Over the weekend, avid readers from across the globe made their first purchases at Homewood’s Alabama Booksmith following a feature in The New Yorker titled “The Unlikely Success of a Strange Alabama Bookstore.” Bham Now spoke with Jake Reiss, the venerable owner of the one-of-a-kind bookstore, to learn more.
Alabama Booksmith is a one-of-a-kind bookstore dating back to 1990
Butted up against Rosedale Dr. and the on-ramp to U.S. 31 in the northeast corner of downtown Homewood, Alabama Booksmith’s modest exterior conceals a literary treasure that any bookworm worth their salt should know.
Founded as Highland Booksmith in 1990 by Jake Reiss, Alabama Booksmith is the only bookstore in Alabama—and perhaps the only bookstore in the world—that exclusively sells books signed by their authors (usually first editions, too). To make matters even more puzzling, nearly every signed copy is sold at the publisher’s regular retail price.
It’s a business model I don’t quite understand…