Bookstore Crawl Celebrates Lakeland As ‘Book Destination': Organizers

LAKELAND, FL — The third annual Lakeland Book Crawl takes place April 22-27, leading up to national Independent Bookstore Day.

The event is designed to celebrate the Lakeland area as “a book destination,” one of the organizers, Little Bus Books owner Lynsey Pippen, told Patch.

There are seven bookstores participating in this year’s book crawl including the city’s newest shop, Bookareaderville, which recently opened.

Other bookstores include:

• Bookends Used Books
• Crash Books
• Inklings Book Shoppe
• Little Bus Books
• Pressed Books & Coffee
• The Unbound Bookery

While Bookends and Inklings have been operated in Lakeland for decades — though Inklings has new owners and moved to a new storefront — a handful of new bookstores popped up during the COVID-19 pandemic, Pippen said.

“I think it had a bit to do with everybody living out their 2020 dreams,” she added. “Everybody kind of has that story of there was a pandemic and we wanted to see community; we wanted to do something we enjoy.”

Since then, the bookstore owners have banded together to support one another.

“Several of us opened around the same time and started to connect to see what we were doing to make sure our business models are different,” Pippen said. “We all have different business models and I think it’s great for readers.”

While she owns a mobile bookstore, the themes range from a store with a coffee shop to one that focuses on classics to another with a science fiction and fantasy angle.

“I guess in a way we’re competition, but there are a billion books out there,” Pippen said. “Like, you don’t usually go to the same coffee shop every day or the same gas station or the same restaurant. People like variety.”

During the Lakeland Book Crawl, a different store will be highlighted each day. That store will offer special discounts — some of them offering the same promotion throughout the entire week — or host author and reader events.

To make it easier for shoppers to navigate the bookstore crawl, organizers have created an itinerary for the week.

“We’ve mapped it out with the distance between stores and hours,” Pippen said. “We want to make it easy for people to make it to all the bookstores in fewer days.”

This is especially useful for out-of-town visitors who may have a limited amount of time to visit Lakeland’s book shops.

Several other businesses are supporting the book crawl by offering special promotions to those who shop at any of the participating bookstores.

Krazy Kombucha will give out free 4 oz. sample of kombucha. Emporium Tattoos will offer a discount on book-related tattoos. And Venue Salon will offer a free botanical treatment.