Photo by Chantal Lawrie
Audio By Carbonatix
A set of five chairs is arranged in front of a projector in the back of the Bookleggers bookstore inside the Bakehouse Art Complex. The nonprofit’s board members are meeting to screen a new film about, naturally, books.
The organization’s founder, Nathaniel Sandler, sits off to one side, toying with a handful of popcorn kernels in his hand. Against the wall behind him is a white dry-erase board with scribbles about an event, including who’s in charge of the party guide and decor.
On Saturday, June 13, Bookleggers will celebrate its 14th birthday with a Wheel of Fourteen community party. Yes, there will be a giant spinning wheel — attendees who donate $25 can spin it to win prizes. There will also be free drinks, live entertainment by Black Nimbus, a bookmaking workshop, performance art by Marilyn Loddi, and, naturally, lots and lots of free books.
Boasting a corner shop within the Bakehouse, a physical Bookleggers location was always a dream of Sandler’s. “I’ve always wanted a space, but if you had told me 14 years ago that we’d have a place like this, I wouldn’t have believed you,” says Sandler, popping a single buttery kernel of popcorn in his mouth.
He describes Bookleggers’ origins as nomadic, with the shop popping up at bars and cafés around town. “I knew pretty early on that people liked having fun next to books,” says the writer and bibliophile.
When he founded the bookstore, Sandler was craving community. “I wanted to start a library and build something that was public but existed outside of the traditional structures…I wanted to do something that was cool and interesting; and I also didn’t have a building, so we started out being mobile.”
After six years of doing it alone, Sandler received a sizable grant from the Knight Foundation in 2018 that allowed him to hire help. Since then, Bookleggers has continued to grow its staff and cement its value in the community.
Looking around at a room full of staff, Sandler is humbly surprised at how far it’s all come. “It was never meant to become a career for me or to have employees.”
Bookleggers moved into the Bakehouse in 2020 and turned the space into a cozy corner bookstore. There are comfy couches and padded benches throughout to encourage visitors to stay. Take a book from the shelf, sit, and read. “We want to create a safe place for people to be around books. A place to get out of your phone and just be.”
For the first eight years, Sandler and his team organized monthly pop-ups. Later, driven mainly by the pandemic, they introduced a Bookbike arts programming residency at The Underline from 2021 to 2023. They also installed Bookboxes all over town to bring more free books directly to the people. (Look for their striped green-and-white painted boxes in areas like Wynwood, Coconut Grove, and downtown Miami.)
After many years of lugging thousands of books to and from event spaces, the effort was enough to tire even Hercules. In 2022, Bookleggers acquired its very own cargo trailer. Painted black with its signature “B” logo, the trailer sits in the backlot of the Bakehouse, filled with books waiting for its next adventure.
Perhaps its most sensational milestone came in 2024, when Bookleggers became Miami’s first and only free bookstore. The original business model granted the first book for free, with the rest in your stack costing $2 each. Two years ago, the nonprofit shifted to a purely donation-based model and gave away all its books for free. You can walk into the store, pick out 100 books, and walk out without dropping a penny. (But maybe don’t do that.)
“I thought that people were going to come clean the shelves or were not going to be supportive,” admits Sandler. “But the community has really supported us, and that goes to show how it’s the people that matter.”
Put plainly, Bookleggers is now and forevermore a free bookstore.
“It’s kind of radical,” says Sandler with a boyish grin. “The word ‘free’ scares people; it makes people uncomfortable, and that’s interesting. I think certain things, especially books, should be free.”
Bookleggers’ Wheel of Fourteen Party. 6 p.m. Saturday, June 13, at Bakehouse Art Complex, 561 NW 32nd St., Miami; bookleggerslibrary.com. Admission is free, but a $25 donation is encouraged.
