Beloved East Atlanta bookstore Bookish reopens after flood

Walking into East Atlanta’s Bookish, you’d never guess it had been closed for flooding one week earlier. The shelves were packed with books, colorful streamers hung from the ceiling and owner Kendra Lee was beaming with the kind of enthusiasm that would make any book lover feel at home. “I own a bookstore because I love books, but I also love people as much as I love books,” she says. “And I think to really thrive as a bookstore owner, you have to love both.”

All over the store are signs of this love, from activism resource cards to recovery support merch to free Ice Out whistles to rainbow stickers on the spines of LGBTQ-themed books. So when Lee announced on March 23 that Bookish would be closed until further notice, her customers inundated her with messages of support and concern.

She announced the temporary closure on Instagram and was immediately flooded — in a good way — with offers of help. Still, the closure was hard on her. “When we’re not open, when there are no customers to interface with, it’s not very fun. The business end of it keeps rolling, and you keep trying to create revenue because you still have to pay the bills. But I definitely missed the people.” 

It’s not just Lee’s inventory that makes Bookish a community hub. This year, she devised a monthly reading challenge to help customers read more widely, working to ensure the books in every category reflect the diversity of her customer base. Every month, the store throws a free party for customers with activities, snacks and discussions based on the theme of that month’s challenge. This month’s party, which was rescheduled as a fundraiser for Sunday due to the flood, is themed as “Funny Lil’ Cuss.”

Given Lee’s community involvement, it’s not surprising that she was unmoored while the store was closed. Though the flood didn’t affect any stock, water made it into much of the building’s drywall, forcing Lee and her team to push everything from the back of the store — where the damage was greatest — into the front. They also had to pull everything in the front away from the walls to allow them to dry. 

“I couldn’t work at all because there was too much stuff,” Lee says. “You couldn’t turn around, so I certainly couldn’t sell books.”

By March 29, not being open started getting to her. “Even during Covid, when I was using the store basically as a storage unit for deliveries, I loved being here,” she explains. But after the flood, “It made me feel scratchy inside to be here because I was just like, ‘I can’t believe that this thing that we have worked so hard on looks like this right now.’”

Seeing her stress level, family and friends helped her box up the now-dry displaced items and move them to the children’s section so the rest of the store could open. By March 31, Bookish was open for business, with people trickling in by midday. “It will be really lovely to see people again,” Lee says, adding that she hoped to reopen the children’s section by the weekend. 

Bookish also operates online at Bookshop.org, and Lee has curated the reading challenge book lists on the website so that far-flung bibliophiles can support the store. She also expects to throw several fundraisers over the coming weeks and months, which she plans to advertise on Instagram and via Word Snack, the store’s newsletter.

In the meantime, the best way to support the store is to encourage new people to go there. “Having new people come in constantly is really helpful to us,” she says. “We love to meet new friends. We really do.”

Where & When

The first fundraiser for Bookish is the rescheduled Funny Lil’ Cuss party, which will take place at 4:30 p.m. on April 5 at Peoplestown Coffee.
Entry to the party is free, and there will be plenty of opportunities to donate, as well as plenty of ways to engage with the books on the list. 
55 Milton Ave. SE., Ste A.

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Rachel Wright has a Ph.D. from Georgia State University and an MA from the University College Dublin, both in creative writing. Her work has appeared in The Stinging Fly and elsewhere. She is currently at work on a novel.