-Semple, who created Brownstone to be a gathering point in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood added, “We both share the goal of creating community around the arts.”
Brownstone Books at BAM is 300 square feet and will stock art, theater, and performing arts related titles, local interest books and current bestselling nonfiction and fiction. “It’s a very edited selection,” said Bobb-Semple who looks forward to selling books in a niche different from Brownstone’s African-American focus. The new store will take advantage of the arts facility’s unique business. “What we stock and our hours of operation revolve around BAM’s performance calendar,” Bobb-Semple said.
Brownstone Books at BAM will be open during all Opera House performances and every Friday and Saturday, 8-11 p.m. BAM coordinates popular author events like BAMfamily Book Brunch and its Eat Drink and Be Literary series, which will feature several writers including poet Charles Simic and novelists Chinua Achebe this spring.
