You’ve likely seen them around the city—the little wooden boxes that look like mailboxes or birdhouses but are, in fact, mini libraries. Maybe you’ve even borrowed a binding from this free “take a book, share a book” exchange, no library card or late fees required.

The project, aptly titled the Little Free Library, was started in Wisconsin in 2009 and arrived in Baltimore four years later with the help of the Village Learning Place, which launched the local version with 10 miniature libraries dedicated to spreading literacy and building community in what was once dubbed The City That Reads.

To date, there are more than 50 outposts throughout the Baltimore region, from Locust Point to Druid Hill Park to Mt. Washington, plus a smattering of unofficial spots, like in the Waverly Brewing taproom in Hampden and at the Whitelock Community Farm in Reservoir Hill. (Of course, there are big free libraries, too, such as The Book Thing, The Maryland Book Bank, and the mighty Enoch Pratt Free Library.)

Here are some favorite titles we recently found at area repositories.

All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot
H.P. Rawlings Conservatory, 3100 Swann Dr.

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Hampden, 839 Wellington St.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
The Star-Spangled Banner Flag House & Museum, 844 E. Pratt St.

Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
Patterson Park, 200 S. Linwood Ave.

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Remington, 301 W. 29th St.

In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume
Enoch Pratt Free Library Canton Branch, 1030 S. Ellwood Ave.

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Charles Village, 310 E. 32nd St.

These days, there are groups for everything imaginable online—food, pets, makeup, hair. But hordes of bibliophiles are popping up on Instagram. These book-obsessed people are known as “bookstagrammers” and they use the online platform to build communities for book lovers just like them.

It’s not your old-fashioned book club with ladies (and gents) sitting around a coffee table discussing the latest Fifty Shades novel. These groups are diverse and are perfect for anyone who wants to get in a good discussion on a great book with limited human interaction. Bookstagrammers post their favorites online and some even host discussions with their followers.

Take Baltimore native Katharine Scrivener who has her own Bookstagram account, @kathareads. She’s a member of several book clubs, including an online book blog she started with her friends, The Bookly Club. She started her book-focused account after she realized there was an entire online community that shared in her love of literature.

She created her account a little over a year ago and now has more than 12,000 followers, and she even hosts an online discussion complete with the hashtag #ReadWithKat to engage them to read along with her. Scrivener has become so popular that Sarah Jessica Parker actually re-grammed one of her posts.

“It is a little bit surreal,” she says. “I didn’t realize this community existed, or how big and wonderful it is. It’s just full of smart, caring, supportive, book-obsessed people. It’s just this little corner of the internet that is unlike any other I’ve found.”

Scrivener, who enjoys literary fiction, memoirs, and thrillers, believes that the online platform has also provided an open pathway for publishers and authors to connect with readers in a way that wasn’t possible a decade ago. It also opens readers up to genres and titles that they wouldn’t otherwise check out if not for the abundance of literature sharing that takes place on these accounts.

“I love Baltimore-based authors like Laura Lippman and Anne Tyler,” she says. “It’s great to see other people from other places get excited about books that are written by Baltimore authors or that take place in Baltimore.”

Although this Bookstagram account began as just an entertaining hobby for Scrivener, she has been toying with the idea of making it something bigger than just an online account. She has grappled with the notion of local meetups, newsletters, and growing the presence of book influencers online, although she’s still looking for a way to monetize her passion.

“What’s unfortunate about book influencers is they aren’t looked at the same as other influencers,” she says. For now, I love reading so much and this account is so much fun for me that part of me is also afraid to take it to a place where it becomes work.”

Whether your preference is a physical book, audiobook, or a Kindle—Scrivener bounces among all three but prefers an actual book—these online communities are perfect for a veracious reader looking to connect with other bibliophiles.

“I decided to create this Instagram account dedicated to books because I wanted to reignite my excitement for reading,” Scrivener says. “But I also just wanted to talk about books with other people who love books. I had no idea where it would go or what would happen, but it’s just been so much more than I imagined.”

September in Baltimore means one thing for bibliophiles—The Baltimore Book Festival. For three days, the Inner Harbor becomes a book store, reading room, and literary salon all rolled into one, with stages featuring a host of local, national, and international authors to gather inspiration from. To make navigating this weekend’s schedule a little easier, we’ve highlighted 10 writers and events that are not to be missed—and broken them down by your genre of choice.

Literature Lovers

Maryland Humanities presents Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
2 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 24, Literary Salon  This Johns Hopkins grad who grew up in Nigeria has taken the literary world by storm. Her latest novel Americanah, was published around the world in 2013, and has received numerous accolades, including winning the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and The Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize for Fiction, and it was named one of The New York Times Ten Best Books of the Year. Her 2003 novel Purple Hibiscus was the One Maryland One Book selection this year and her TED talk about feminism is a must-see.

