Shops in Park Slope

A shop on Fifth Avenue selling capes, grappling hooks and tins of gravity, with a secret door at the back that opens onto 826NYC's free tutoring and writing center for kids. The shop funds the center. The staff will not break character, which is the whole transaction.

Tue to Sun, noon to 5pm. Closed Mondays

Brooklyn's oldest operating bookstore, on Seventh Avenue since 1971, with a garden behind the shelves that you can sit in. The front is new fiction and the back is where the staff recommendations get interesting. Readings happen here often enough that the calendar is worth a look on its own.

Mon to Sat, 10am to 7pm. Sun, 10am to 6pm