It's time for all Tampa Bay book lovers to unite in their craving for the sound of flipping pages and the adrenaline of fingers touching book spines as you explore which world you want to be taken to next.
Maybe you've participated in a bar crawl before — going to different venues with friends.
But how about a book crawl visiting your favorite stores all across the Tampa Bay area?
This month, more than a dozen local bookstores are participating in the first-ever Bay Area Book Crawl. This is in celebration of Independent Bookstore Day on April 25.
Participating bookstores include:
- Tombolo Books: 2153 1st Ave S, St. Petersburg
- Black English Bookstore: 401 E Oak Ave, Tampa
- Book + Bottle: 17 6th St N, St. Petersburg
- Bookends Literature and Libations: 2208 E. 2nd Ave, Tampa
- Oxford Exchange: 420 W Kennedy Blvd., Tampa
- Pages & Perks: 914 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. St. N., St. St. Petersburg (Visit the website for a pop-up calendar)
- Portkey Books: 404 Main St, Safety Harbor
- Steamy Lit: 2832 Macdill Ave, Unit C, Tampa
- The Book Lounge: 631 Central Ave, St. Petersburg
- The Gilded Page: 123 E Court St, Tarpon Springs
- The Story Garden: 832 14th St N, St. Petersburg
- Back in the Day Books: 355 Main St, Dunedin
- Wilson's Book World: 535 16th St N, St. Petersburg
How to participate
To get started, head to one of the participating bookstores to get your "passport." Then, visit as many participating bookstores to get stamps.
You can get this by purchasing at a store, following the store on Instagram and showing that to a bookseller, joining the store's newsletter list with a bookseller or sharing your visit on social media. You must tag the store and show a bookseller.
You must turn in your passport to your home bookstore by April 25 to be entered to win a prize.
Tombolo Books founder Alsace Walentine said your name is entered into a post for each of the stamps you collect. The grand prize is a $25 gift card from each of the participating stores. There will also be runner-up prizes that are coupons and other fun things.
On the card, there's a place for the 13 stores, plus a free spot where you get your name on an extra entry.
On April 25, Tombolo Books will have fun happenings inside and outside. There will be special Indie Bookstore Day merch available all day while supplies last, according to its website.
Also, there will be a local makers market in the courtyard from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. that day. Plus, area author Sarah Penner will stop by from 2 to 3 p.m. to sign copies of "The Amalfi Curse."
Walentine told "Florida Matters Live & Local" host Matthew Peddie they've wanted to do this book crawl for many years — adding that they've seen groups of people in the past doing their own crawl. So they wanted to get everyone together and give a bit more structure to doing it.
"We thought, we'll just start small and we'll reach out to the stores that we know and the stores that have expressed some interest to us in doing some kind of partnership in the past," Walentine said. "We had about two weeks to just throw it together and get it started on April 1. So we've already seen tons of people coming in with these little cards."
In advice for those interested, Walentine said to grab a group of friends to save some gas money, get around to as many spots as you can and turn in your card.
But if you want to combine both alcohol and your love for literature, some stores do offer libations — just be sure to be careful while having fun.
You can listen to the full interview with Tombolo Books' Alsace Walentine in the media player above. This story was compiled from an interview by Matthew Peddie for "Florida Matters Live & Local." You can listen to the full episode here.
