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All the United States Illinois Chicago Quimby's Bookstore

Quimby's Bookstore

The beloved home to all publications indie, erotic, and punky.

Chicago, Illinois

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Dan Steinmetz
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The exterior of Quimby’s   Bradley Stemke / CC BY 2.0
A window display at Quimby’s   Carl Collins / CC BY 2.0
A selection of literature at Quimby’s.   anokarina/CC BY-SA 2.0
Welcome to Quimby’s.   Pat Loika/CC BY 2.0
How to be your own cat   evilgreentriangle / Atlas Obscura User
A karaoke event at Quimby’s.   Christopher Wilde/CC BY-SA 2.0
She-devil at Quimby’s   joshuacarlon / Atlas Obscura User
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About

The brick and mortar bookstore is not dead, and as long as places like Quimby’s are around, neither will it be dull.

Quimby’s opened in Chicago’s Wicker Park neighborhood in 1991 and is still there, in all its defiant weirdness, today. (It did move within the neighborhood, to a bigger spot.) The store specializes in “the unusual, the aberrant, the saucy and the lowbrow,” and is a hub for zines and other independently published works on music history, the occult, erotica, and much more. 

The store is the singular vision of Steven Svymbersky, a veteran zine publisher who said, “I really want to carry every cool - bizarre - strange - dope - queer - surreal - weird publication ever written and published and in time Qvimby's will. Because I know you’re out there and you just want something else, something other, something you never even knew could exist.”

Why the original spelling used a “v” is a mystery, but it’s a good thing the store changed course; otherwise, it wouldn’t be able to use Quimby the Mouse as its beloved mascot. Though Svymbersky’s friend Chris Ware created Quimby the Mouse around the same time that the bookstore opened, the names are coincidental—mutual beneficiaries of a distinctly indie synergy.

Whether it’s a dilution of Quimby’s local aesthetic, or a big step toward spreading the alt-gospel, not everyone has to travel to Wicker Park to experience Quimby’s zinescape. In 2017, Svymbersky opened a second Quimby’s in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Related Tags

Bookstores Punk Chicago Erotic Sex Occult Books Shops

Know Before You Go

Quimby's is open Monday through Thursday from noon to 9 p.m.; Friday from noon to 10 p.m.; Saturday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; and Sunday from noon to 7 p.m. The bookstore hosts frequent readings. A lot of what's in stock is sexually explicit.

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swarmsoflizards

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joshuacarlon, matthewtaub, evilgreentriangle, Michelle Cassidy

  • joshuacarlon
  • matthewtaub
  • evilgreentriangle
  • Michelle Cassidy

Published

October 4, 2018

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  • https://www.quimbys.com/faq
  • https://www.amny.com/entertainment/quimby-s-iconic-chicago-bookstore-opens-in-nyc-1.13114115
Quimby's Bookstore
1854 W. North Avenue
Chicago, Illinois
United States
41.910598, -87.674778
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