Hello & welcome to the first ever LRB News, the community newsletter of Little Read Books, Denver’s free mutual aid books collective operating on the occupied Indigenous territory of the Apache, Ute, Cheyenne, Comanche, and Arapaho Nations. Our newsletter will feature updates on LRB’s programming and operations, local & global news from a revolutionary perspective, art by our volunteers and community, and more.
Little Read Books has been operating a free book stand at Grant & Colfax by the Capitol every Saturday since August 15, 2020. In January 2021, we opened up a free book store in Five Points. We have also started sending books to people incarcerated in facilities in the Denver metro area and around the United States, as well as dropping off books at parks, shelters, assisted living facilities, children’s facilities and other community spaces. In total, we have distributed more than 5500 free books to our community!
We are sad to report that our free book store at 2260 California Street in Denver closed on June 12, 2021. The building our store was in is being sold so we are unable to renew our initial 6-month lease. Thanks to everyone who has visited to pick up books and check out our inventory, contributed to making this space beautiful, warm, and educational, and to everyone who has brought by donations and positive energy to our store. Our book inventory will be moving into a storage locker for the foreseeable future, and we will be continuing to operate our weekly book stand at Grant & Colfax every Saturday at 11 am. While we have no immediate plans to open up another bookstore, we look forward to continuing to work with other organizations and spaces in our community to bring free books and radical political education to the people. We also are excited for the programming possibilities that focusing our efforts on our street operations will allow for! Stay tuned for more information on littlereadbooks.org or on our social media (@littlereadbooks) - and please email us at [email protected] if you have any questions or comments.
Caption: our weekly flyer to spread the word about from July 10, 2021, which reads "little read books - 11am - 3pm @ Grant & Colfax - free books, food, + more! LRB's first NEWSLETTER in! come grab a copy and say hello!" with abstract illustrations and yellow and red coloring.
Some ways to support LRB’s work:
Volunteer with us! Visit our free book stand and talk to us about getting plugged in or fill out our volunteer form linked at littlereadbooks.org and we will reach out to you.
Buy our merch via opencollective.com/little-read-books! We printed some adorable shirts and totes and are selling them on a sliding scale to fund our operations!
Become a monthly (or one-time) donor, also via opencollective.com/little-read-books. Small monthly donations make our work sustainable, please chip in what you can!
Buy your new books from our online store at bookshop.org/shop/littlereadbooks - we receive 30% of your total purchase on any book from that link, even ones found through searching. Keep our link bookmarked for your new book needs & join the growing boycott of Amazon.
Caption: a community member holds books we recently ordered from Verso Books for our lending library project, including Police: A Field Guide, Poets of the Chinese Revolution, The Communist Postscript, Clean Living Under Different Circumstances, Futures of Black Radicalism.
