The Velvet Spine<\/a>.<\/p>\n“We did a soft opening last weekend, but now we’re going to be restocking and everything, and getting prepared for the grand opening, which we’ll be giving away free books and blind date books, too,” said co-owner Jill Reber.<\/p>\n
The Velvet Spine is a new independent bookstore at 508 Penn Ave. in West Reading.<\/p>\n
“We’re like a dark, gothic bookstore that’s focused on horror, mystery, thriller, dark romance and fantasy,” said co-owner Jessie Anoia.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not just another bookstore. From the horror displays to the vintage d\u00e9cor, the experience starts way before you pick up a book.<\/p>\n
The owners say they wanted more than shelves full of books. They wanted people to stay, sit down, explore and feel at home.<\/p>\n
“People are welcome to bring in drinks. We also have a cooler with drinks, but we encourage people to hang out and read,” Anoia said.<\/p>\n
The idea started with two friends and a dream of creating something different.<\/p>\n
“People like to say that reading’s dead, but it’s not. It’s really big right now, but we wanted a store that centered on the darker side of books,” Anoia said.<\/p>\n
The grand opening celebration runs Friday through Sunday, Aug. 7-9, featuring giveaways, special promotions, snacks and the chance to win free books for a year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WEST READING, Pa. \u2013 Dark shelves, horror figures and plenty of stories waiting to be discovered. Welcome to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260147,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[41849,110384,110382,110385,128,130,129,110383,707],"class_list":["post-260146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-fantasy-books","tag-horror-books","tag-independent-bookstore","tag-mystery-books","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-the-velvet-spine","tag-west-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}