Unnameable Books

The story

Unnameable Books made the cover of The New Yorker before many people had heard of it — cartoonist Adrian Tomine drew it for the June 2008 issue, cementing its place in the city's literary imagination. Founded as Adam's Books, it survived the pressures that shuttered more established independents like Coliseum Books and Murder Ink. On Vanderbilt Avenue in Prospect Heights, it shelves fiction, nonfiction, and poetry alongside titles from small presses like Ugly Duckling Presse. In 2022 it moved across the street and a block away — still here, still unnameable.