Getting Books into People’s Hands

In a hidden corner of Elizabeth Street Garden, Brittany Bond is tending to her daughter and talking about Iris Murdoch. There’s mud underfoot and shade overhead, both gifts from the previous night’s thunderstorm. Bond explains that the Irish-British writer was a favorite of female writers when they focused on academic writing.

“There’s a lot of female writers who write a lot of fiction and novels and poetry,” said Bond. “But they also write a lot of literary criticism and a lot of their academic books do focus on Iris Murdoch. She has been incredibly influential.”

Bond’s business is called Common Books Bookcart. Hours are short. The cart only appears on Saturdays from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. in Seward Park on the Lower East Side. But DMs are open. The business started on Instagram (@commonbooks) and does a large amount of sales online. When she offered to put together special surprise bundles for customers, she could not keep up with demand.

“They tell me what books they liked recently, what themes they’re interested in, and then I send them like four books based on that,” said Bond. “And it is really fun to do and I was really enjoying it, but then some of the people who I did it for have a lot of followers and they posted about it and I got really inundated and really overwhelmed.”

This gentle spirit in a Manhattan sculpture garden feels like a book fairy. She speaks gently, but urgently, punctuating phrases with a giggle. Today she is sporting Chelsea boots, cutoff shorts, and a black sleeveless tee promoting Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. A self-described “unprofessional” and “unambitious” businesswoman, she spends her days sifting through bookstores and e-listings when she’s not tending to her not-quite-school-aged daughter.

“Every book that I get, I track down individually,” said Bond. “And I don’t think there’s a way I could do that on a larger scale and keep up the quality that I have now. I would just offer editions that I don’t like as much — which is always a debate because the aesthetics are very important to me.”

Part of Regular Life

The Common Book’s aesthetic is best described as cluttercore-bohemian. Instagram posts feature a muted color palette freckled with black-and-white. Used paperbacks are stacked amidst the detritus of normal life: mugs of tea, plants, and fruit. Bond’s goal is to make books, particularly books by female authors, part of regular life.

‘’I want these books to be part of the everyday instead of a specialized knowledge sort of thing,” said Bond. “I know there’s a big push for people to read more female writers right now, and that’s good, but I want it to not have to be a push. I want it to just be what’s available.”

Neighboring businesses often get shout-outs on Bond’s Instagram. Stores like Eliz Digital, Dreamers Coffee House, Economy Candy, CW Pencil Enterprise, and Urbe Flower have all been featured in the past year. Bond says the goal is simply to support the community.

“It’s mainly based on not wanting to be a gentrifier ... I really want to just be a good neighbor to everyone around me as best I can,” said Bond. “And with Dreamers [Coffee House] that’s entirely a mutual thing. They’ve been bending over backwards to support me and are just wonderful humans.”

School Dreams

Deep down, Bond is a librarian running a book shop. Her goal is not to increase profit margins, simply to get books into people’s hands. She admits to occasionally giving away a book to someone who can’t afford it. And that’s saying something, since her revenue just about covers overhead. She’s not getting rich, or even supporting her family with the cart. So this fall, she and her daughter are starting school. Bond will be pursuing a Master’s in Library Science at The University of Buffalo.

“Since I had her, my plan was to [go back to school] so that I can have something to work towards once I have more time,” said Bond. “One of the reasons I do want to get more education is because I would like to be able to actually support myself.”

But Library Science is not just about finding books for Bond. The library often served her as a child-friendly study. Bookstores and coffee shops might have been child-friendly, but the library was the one place where her daughter could play while she worked.

“[My daughter] and I would spend a lot of time in Seward Park Library and we’d go up to the top floor first and I would get a pile of books,” said Bond. “And then we come down to the children’s floor and there’s a carpeted area with toys and books. And she could just play and I could read.”

But there is a long summer ahead before any of these school dreams come close. As New York opens up, and heats up, Bond sees readers looking for lighthearted titles. She suggests “Apple of My Eye” by Helene Hanff, a witty novel by Muriel Spark, or a mystery-thriller by Patricia Highsmith. Now that things are loosening up, people are ready to read something more amusing.

“I think that now we’re coming to a point of processing everything and being able to enjoy distractions.”