Avid Bookshop is a fiercely independent, community-focused bookselling business headquartered in Athens, Georgia. We have a bookstore at 1662 S. Lumpkin St. in Athens' Five Points neighborhood, plus we serve readers nationwide with our full-service webstore at avidbookshop.com. Named in the NYT's Wirecutter Holiday Gift Guide two years in a row, the Avid Book Subscription Program remains the most personalized book subscription available in the market; subscribers are all over the country, allowing us to expand our reach and connect meaningfully with even more book lovers.
Founded by Janet Geddis, Avid has been voted by Flagpole readers as Athens' Favorite Local Business for ten years in a row. We've also been recognized as Flagpole's Favorite Uniquely Athens Business, the favorite place to buy gifts, and Athens' favorite community-focused business. While we focus on supporting the local community both culturally and economically, Avid as a whole is very active in regional and nationwide organizations such as the American Booksellers Association, the Independent Booksellers Consortium, and the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA); Avid booksellers are current or past volunteer board or committee members for multiple associations. Avid's company-wide, notable enthusiasm, activism, advocacy, and expertise have led to various booksellers' being chosen for high-profile keynotes and speeches as well as awards.
Our booksellers are nationally renowned for their book expertise and advocacy. Some highlights include Avid and its booksellers being: 1, featured in several documentaries (including Athens Rising and Out of My Head, the latter of which shows Avid founder and migraine patient advocate Janet Geddis in conversation with late Congressman John Lewis in D.C.); 2, acknowledged, thanked, or even included as a setting in both fiction and nonfiction books; 3, profiled in myriad multiple magazines and newspapers both regional and worldwide; 4, speakers and/or conversation partners in large-scale gatherings and/or conferences (some recent highlights: in 2021, Janet Geddis interviewed Brené Brown for an ABA Winter Institute Keynote; in 2022, both Rachel Watkins and Luis Correa were panelists at education sessions); 5, contributors to national and state-based radio shows and podcasts (a few examples: NPR's On Point and the iHeartMedia podcast Dear Therapists); 6, guest speakers at UGA, talking with both undergraduate and graduate classes as well as alumni groups; and so much more!
We are proud of how hard we continually work to provide an open-hearted space where staff and visitors (both IRL and online) engage in meaningful, respectful dialogue. Members of the management team (consisting of business owner/founder Janet Geddis, operations director Rachel Watkins, and operations manager Luis Correa) are wholly committed to making Avid a nurturing, responsive, empathetic, and fun place to work, a business that centers employees' mental, emotional, and physical health needs by continually improving our operations/procedures, checking in with staff one-on-one and as a group to ensure that booksellers at all levels are getting the support they need, offering generous paid time off (1, sick leave; 2, paid vacation time; and 3, generous family leave, the last of which can last up to 8 weeks total, 4 of those weeks fully paid). In April 2022, we changed our definition of full-time employment, limiting a full-time workload to 35 hours per week max. Occasionally we close the shop for the day in order to support our staff during markedly stressful times when a break is more important than the sales dollars we could bring in if we were to stay open (for example, we've given staff a bonus paid day off on or the day after Election Day and/or in the midst of a particularly difficult time). During the most disruptive (and scary) days of the pandemic, we consistently chose to prioritize staff and community health, even when those choices are not in line with our state leaders' guidelines (or lack thereof). It's hard to wrap our heads around this fact, but we were actually closed for in-store browsing from March 2020 until August 2021: a total of 17 months! We were able to avoid any layoffs while keeping the business afloat.
At Avid Bookshop, we firmly believe that books change readers’ lives for the better, and that belief influences everything we do, from our curated collection to our events calendar to the books we put in customers' hands. In recent years, we have doubled-down on this philosophy and are more committed than ever to using our voices to speak up for what is right and for sharing an ever-widening diversity of stories with our shoppers.
Please drop by our charming store (or browse online!) to find the perfect book or lovely gift item. Our bookshop is staffed by enthusiastic, well-read booksellers who are eager to help you find just what you need (or to leave you to browse quietly if you're not in the mood to chat). Avid Bookshop is an ethically run business with a strong focus on community engagement. We continually challenge ourselves, trying to figure out creative ways to make our city better through our #avidgivesback and #avidinschools initiatives, activism, authorless events, book fairs, free author readings, partnerships, book clubs, and more. We stay true to the “buy local first” mantra, choosing to support independent, locally-owned businesses for supplies whenever possible and opting to work with highly-rated, ethically sound national businesses when a local option isn't available. When it comes to buying local first, we really do practice what we preach.