We're back to our normal hours today and January means our Airplane Mode subscription club is back! 🛫 Airplane Mode members get two books in translation from around the world every other month with 15% off. This month, we're reading books that explore storytelling, authorship, and cultural memory.

Here's a preview of what's on the calendar for January. Check out the link in our bio for RSVP links to individual events. 📆 We'll be closed on Sunday, January 25th to give our team a long weekend for some rest after a busy holiday season. 💤

It's a rare Skunk Cabbage Monday. We're here til 7 tonight! A few housekeeping notes to share as we head into a lil break later this week:

We'll be open Monday, December 22nd from noon to 7 pm.

The name "Popular Science" doesn't mean we shift our coverage depending on public opinion. It means we cover relevant subjects that are rigorously researched, reliable, and grounded in reality. And trans lives are grounded in reality. We see y'all. No matter what. www.popsci.com/science/tran...

The rumors are true. You can get @picnic-mag.bsky.social in Chicago

Everyone else go home — this is the year we secure ABOLISH ICE on a Chicago Snowplow chicagoshovels.org

Vic made you a list of their favorite books of 2025. Check 'em out! Hardly Creatures by Rob Macaisa Colgate Loca by Alejandro Heredia Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle A Little Daylight Left by Sarah Kay Florida Water by Aja Monet

A large CBP presence is back in Chicago this morning, with sightings and arrests reported across the southwest side and Cicero. Bovino is also here.

Trans people have always been here and we will continue to be here regardless of what Dick Durbin does to make a final buck before he retires.

Reminder that TODAY is our last call for special orders to arrive in store before we take a lil Christmas break! We'll keep filling your orders for in-stock inventory up through the 23rd.

We know, it's gonna be cold tomorrow. But we're gonna be here from 10 to 7 all day Sunday with holiday specials for you. It'll be cozy. We'll have...

Here's your first installment of our staff's 2025 favorites! Ren had a hard time narrowing down their list for the year tbh. 🌬️ 🦌 🛸

I've talked to a bunch of y'all's grandmas on the phone this week helping them buy you gift cards and they've all been real sweeties

The ultimate trans romantasy mixing SAILOR MOON, SEX AND THE CITY, and HOUSE OF LEAVES (yes, really!) is…available for Preorder RIGHT NOW: PLASTIC, PRISM, VOID by @blipstress.bsky.social www.littlepuss.net/shop/p/ppv-p... "Delicious, insane, intoxicating" @mayadeane.bsky.social

If you still need to order gifts ahead of Christmas, please get em to us this week! December 14th at 7 pm is last call for orders to arrive before we close up over Christmas.

We've been chatting with our bookseller pals and it's not just us - bookstores are seeing lots of delays right now with our distributor warehouses. We're doing our best to get things moving along! Thanks for your patience while we get delayed ordered received in for you this week. 🫰

We de-Googled this year as well! It was a headache tbh but I'm glad we did it. Always happy to chat with other indies looking to do the same. Really looking forward to this guide.

On December 14th we're running extended hours for the Chicago Indie Bookstore holiday trolley! While trolley tickets are sold out, we'll have treats and discounts for everyone all day long. Stop in from 10-7.

On Dec. 4, 1969, Chicago Black Panthers Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were assassinated by Chicago Police and the FBI

Back in stock from @toosphexy.bsky.social! Everything is 20% off with code EVERYONE through Saturday. justseeds.org/product/defe...

Y'all, the January 2026 releases we have coming up are INCREDIBLE. I already have some 2026 5 star reads in my spreadsheet.

It is very hard for evil to take hold of the unconsenting soul.

If you’re looking for Palestinian speculative fiction for #ReadPalestine week, I got you: soniasulaiman.com/readpalestin...

November 29th - December 5th is Read Palestine Week, organized by Publishers for Palestine. 🇵🇸

When will the Chicago Manual rule on whether a <3 goes inside or outside of the punctuation mark?

