As thousands of delegates from across the U.S., national and international media, and top elected officials convene in Chicago this week during the Democratic National Convention (DNC), the bookstores closest to the United Center in the city's Near West Side neighborhood are trying to entice visitors with special displays and other promotions—and a few others further away are participating with left-wing organizations in pop-ups.
Madison Street Books, which is four blocks from where the action is taking place at the United Center, extended its store hours on Sunday before the DNC officially kicked off, and is offering a 10% discount to any conventioneers or media with a badge. But those actions, owner Mary Mallman said, resulted in only a slight uptick in sales.
“It’s been business as usual,” she told PW, “although I’ve seen a few people in here with badges.” Besides the new releases that always sell well, books about Chicago have also been selling this week, as well as books “about the political system in general, power, and how it all works,” Mallman said. Children’s books about voting and the electoral process are also popular. “This store isn’t Switzerland, but in terms of our window displays, we try to stay fairly neutral, and not lean one way or another,” she said.
Exile in Bookville, in the Loop, is also located near a hub of convention-related activity: the protesters who came to the Windy City to voice their opposition to the war in Gaza have made a small park across S. Michigan Avenue their meeting space. “There’ve been a few protests on the avenue in front of the store,” reported co-owner Javier Ramirez, “and then Stephen Colbert is performing around the corner from us every night of the convention.” Despite the throngs of foot traffic in the store, Ramirez reported that sales are on par with a typical week in August. Ramirez contacted PW Thursday evening to report that Colbert had just visited the store, in search of puzzles. Colbert left immediately after being informed that Exile does not sell puzzles.
Of all the stores PW spoke to, Abraham Lincoln Book Shop, in River West, took the most advantage of the convention. The store set up a special exhibit of artifacts from the 1860 Republican convention, when Abraham Lincoln was the party’s nominee. “We have the ballot sheet, tallying up the votes," owner Daniel Weinberg said, “and we have a beautiful image of Abraham Lincoln, on a handout to the conventioneers.”
Sales are up this week at the store, with big sellers including The Lincoln Miracle: Inside the Republican Convention that Changed History by Edward Acorn and Wide Awake: The Forgotten Force That Elected Lincoln and and Spurred the Civil War by John Greenspan. Celebrity sightings in-store this week have included ubiquitous Democratic apparatchik James Carville and CNN anchor Jake Tapper and CEO Mark Thompson. “We are a destination this week,” Weinberg said. “It’s been crazed.”
Sales are up “a little bit” at Volumes Bookcafe in Wicker Park, said co-owner Rebecca George. “We’re getting people in from the convention. All those books nobody has touched all year—The January 6 Report, The Mueller Report, Mary Trump's memoir, Too Much and Never Enough—they’re all selling this week," she said Any used books relating to Trump that haven't been sold after the DNC leaves Chicago “will be turned into art” during an event scheduled for August 28, she added.
While Sandmeyer’s Bookstore in the South Loop put a sign on the sidewalk welcoming delegates and set up displays of Chicago-related books, “sales are kind of down,” said bookseller Colleen Bode. “Not that many people are coming in from the DNC," she added, noting that many local people have left town while the convention is running. Despite this, Bode said, The Nix by Nathan Hill, which is set during the infamous 1968 DNC in Chicago and includes scenes set near the store’s location, is one of its bestsellers this week.
As for After-Words, a bookstore a quarter block from Trump Tower in River North, owner Beverly Dvorkin said that with the street closures, protest activity, and huge police presence due to the many high-end hotels in the area has come a dip in customer traffic and sales. “I’ve been enjoying the quiet this week,” she said. “Usually, the protests are outside the Trump Tower, not at the United Center.”
As for Pilsen Community Books and Skunk Cabbage Books, the two indies participated in the Radical, Book, Zine, and Art Pop-up With Chicago Dissenters on Saturday, along with locally-based left-wing publisher Haymarket Books. The event was part of the Democrazy DNC Counter-Programming at Co-Prosperity, a cultural center in a South Chicago neighborhood. Two weeks of DNC counter-programming has been sponsored by the Public Media Institute and includes presentations, panels, workshops, and theater performances designed to, according to Co-Prosperity's website, "learn about the history that brought us here and organize the movement of the future while the politicians make their speeches."
And, "in the spirit of Esquire magazine's 1968 coverage," when the magazine sent a group of prominent writers to Chicago to report on what became the most infamous DNC ever, the newly-revived Believer sent a trio of writers to what the literary journal calls "this most momentous and surprising of conventions." Memoirist and novelist Suzanne Scanlon and poet Jeffery Renard Allen have been reporting on what is going on inside the United Center, while critic Juan Martinez is covering what’s going on out in the streets. The Believer is offering 20% off digital subscriptions this week, in order to entice readers who like their political news with a literary twist.
This story has been updated with details of a visit by Stephen Colbert to Exile in Bookville Thursday evening.
