Category Archives: Independent Bookstore Day

Apr 24 2026
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Independent Bookstore Day

Books & Coffee

So then, the last Saturday of April is known as Independent Bookstore Day, and now that we’ve got a brick & mortar shop that fancies itself a bit of an independent bookstore, it’s a day that’s taken on some significance for us. Last year we celebrated for the first time with a weekend event that ran Saturday and Sunday. This year, we’ve added Friday evening, as well. And that’s tonight. If you’re local to Lake Worth, please come join us this weekend for our Independent Bookstore Days celebration! We’ll be open tonight, Friday April 24, from 6 to 9 PM, and then Saturday & Sunday, April 25 & 26, from 11 AM to 4 PM each day. We’ll be operating our 1950s Nolan Proof Press (you’ll be printing the cover for a book on that press), and then we’ll teach you how to make your own single signature pamphlet book using that letterpress-printed cover. We’ll be writing a Community Exquisite Corpse story (the old literary game invented by the Surrealists in which you write two sentences based solely on the previous two sentences that were written). We’d love for you to write two sentences of your own. And we’ll be serving my sister’s homemade cookies (three kinds, I think) and our newest coffee arrival at the shop: Horn & Hardart Automat Coffee, roasted in small batches in Philadelphia. The printing, the book, the story, and the coffee and cookies: these are all free and on the house. Books and coffee, after all, go together like peas in a pod. We’re also open, of course, for wonderfully eclectic shopping… including an awful lot of wonderful books.

Let’s go back to that Automat Coffee. Do you know the Horn & Hardart Automat? I think it was 1972 when Thelma DeMarco, an old friend of the family, brought me to Madison Square Garden in New York City to see a matinee performance of “The Ice Capades”. It was just the two of us. And when the show was over, Thelma took me to the Automat for dinner. Granted, I was just a little boy, but I’d never seen anything like it, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it since. All the food was on display in little windows, and Thelma put coins in the slot to open the little glass door for each thing we ate. I’m quite certain I had pie.

Mom remembers the Automat, too, from her working days at an umbrella factory in New York City. The Automat was a great place for a quick delicious meal. The first Horn & Hardart Automat opened in Philadelphia in 1902 at 818 Chestnut Street, and in 1912, Horn & Hardart opened their first New York location on Times Square. At their peak in the 1930s to 1950s, there were more than one hundred Automats throughout New York and Philadelphia… including the one where Mom ate when she worked at the umbrella factory in the 1940s, and the one where I ate after The Ice Capades show in 1972.

The coffee at the Automat was served out of a dolphin-shaped dispenser in the wall. The coffee was good then, and it’s good now, too. We’re really excited to offer it in our shop now. We’ll gladly ship it to you, too! And if you don’t have a local independent bookstore near you… we will also gladly ship books to you. CLICK HERE to shop, and a million thank yous.

John & Seth

 

 

Apr 01 2025
6 Comments
All Fools' Day, Book of Days Calendar, Easter, Holy Week, Independent Bookstore Day, Lent

Springtide, and Your April Book of Days

April First now and here is your printable Convivio Book of Days calendar for the month. Cover star this time around: a rainy Easter Eve (in Paris, is my guess), painted in 1907 by John Sloan. We just reached Midlent this past Sunday, or Laetare Sunday, which means we are halfway through our Lenten journey, on the road to Easter, which this year comes on April 20. These are all movable days in the calendar, based on the timing of the full moon that follows the Vernal Equinox. I’ve never quite had the wherewithal to sit down and learn the calculations that determine the date each year of Easter. All I know is Lent began late this year and, following course, Easter comes late, too. I like when things are late, as I don’t feel so rushed.

Today, of course, is the First of April, which brings All Fools’ Day, and that is not a movable holiday. The origins of the day’s shenanigans are tough to pin down. Most signs point to the fact that March 25 was once New Year’s Day, making the First of April the Octave of New Year and the end of the new year revels, and it is thought that perhaps the foolishness of the date goes back to very old new year customs. The tricks and practical jokes traditionally end at noon, but not everyone understands this and so I think it’s a good day to remain generally wary and on guard.

April also brings Passover this year, and all the days of Holy Week that lead us to Easter, including one of my favorite nights of the year: Holy Thursday, or Maundy Thursday, when we visit three churches to sit in the close and holy darkness, together with other pilgrims doing the same. It is always such a lovely night: candle-lit, peaceful, a night when you can hear each old church’s creaks and groans. Our niece comes with us now on this pilgrimage, and I don’t even know if she realizes we do this each year because my grandma, Assunta, taught me to do it when I was a boy, the same age as my niece is now.

April also brings a springtime excuse to drink eggnog with San Jacinto’s Day on the 21st, and romantic divination a few nights later, on St. Mark’s Eve, and then comes Independent Bookstore Day on Saturday April 26. I’m generally not one for these newfangled holidays, but this one has new meaning for Convivio Bookworks now that we fancy ourselves a bit of an independent bookshop. We’ll be making a weekend-long celebration of it at the shop, where you may come print on our 1950s Nolan Tabletop Press and learn how to make your own book, too. Walpurgis Night wraps up the month, as the night of April 30 drifts into the morning of May the First, and May Day, an unoffocial first day of summer.

If you live in the South Florida area, please consider joining us at the shop for any of these upcoming events pictured below. The workshops require advance registration. Our Springtide Saturdays are perfect days to gather what you need for Easter. And Independent Bookstore Days are just going to be a whole lot of fun as we celebrate these things we love so much: books and reading. Click on any of the images to make them larger for easier reading, and find more details by visiting our Convivio Bookworks catalog pages. The shop is easy to find but off the beaten path at 1110 North G Street, Suite D, in Lake Worth Beach, Florida 33460.

 

Top image: “Easter Eve” by John Sloan. Oil on canvas, 1907 [Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.]