Prairie Lights - Iowa City, IA

One of my happy places - Prairie Lights 

If you're a book lover, if you enjoy independent bookstores, if you live in Eastern Iowa, you are required to visit Prairie Lights.  If you've never been, shame on you!  This place is a treasure!  This is the only Iowa indie featured in My Bookstore.  This is truly one of my happy places and I get here about once a week.  Everything about it is super.  Great inventory, knowledgeable and friendly staff who are fun to talk to about books, spacious cafe, free wifi, and lots of places to sit.  They have many events and author readings and the ones I've been to are always well attended.  It's not out of the ordinary to bump into authors here who are just stopping by.  Of course, it helps that Iowa City is the home of the Iowa Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa.

As I thought about this project in my head I wasn't sure what order I should go in to present the indies.  If I had my butt in gear and started on this when I began visiting the bookstores I could have just entered this stuff chronologically.  But since I'm 8 bookstores behind I'll have to tweak this a bit.  PL is the place I know best since I've been there so often.  Since it's local, this was an obvious starting point.  

I can't say enough about the staff.  So great to talk to and always ready to recommend books to read.  If you go to any indie, talk to the staff.  They love talking about what they've read and what they like.  And they're always interested in what you're reading as well.  I don't always agree with their recommendations after I've read them, but that's always the case when you talk books with others.  

This is two posts in two days for me.  Don't expect this lightning pace to continue!  Now go to an indie and buy a book.  Bonsoir!

The Prairie Lights sign.

This is only part of the main floor of books.  This is what you see when you walk in.  

Up on the 2nd floor there are more books and this great cafe.