Small Eastside bookstore wants to make reading fun again

Bre Lander came home from college in 2017 and had to answer the intimidating question posed to everyone who finds themselves at that crossroad.

What’s next?

For Lander, though, looking forward also was a chance to peer back at one thing that never seemed to leave.

“I couldn’t think of anything else other than my love for books,” Lander, 28, said from a desk in the center of the bookstore she opened with her mother last year.

Garden of Readin’ Book Closet is a small outfit for now, one of a handful of small businesses sharing space in a brick building on the far east side. Two side walls are lined with bookshelves of new and used books ranging from biographies to contemporary fantasy.

The goal is simple: to make reading fun.

“Just making it normal again,” Lander’s mother, Anna Hall, said. “They still matter; books will always matter.”

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Garden of Readin’ is part of a wave of new bookstores that have opened in the past year in Indianapolis, joining at least four others that opened in 2023. Another shop, The Whispering Shelf, opened April 27.

But Garden of Readin’ is unique because of its location. The store is in a nondescript building between a car rental company and chain wings restaurant on Shadeland Avenue. And the door that leads to the shop is near the back of the building.

Visibility has been an issue almost a year into business.

Plus, Lander already has a full-time job with an insurance company, and Hall is an operations d​​irector at a marketing firm. So the bookstore is open on weekends and occasional weekday evenings.

Garden of Readin’ picks up a lot of its business at vendor events. That’s where they meet potential customers and local authors, some of whom end up with their books in the store. There are currently about a dozen local authors featured at the shop.

But the mother-daughter duo have bigger dreams for their store — like getting a space where they also can host poetry nights, author meet-and-greets and other events.

For now, though, Garden of Readin’ is still a release for Lander, an introvert who said her job requires her to talk all day. Even when the store isn’t open, Lander sometimes stops in after work to read or rearrange books on the shelves.

“When I come in here, I can just chill,” she said.

That sense of peace found in books is a feeling that extends back to Lander’s childhood.

A family of authors

Hall, 48, used to take her kids to the library all the time while she was a college student. And while it wasn’t exactly the park or a movie theater, those trips to the library helped kindle a love for reading.

Lander’s brother, 23-year-old Chrishawn McClain, isn’t as prolific a reader these days as his sister and mother, but he remembers competing with friends at school to see who could finish the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series first.

McClain took a special interest in finding books at the library that also had a movie adaptation.

“It was like a little store to me,” he said.

Lander grew up participating in summer reading programs and was once recognized at an Indy Fuel hockey game after winning a contest at her elementary school.

And reading wasn’t the only passion a childhood at the library helped spark. Lander and McClain also have co-written books with their mother.

Lander and Hall wrote a book, “Girl Time,” about three girls who become best friends through their love of ​​fashion, hair and food.

And McClain’s book with his mother, called “Boys to Men,” follows a boy from cleaning his room to getting his first job.

Now, Hall is looking ahead to three more books: one about kids with disabilities and one about being plus-size and still feeling pretty, along with a kids cookbook.

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If you go

Garden of Readin’ is open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at 1387 N. Shadeland Ave.

The shop also is open on some weekday evenings, and Lander said she tries to post earlier in the day on social media to let people know.

If you’re looking for reading recommendations, Hall said she’s currently reading “The Kingmaker” by Kennedy Ryan and loves any book with drama. Lander is currently reading “The Teacher” by Freida McFadden and recommends the 15-book “Reverend Curtis Black Series” about a pastor consumed by money and power.

Mirror Indy reporter Tyler Fenwick covers economics. Contact him at 317-766-1406 or tyler.fenwick@mirrorindy.org. Follow him on X @ty_fenwick.