Here’s the breakdown on the $700 that was raised in individual donations for this season:
  $343.81 spent on books from Women & Children First
+$323.61 spent on books from 57th Street Books
+$  30.00 in shares in the Seminary Co-op bookstores*
___________________________________________
  $697.42 of cold, hard cash converted into free books for all

*For real! 57th Street Books is a part of the Seminary Co-op Bookstores. For $30, you get three shares in the co-op and you get 10% off of all purchases at their bookstores from now until forever. If you live in Chicago, take advantage of this deal! Yet another stellar way to support our independent Chicago booksellers.

Congratulations to Michael McCune of Chicago!!! Michael chose Myopic Books for his $100 gift certificate. A fine choice, sir. Happy hunting!

Countless thanks to our donors for the 2011 season. Because of you, we have $700 to spend at indie bookstores in Chicago. And that translates into $700 worth of FREE BOOKS to anyone and everyone who happens upon Book Bike this summer.

As always, I will post photos of the books purchased, how much was spent and where it was spent so you can keep track of all the awesomeness that comes from your support. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for that.

Book Bike season kicks off in July!

Thank you Anjali, Leslie, Adrian, 500 Clown and Adventure Stage! 500 Clown Trapped was an insane and fantastic show (surprise surprise) and Book Bike was honored to share in the fun. -GL

We were lucky to have the Book Bike visit ASC this past weekend. Audience members who came to our 2:00 matinee of 500 Clown Trapped were able to visit the bike and take a book home. Here's a note from 500 Clown Board Member, Anjali Bidani, who set up our Book Bike visit. Thanks Anjali and Gabe!

First of all: FULL DISCLOSURE. I love to read. I have loved to read from the moment I learned how. I was that 7 year old who left the library every weekend with 22 or 23 books and returned the next weekend for more. 20 was my mother’s limit, but I was usually able to sneak in a few more. I know how many I checked out weekly because in an effort to make sure we returned all those books the next weekend, my mother made me make a list of the books in a designated spiral notebook as soon as we returned home from our library visit (I can’t blame her, there were some significant library fines before this system was set in place). I have glorious memories, and lifelong connections to Frances the hedgehog, Paddington Bear, Lowly Worm, Henry Sugar and Charlie Bucket, just to name a few. I honestly can’t imagine anything better than being able to share that joy of reading with someone else.
 
I first heard about the Book Bike last summer – when a mutual friend of Gabe Levinson’s and mine hosted a fundraiser at his home for the Book Bike. I read an article about the trials of the Book Bike and, given what you now know about my reading habit, it’s no surprise that I couldn’t imagine a more delightful thing to discover at a park. (I was definitely glad that the Chicago Public Library stepped in to partner with the Book Bike.)
 
A man with free books on a bike tricked out with a bookshelf? As one young patron last Saturday said – it’s like the ice cream man. But really, so much better, because a good book can last forever, and a good ice cream really only has about 15 minutes of joy to give, and then it’s done.
 
I had just joined the board of 500 Clown a few months prior, and at my first meeting, Adrian had talked a bit about the all-ages show that was in the process of being created. When I saw the Book Bike and talked to Gabe, I immediately thought of how wonderful it would be to go to a 500 Clown show and then encounter the Book Bike and end the afternoon with memories of the performance AND a great book in hand. I mentioned my idea to Gabe, Adrian and Leslie and they were on board from the beginning. Everyone at Adventure Stage liked the idea as well. From there I found an incredibly generous donor to provide the funds to purchase the books, and gathered suggestions about what books to stock the Bike with. We purchased the books from Women and Children First and The Book Cellar, both small independent bookstores in Chicago, and then, after last Saturday’s matinee, I watched children discussing books with Gabe, with each other (one boy very authoritatively advised a group of kids – “The Giver is the BEST book”), and their parents, discussing the logistics of having a bookshelf attached to a bike, and then walking out with one of these books, hopefully destined to discover a new friend, a new world, and new ideas that will be with them forever. It was MAGIC.

by Anjali Bidani

Book Bike will be a part of this family-friendly mayhem for two of the performances in the run, stocked to the gills with free children’s books courtesy of 500 Clown!

This is an unprecedented occasion. One of Book Bike’s missions is to encourage healthy book-buying habits among individuals…and here we have an organization not only showing their support for this mission, but they are setting the example! Kudos, and thanks, to our wildly-inventive friends at 500 Clown for upping the ante.

Book Bike will be hanging out in the lobby after the matinee performances on May 14 and May 21. I hope to see you there!

After two and a half hours of lounging in the sun (its a tough gig but someone’s gotta do it) I gave away around three hundred books–a majority of them were former One Book, One Chicago selections provided by Chicago Public Library–as well as over two hundred resource guides for Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, the current One Book, One Chicago selection.

Weather-permitting, you will find Book Bike this Saturday, April 9th out front of Sulzer Library (4455 N Lincoln Ave). It will be overflowing with free books that have been generously provided by our friends at the Chicago Public Library, including resource guides for their latest One Book, One Chicago selection: Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman.

One Book, One Chicago

You are definitely going to want to pick up one of these resource guides from Book Bike because there are a number of scheduled events coming up for Neverwhere and all the juicy details can be found inside. This is well worth your time. For example: Did you know that on April 13th you can attend a FREE lecture by Neil Gaiman down at University of Chicago? Grab a resource guide and a book so you have some reading material while you wait to see him speak!

Weather forecasts predict rain over the weekend, so be sure to follow our Twitter feed (that’s right, Book Bike is back on Twitter! @TheBookBike). I will update it on Saturday to let you know when we’ll be out and about.

Here, at long last, is Duran’s great film of this memorable day:

“The premise was simple…travel to some of America’s coolest cities to uncover the most exciting music, art, and culture they have to offer.” -NYLON

Book Bike is honored to represent Chicago, along with some very cool company, in this special issue of NYLON. But don’t just take it from us, go to your favorite independent bookstore and buy a copy today!

Heavemedia.com presents…

A fundraiser for Book Bike

With Sad Brad, Adam Fitz, and Stephen Paul Smoker

When: October 7 at 9:30 pm
Where: The Empty Bottle (1035 N Western Ave.)
Who: Sad Brad, Adam Fitz, and Stephen Paul Smoker
Details: Tickets are $5, with a portion of the proceeds going to Book Bike. 21+