Wednesday, May 7, 2025

The 2025 Houston Bookstore Crawl: Then & Now Bookshop in Galveston


I was delighted to participate in the Second Annual Houston Bookstore Crawl #HTXBookCrawl25 in April. Here is a map I made of the twenty-five indie bookstores in the Houston area.


How it worked: I picked up a crawl card at Then & Now Bookstore in Galveston, one of the 25 participating stores. I got my card stamped or signed by each of the stores I visited through the end of April. Once I visited 10, I submitted my card to any of the participating bookstores to be entered into a raffle for gifts. Every store I hit after the first 10 counts as an additional entry. The cards had to be turned in by the end of business on April 30.


April 26 was Indie Bookstore Day, and indie bookstores all over the US hosted events. Take a look at the map here to see what events were held in April.

Here is my first bookstore: 

Then & Now Bookshop began life as a pop-up bookstore in Galveston. It was always Lori's dream to own a bookshop. After working for thirty years as a preschool teacher and librarian, Lori, with a nudge from her daughter did just that.

Then & Now Bookshop

2118 Postoffice St.

Galveston, Texas 

(409) 502-2234

The owner, Lori.

What I bought there.

19 comments:

  1. That sounds like a lot of fun. Here in Ann Arbor we have at least four indie bookstores that I can think of without looking it up. Two of them are regular retail, two specialize in used books. Maybe there’s another one somewhee too… probably pretty good as a per population comparison with Houston! Did your list include used bookstores as well as new?
    best… mae at maefood.blogspot.com

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    1. Yes, there was one bookstore that was almost totally a used bookstore, and many on the list had at least a few used books. One had a stack of free books.

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  2. This looks like a very fun time. I would like to do a bookstore crawl one day.

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  3. That sounds like so much fun! What a great way to support local bookstores.

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    1. I'm trying to just buy books from independent bookstores.

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  4. Very nice and I'm glad you will be sharing them with us. Love the look of this one. I'm an avid bookstore visitor wherever we travel. Always check out the independent bookstores if I can and most of time also try to take a look at any local libraries. Fun for me!

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    1. I know about Book People in Austin, but I wonder whether there are more.

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  5. What a fun adventure you had! There are a few independent bookstores in Santa Fe that I visit regularly but they were not participating in a crawl 9Maybe there were too few of them?). My best friend is in Houston...maybe I'll have to visit her next April and she and I can adventure together!

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  6. Such a beautiful place. Books are the very best of entertainment.

    Thank you for joining the Wordless Wednesday Blog Hop.

    Have a fabulous Wordless Wednesday. ♥

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  7. That shop looks very inviting. l love a bookstore with comfy seating.

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  8. We used to go into Houston regularly to visit Blue Willow and Murder By The Book. We don't often do that anymore and I do miss those visits.

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  9. You had me at "bookstore crawl". We had a couple of indie bookstores downtown when I first moved to what we call the Triple Cities back in the mid 1980's. Nada now. If we had a bookstore crawl it would have to encompass several counties. So sad. I loved the sign with the parakeet on it; I have a feeling I would love visiting Then and Now.

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  10. I just looked and it seems we have four small, indie bookstores here. I'll plan to visit them soon.

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  11. There are a few Indie Bookstores near me, the closest on is 4 minutes from my house.

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  12. This has prompted me to look up how many Independent book stores there are in the Great Puget Sound region. Maybe I could urge them to try such an event.

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  13. I would love to go on a book crawl. Sounds like a wonderful idea.

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  14. This is going to be a fun little post series! Love the bingo card, the map, the bookstore, and you at the end with your purchase!

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