"The Feds Want to Make It Illegal to Even Possess an Anarchist Zine" @theintercept.com - The Anarchist Library is linked in the article read here: theintercept.com/2025/11/23/p...

We'll be closed on November 27th and 28th. See ya Saturday!

We'll be vending at this year's Get Lit Holiday Book Fair at the American Writers Museum! Join us on December 2nd from 5:30 - 7:30. Tickets are $10 when you use the code SKUNK10. We'll have a selection of our year's best sellers, staff faves, and picks from our annual gift guide.

NEW — Illinois residents can submit comments to state leaders by Nov. 24 to oppose mail scanning, which allows prison officials to scan physical mail and reproduce it into digital copies. Criminal justice advocates say the practice doesn’t make prisons safer. thetriibe.com/2025/11/crim...

Several Chicago newsrooms have been quietly collaborating to bring big ICE stories to the forefront. In this story today, we found that feds used chemical weapons on Chicagoans at least 49 times during immigration raids — even after a judge said to stop.

Not to brag (this is me bragging) but we got an advance copy of @chanda.blacksky.app 's upcoming book so I'll be busy the rest of the week.

Hey if you're attending a virtual meeting with a bunch of outside participants, opting all of them into your AI data scraper app without any notice is a weird and invasive thing to do.

Our With Feathers book club takes the month off in December (we're all too over-scheduled at the end of the year tbh) which means we have extra time to dig into a longer book. In January, we'll be discussing The Mushroom at the End of the World by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing.

okay i have given up on figuring out who posted it--sorry! but if you want you should read this article about peaches and the pandemic from the recently departed Alice Wong orionmagazine.org/article/in-p...

chuffed.org/project/crip... donate to crips for eSIMs for Gaza here, one of Alice Wong’s (and co’s) invaluable projects.

This chipmunk came up to me and said “Chicago will outlive the federal government” what did he mean by this

I'm gonna be honest with you, this started out as a curation of Frankenstein riffs, but it went a little off the rails. Here are some reading lists for you on creatures, shipwrecks, and bogs. 🛥️ 👹 🌿

Post a bird to support @sbworkersunited.org and warn your followers not to buy Starbucks for the duration of the strike 🪶

That's nearly a million dollars total, fyi

On the anniversary of the Haymarket martyrs' execution, we're adding a new title to our Working Classics series. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘍𝘢𝘮𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘚𝘱𝘦𝘦𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘌𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘊𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘨𝘰 𝘈𝘯𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘴, back in print for the first time in decades, preserves the chilling, defiant words of the accused. www.akpress.org/famous-speec...

Foraging Friends is back in November. Foraging Friends is a monthly meet up for anyone who likes growing their own food, foraging for wild snacks, and generally looking for little treasures in the natural world.

Unearthing the hidden history of a singular trans punk zine: defector.com/unearthing-t...

You are like a lantern swathed and covered, hidden away in a dark place. Yet the light shines; they could not put out the light. They could not hide you.

My latest is a love letter to Chicago. "I see you stumbling through the stubborn, awkward rhythm of showing up, again and again. I see you fighting alongside people who sometimes frustrate and confuse you, and defending neighbors you may have never met, because you know they’re all your people."

Prepping for our final events and subscription boxes of 2025 and the line up is so good. 📚 @thenewpress.bsky.social @amandagoldblatt.bsky.social @princetonupress.bsky.social

Thank you and hell yes to local independent bookstores for supporting our communities and neighbors! From Squeezebox Books, @skunkcabbagebooks.bsky.social, & @pilsencommbooks.bsky.social

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new: at least 26 unhoused chicagoans have been abducted since the start of "operation midway blitz." the full scope of people disappeared is likely much larger but is obscured by heavy criminalization, social stigma, and fewer eyes and phones around to bear witness. via @katieprout.bsky.social

Happy pub day to my beautiful daughter!!!!!! she is so smart and funny and weird and thoughtful and I am so excited for you to meet her!!!!