Giving Tuesday

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In June of 2016, as a longtime bookseller and lifelong book lover, I finally put my vision of advocacy for Ann Arbor’s book culture into action by hosting a table at the Ann Arbor Book Festival. With an initial printing of 250 “Booktown Maps” in hand and a display detailing the multitude of offerings available at Ann Arbor’s then 11 independent bookstores, I was determined to teach people what drew me to Ann Arbor almost 15 years earlier: Ann Arbor is a book town.

My advocacy of Ann Arbor’s book culture began with its independent bookstores because I strongly believe they are the foundation on which our book community is built. The first bookstore appeared within 20 years of the city’s founding, and during their height in the 1980s, there were over 20 independent bookstores in Ann Arbor. In addition to our independents, we have an award-winning library system, a world class university that’s home to countless published authors (including a 2017 Pulitzer Prize winner), over 50 Little Free Libraries, and multiple non-profit organizations committed to literacy in our community.

The Ann Arbor Book Society’s mission is to celebrate all the ways books are manifested in our town. We have distributed almost 15,000 Booktown Maps promoting the places that make a book town. For over three years we’ve been connecting local book lovers through our monthly e-newsletters highlighting local book events, book history, and book organizations. Our website hosts an all-inclusive book events calendar and we are currently redeveloping our website to become the go-to place for Ann Arbor book news and book history. In 2020, we hope to expand distribution of our Booktown Map, and add programming events to contribute to and strengthen the already dynamic book community in our town.

But we need your help! We would love to place our Booktown Maps in more hotels, in addition to the bookstores and libraries where they already appear. We want visitors to fall in love with the book culture in Ann Arbor and support our book-related institutions to ensure our town remains a book town. And we hope to start compensating our writers for their work so that our website has the content that will truly make it the go-to place for book lovers in Ann Arbor.

Will you help us to reach our 2020 goals on this international day of giving?

​$10: One month of Ann Arbor book events on our online calendar

$25: 250 Booktown maps, which are distributed to local, independent bookstores, book-related organizations, and hotels

$60: Six months worth of Ann Arbor Book Society monthly e-newsletters

$75: One year of web hosting for a2books.org

$100 or more: The opportunity for us to develop programming events and compensate our writers

​The Ann Arbor Book Society is a 501(c)3 charitable organization.

Rachel Pastiva
Founder
Ann Arbor Book Society





Make checks payable to:
Ann Arbor Book Society
P.O.  Box 7176
Ann Arbor, MI 48107