The interior of Midtown Reader, the only New York Times bestsellers reporting store in Tallahassee–meaning that each sale at Midtown Reader is reported back to the Times Book Review on a weekly basis to help determine what the bestselling titles are. Photo provided by Midtown Reader.
If you ask Sally Bradshaw, Tallahassee is the smartest city in Florida. She once read an article that described it as such—home to two major state universities and a robust community college. It makes sense that a high proportion of residents would have advanced degrees. So it seemed odd to Bradshaw that, in her words, such a “diverse, interesting, well-educated” city did not have a local bookstore.
Sure, there was the Florida State University (FSU) campus bookstore and Bill’s Bookstore—a newspaper shop when Bradshaw moved to Tallahassee in 1991, now an all-purpose shop geared towards FSU students. Now there’s also My Favorite Books, a used bookstore that relocated to Tallahassee in 2017. But Bradshaw was puzzled for years by the lack of an independent bookstore that could feature New York Times bestsellers, host authors and events for the community and act as a “sort of a third place where people can come together and be in communion.”
Enter Midtown Reader. Founded by Bradshaw, the two-story bookstore debuted in October 2016, right before that year’s presidential election. Logging into the Midtown Reader website, viewers will see banners reading “Celebrating Black History Month,” “We Read Banned Books!” and the tagline, “Communities That Read Together, Grow Together.”
“Sally Bradshaw opened Midtown Reader in 2016 in response to the dumbing down of America as manifested by the overuse of the exclamation mark (just joking!),” reads Bradshaw’s profile on the bookstore’s website.
Bradshaw grew up in Greenville, Mississippi in the late 1960s and early ’70s, raised by parents who were voracious readers. She spent many of her childhood weekends in the local public library or at the McCormick Book Inn bookstore, now closed.
“I remember lots of times when I wanted a Barbie or I wanted a toy, my parents said, ‘No, not now.’ I never remember them saying no to a book,” Bradshaw explained. “It was very much a part of who we were. My parents read to us before we could read, and then we would read aloud to them when we could start to read.”
After graduating from George Washington University in 1987, Bradshaw went on to a career in politics as an influential advisor for Republican candidates for almost 30 years. Notably, she worked for former president George H.W. Bush and served as Jeb Bush’s senior advisor during his 2016 presidential bid.
“I thought, ‘If this presidential campaign doesn’t work out, I need to open a bookstore,’” Bradshaw recalled. “I didn’t take it very seriously at the time.”
Bradshaw described being in “hand-to-hand combat” with Donald Trump throughout 2016, and that her change in career was inspired by his nomination as the Republican candidate.
“Once Gov. Bush got out of the race, I did not want to stay in the Republican Party,” Bradshaw continued. “I wanted to do something completely different. And my husband said, ‘You should open that bookstore that Tallahassee doesn’t have. Get out of politics. Get out of the mess and do something very different.’ And so I have, and I’ve never looked back.”
Now nearly a decade old, Midtown Reader has hosted writers including the “world’s best-selling author” James Patterson, #1 New York Times bestselling thriller author Daniel Silva, Craig Johnson of Longmire fame—the book series that inspired a six-season Netflix show—and many more.
In addition to Signing Saturdays—a once-a-month gathering where people can get signed copies of books by local authors—and Finish Your Yarns night—group audiobook listening sessions where attendees are encouraged to bring in their knitting, sewing and needlepoint projects—Midtown Reader also hosts the Piebrary on the second floor, a cafe that serves pie by the slice.
Midtown Reader has a children’s section, Kidtown, and the bookstore regularly collaborates with FSU by hosting authors who correspond with students’ syllabi in various academic programs, including creative writing, history, law and business. For K-12 schools, Bradshaw says that each time they bring an author to town, they arrange to have them visit one public school, one private school and one Title I school in the Tallahassee area. A Title I school is a school that receives federal funding to support students from low-income families who are at risk of falling behind academically.
“These are kids whose parents may be working multiple jobs. They don’t necessarily have access to content outside of a library, and we want them to be able to take home a book,” Bradshaw said. “For years, we have partnered with what we call our Kidtown Heros program to get local businesses to buy books from authors who were visiting Title I schools.”
Along with the Kidtown Heros program, Midtown Reader also hosts the new Read and Rise book fairs in collaboration with the Community Foundation of North Florida. Like the Scholastic Book Fair, Read and Rise fairs bring a colorful collection of children’s books to schools for children to browse, but unlike Scholastic, every child gets to take two books home for free. Bradshaw told Old School Catalyst that a combined total of 600 children participated in two recent Read and Rise events.
This Read and Rise program coincides with a years-long book banning crisis in Florida, as identified by nonprofit advocacy organizations including the Florida Freedom to Read Project and PEN America. In Florida, the number of documented book bans jumped from 565 in the 2021 – 2022 school year to 4,561 in the 2023 – 2024 school year. While shelves in Florida classrooms and libraries are emptied, Midtown Reader takes steps to ensure that every child who wants access to books can have it.
“We’re in such a divisive world right now, I don’t have to tell you it’s chaotic,” Bradshaw elaborated. “People have different opinions about everything, but readers come in all shapes and sizes. They’re not all like you, they’re not all like me, they’re not all like somebody else we know. They come from all different backgrounds, and we’re convinced you can always learn from another reader, even if you disagree on some things. You can come together over the power of learning.”
Despite Bradshaw’s exit from politics, fighting for the right to read has become central to Midtown Reader’s mission—because, as Bradshaw puts it, the right to read is not a partisan political issue, but a “freedom issue.”
“The right to read is to me like any other right we have in the Constitution,” she said. “And if booksellers are not defending that right to read, then what are we doing?
“I can easily tell you as a parent of two grown children who were both good readers, it wasn’t uncommon for me to go to a librarian and talk with that librarian about what was age- appropriate material, based on their maturity level,” Bradshaw continued. “And I believe every parent should have the right to do that, and should do that. I think it’s responsible. But I would never presume to tell somebody else’s children what to read. I would never presume to tell another parent, ‘Your child should not read this.’ And so for me it’s very personal, and I think we’ve lost our way, and it’s just part of the chaos we live in right now.”
Bradshaw also emphasized that, along with the role independent bookstores can play in the current political climate, they also play a role in adding depth and breadth to a community—a sort of “indie” bookstore renaissance in the age of Amazon-ordered books.
“What you don’t get from Amazon or a big box experience is the opportunity to browse, to stretch your brain,” she said. “We grow your brain because you’re forced to browse and to think and to be exposed to titles and content and ideas that you wouldn’t have been exposed to otherwise.
“The more independent bookstores, the more exposure there is to other types of content, the more we grow,” she concluded. “And we’re better human beings when that happens. We’re more empathic. We understand people, we ask questions, we listen.”
Sally Bradshaw’s Book Recommendations
According to Goodreads, The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon is a historical mystery inspired by the life and diary of Martha Ballard, a renowned 18th-century midwife who defied the legal system and wrote herself into American history. Maine, 1789: When the Kennebec River freezes, entombing a man in the ice, Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death.
Shark Heart: A Love Story is Emily Habeck’s debut novel about newlyweds Wren and her husband, Lewis—a man who, over the course of nine months, transforms into a great white shark. A story about grief, metamorphosis and letting go, “It’s the best love story I’ve ever read,” said Bradshaw, “and it is not a romance.”
For those living outside Tallahassee, the Midtown Reader online catalogue lets people browse and order from a distance. For those in North Florida, Midtown Reader also keeps a regularly-updated calendar of events.
