Last Friday night, tons of kids, teens, and adults gathered around town for the release of the seventh and final Harry Potter book, Deathly Hallows. Just about every Borders and Barnes and Noble in Philadelphia had events, but my discussion group Potterdelphia decided that a smaller independent book shop would be the perfect place for our party!

And it was. It was totally awesome. The festivities at Big Blue Marble in Mt Airy began at 7pm and ran until just past midnight—of course no one wanted to hang around once books were handed out! The Marauders performed a set around 9pm, we did trivia for an hour starting at 10pm, kids and teens were running around in costume, and boxes of books taunted us at every turn.

Big Blue Marble is a wonderful book shop located near Weaver’s Way co-op in this neat little section of the city. The walk from the Carpenter R8 station takes no time at all and the store itself has three levels of awesomeness, with a cafe on the second floor and community space on the third.

Thank you thank you thank you to all the great staff members who were so amazing that night! I had more fun at this party than previous big-name-store-sponsored Harry Potter book releases, and the warm and cozy atmosphere made this truly feel like an intimate friends and family gathering and not some nameless event with people lined around the block barely looking at each other.

(Side note: I just love Mt Airy, and one of our group members, who’d just moved to Philadelphia last year, had never been in this neighborhood and had to call her friend and gush about it.)

I have lived three blocks away from the Joseph Fox Bookshop (1724 Sansom Street) for the last five years, and until today, I had never walked up the half-flight of stairs to check them out. Located half a block away from the Rittenhouse Square Barnes and Noble, it had never occurred to me to go any further, although I’ve never been satisfied by that mass-market chain.

What took me there today was a desire to finally get my hands on a copy of the Wissahickon Trail Map that I’ve been wanting since January. The Friends of the Wissahickon website listed a variety of places around the city where their maps were available, and the Joseph Fox was the closest to me. Walking in, I immediately experienced sensory overload, in a way I love. Every inch of space is covered with books, and I couldn’t proceed more than a couple of feet beyond the door, because I wanted to take it all in. They have so many amazing books, stocking only single editions of most things, so that they can maximize the variety of options available to shoppers.

I easily found my trail map, and also ended up picking up a copy of Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I’ve been wanting the book since it came out, and they happened to have several autographed copies left over from the store’s signing that the author gave recently.

These days buying your food locally is all the rage. I recommend you try to buy your books locally and independently as well.