Looking for your next spooky read? Now you can browse a brand new bookstore that specializes in the genre! The Twisted Spine, an independent bookstore focused on horror and “dark literature” just opened up in Brooklyn, New York, earlier this month. I made sure to visit during opening week so I could tell you all about it.
Genre specialty bookstores seem to be growing in popularity. In fact, The Ripped Bodice, a romance bookstore that first opened in Los Angeles in 2016, expanded to a second location in Brooklyn just a couple of years ago and saw a similarly enthusiastic welcome to The Twisted Spine. In many ways, I think these highly curated and specialized indie stores are a reaction against the over-saturation of the book market and the algorithm-driven chaos of Amazon and other online retailers. Horror as a genre is also having a real boom right now—as it so often does in times of uncertainty and rapid change, since it reflects the anxieties of a society. Now is really the perfect time for a horror specialty bookstore, as Twisted Spine owners Lauren Komer and Jason Mellow clearly saw. Continue reading The Twisted Spine—Brooklyn’s New Horror Bookstore!