Around Indies

The Bookery Nook Adds Ice Cream

The Bookery Nook, in Denver, Colorado, recently added an ice cream shop to help counter a decline in sales due to industry changes and local construction that has affected foot traffic in the area.

To help sustain the business, owners Shannon and Gary Piserchio partnered with Liks Ice Cream, a Denver-based company with two of its own locations, which uses only local and natural ingredients.

“My husband had been thinking about ice cream for quite a while,” Shannon told Kyle Garratt, a blogger for Denver Westword. “We thought, ‘Maybe we go ahead and make this extra investment and we see if that’s the thing that can help keep us in business.’ We decided to open the ice cream shop and then we had people coming in all day every day asking, ‘When is the ice cream coming?’”

The Regulator Bookshop Just Wants to Have Pun

Tom Campbell, owner of The Regulator Bookshop, in Durham, North Carolina, hosted the first annual Durham Pun Championship. The event was held in the basement of the store, and judged by Duke rhetoric professor George Gopen.

Chris Vitiello, one of the 25 participants in the pun-off, recounted the event on IndyWeek.com.

“Facing each other onstage, two punsters were given a categorical theme to riff off, handing a microphone back and forth to blurt witticisms as quickly as possible,” wrote Vitiello. “If a competitor couldn’t summon a legitimate pun within 12 seconds, he or she lost the round. Half-baked puns were rejected by judge Gopen, who offered the punster five additional seconds to make repairs. If neither punster faltered, the volley would go to 10 puns each, in which case the lowest total time would determine the winner.”

Busboys and Poets Has Something For Everyone

Busboys and Poets, home of Teaching for Change Bookstore, in Washington, D.C., aims to be a cultural center and community hangout, reported Gazette.net. In addition to the bookstore, the space contains a coffee shop, performance space, and movie theater, with a restaurant that just opened its doors Monday.

“We are a space where people can come and pause, just relax, enjoy, have a drink, be on their laptop,” said owner Andy Shallal, adding the restaurant’s mission is to connect people racially and culturally.

The space “is a place where art, culture, and politics align,” Shallal said, just like its neighborhood of Hyattsville, a place that has “all kinds of people, different cultures, backgrounds [and] economic statuses.”

Anderson’s Hosts Technology Petting Zoo

On Monday, July 25, Anderson’s Bookshop, in Naperville, Illinois, is hosting its first “Technology Petting Zoo.” The 130-year-old business, co-owned by ABA President Becky Anderson, prides itself on being able to keep up with the times, and hopes to make its customers more aware of their options in digital reading.

The event will allow customers to “test drive” different e-readers, to find which one best suits their needs. The program is free of charge, open to the public, and will include refreshments. Additionally, customers who purchase a Google eBook™ through Anderson’s Bookshop’s website will receive a $5 gift card to be used in the future.