The Pittsburgh Book Crawl 2026

 The past week was miserable. Not only were the temperatures in the high 80’s and above, on Thursday we were attacked with the smoke from the fires in Canada and Minnesota.

    We had a Code Purple (some said maroon) Air Quality Warning. The air outside smelled like smoke. Some of the older folks said that it reminded them of the Pittsburgh of the early 40’s! The forecast for Saturday called for rain, and believe me, everyone was looking forward to it!

    I heard birds chirping when I awoke. That was something I hadn’t heard in the past week! The air was cooler and instead of seeing just the yellow sky. I actually saw glimpses of blue peeking between the clouds.

    Saturday was the beginning of the week long Pittsburgh Book Crawl. Thirty bookstores were participating scattered over six counties in Western Pennsylvania. This is a great way to visit some of the booksellers in our community and Ann Marie and I were looking forward to it. Our good friend Jim was coming along with us on our journey.

    Passports were given out at the participating stores. At each store you visit, you can get your passport stamped. After getting six stamps you can get a scoop of ice cream and by visiting fifteen stores, it enables you to enter a drawing for other prizes. Armed with our passports and a list of stores to visit we took off!

    Starting in Lawrenceville, we first browsed through The Shelf Love Society. Their specialty is romance books. Opened recently, the store has a nice collection of books for those in search of love in their reading materials. I noticed a couple books I had already read on their shelves. We saw some people leaving clutching their passports and purchases in their hands, with smiles on their faces. Showing them my passport, I laughed and told them I’d be looking for them in the stores I’d be going to later.

    The next stop, Passionate Pages, was six or seven blocks closer to Pittsburgh, both stores are on Butler Street. This shop specializes in romance also. Lots of customers were crowding the store. I love to visit crowded bookshops! This was the norm as our journey continued.

    A mere mile away, on Liberty Avenue in Bloomfield, the White Whale Bookstore was also filled with people. I perused the children’s books and picked up a birthday gift that I think will be appreciated. While we were in the neighborhood, I dropped into Paddy Cake Bakery for some chocolate chip cookies; I know from experience how good they are! (I feel as if you can properly judge a bakery by tasting their chocolate chip cookies and their donuts. I have high standards, mostly related to my childhood!)

    The next store on our list, The Book Deli, was celebrating its grand opening! Located on E. Warrington Avenue in Allentown, the store was packed with customers, authors, publishers and artists. While we browsed and talked with the people in the store, I looked out the window and saw twenty-five or thirty more people arrive, en masse. It was as if a bus had just dropped them off. I feel as if I might have already said this but, what a good feeling it was to see this many people in a bookstore! I bought a book of bike stories; sadly, the author wasn’t there to sign it.

    From Allentown we drove over to E. Main Street in Carnegie. Here we visited Woolly Bear Books. Another nice, comfortable book shop, filled with a wide variety of books that I needed! After roaming through their stock, and finding another birthday book, we walked down the street to Dagney’s Eatery where we got a tasty lunch.

    Back on the road again, we next headed over to Bellevue where we stopped in Vintage Max Books. This store is located at the corner of Lincoln and N. Balph Avenues. Just as we arrived, a heavy downpour started. I ran to the shop and once again, found it filled with people, many clutching their Book Crawl Passports. 

    Selling both new and used books, I gravitated towards the used shelves where I found two railroad books, both in great shape! One still had the map with it that was included when it was published. I can remember reading this book shortly after it was published, thanks to my local library. As we left the store, the rain stopped long enough for us to get to the car, and then started up again.

    Our last stop was at our favorite bookshop, City Books, located on Galveston Avenue in Pittsburgh’s Northside. Once again, there were lots of people in the shop. We passed a small group who had just left it as we arrived, smiling and laughing as they headed off to their next book stop. Having been in the store a few days before, I knew what was on the shelves. So, I didn’t search the shelves…much. Ann Marie and I both bought a t-shirt to document our day.

    If you get a chance, look up the Pittsburgh Book Crawl on the net. If the crawl is still continuing, (July 18-26) get a passport and start your own journey. If not, use the map on the site to visit some of the stores. I’m sure you'll be glad you did! They will also!

    We brought some books, a few bookmarks, gifts, a couple t-shirts and a lot of memories home with us. We will be visiting some of the other stores listed in the passports, most probably on Wednesday. There are a couple that we haven’t been to yet, and we are looking forward to seeing what they are like. Being retired means that we have time to visit these new places!

    We always find it exciting to walk into a store, filled with countless lives and stories. There are journeys to different lands, different worlds, love affairs, mysteries and information that can last a lifetime, just sitting on their shelves waiting for us. Who knows what treasures we might find when we step into our next bookshop!