Alice McDermott
3:30 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 24, Literary Salon  McDermott, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, is the author of seven novels, including Someone, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the National Book Award, and Charming Billy, which won the National Book Award. She’s also been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize twice, and her articles, reviews, and stories have appeared in The New York Times and The Washington Post, USA Today, The Atlantic Monthly, and The New Yorker. She’ll be promoting her new book The Ninth Hour at the festival.

True Crime Enthusiasts

It’s amazing that a few years after the Serial podcast became such a huge hit that we are still pondering the future of Adnan Syed, who was convicted in the murder of Hae Min Lee. Two women with special connections to Syed are appearing at the festival. First is Asia McClain Chapman, who will tell her story of how she became the key alibi witness for Syed in Serial, and now in her book, Confessions of a Serial Alibi. (3 p.m. Saturday, Inner Harbor Stage.) And an hour later, catch Rabia Chaudry, Syed’s public advocate and author of the New York Times bestselling book Adnan’s Story. (4 p.m. Saturday, Inner Harbor Stage.) 

Local Scenesters

A Touch of Literati 
6 p.m. Friday, CityLit Stage Baltimore’s own CityLit Press celebrates the launch of author Rafael Alvarez’s new collection of fiction, Basilio Boullosa Stars in the Fountain of Highlandtown. The book commemorates the 20th anniversary of Alvarez’s fiction debut, The Fountain of Highlandtown. The celebration includes two prize-winners: 2017 Gordon Parks Foundation Fellow Devin Allen, who will speak about the Time magazine photo that changed his life and the youth educational program he founded, and Deborah Rudacille, a 2017 Guggenheim Fellow, and science writer who tells stories about the ways in which science influences culture and culture informs science, the links between science and social justice movements. This session is moderated by WYPR’s Aaron Henkin. 

Foodies

The intersection of food and literature is always a welcome discussion, and the book fest has plenty of cooking demos and cookbook signings at its Food for Thought Stage. But there’s also Lunch at the Homesick Restaurant (1 p.m. Friday, Food for Thought Stage), where national best-selling mystery author Laura Lippman joins author Ann Hood and author and home cook Michael Ruhlman to discuss the way fiction informs food and food informs fiction, both in their own work and the works of others. Audience members who know their fictional food will have a chance to win some distinctly Baltimore treats.

Kids or Kids at Heart

Pets on Wheels
(11 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday, Top of the World Observation Level) What could be better than cute pets and books? Children will be partnered with a therapy dog (or cat!) from Pets on Wheels. After selecting a favorite book, the child is invited to sit and read to their furry friend. And we maintain this event shouldn’t just be for kids—adults like to read books aloud, too. 

The Conservation Conscious

McKay Jenkins (11:30 a.m. Saturday, Food For Thought Stage) has been writing about people and the natural world for 30 years, and continues this work in his new book, Food Fight: GMOs and the Future of the American Diet. He is also the author of ContamiNation, which chronicles his investigation into the myriad synthetic chemicals we encounter in our daily lives, and the growing body of evidence about the harm these chemicals do to our bodies and the environment. He teaches at The University of Delaware and lives in Baltimore.

Poetry Aficionados

Poets Speak: Raw Wounds, Wise Blood, Speak Water
(2 p.m. Sunday, CityLit Stage) You might know the name Kondwani Fidel from his recent viral essay that analyzed the human toll of Baltimore’s violence in his personal experiences. The writer, speaker, and spoken word poet has also authored a book, Raw Wounds, has been featured in Business Insider and CNN, and was a 2016 recipient of the Ford: Men of Courage Award. He joins Robert Earl Price the author of four books of poetry, including Wise Blood and Truth Thomas, a singer-songwriter and poet who was the winner of the 2013 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry. Ron Kipling Williams, author of Black Freak Mosh Heaven, will moderate.

Be Free Live! hosted by Love the Poet (Michelle Antoinette Nelson)
(4 p.m. Sunday, Inner Harbor Stage) Baltimore’s longest running monthly open mic will take place live at the book festival. Hosted by Michelle Antoinette Nelson aka LOVE the poet an artist, innovator, and Founder of Brown and Healthy a non-profit and global health and wellness initiative for people of color. She’s dedicated over a decade to her life’s work to authoring books, plays, writing arts + education curricula, and providing platforms for artists to explore and discover the true nature of their art. Featuring Almight Ra, Antoine Hayes, Najh Bayyan, and others.

Forty-eight local canines are no longer just loyal pets—they’re teachers’ assistants, too.

Karma Dogs, a local nonprofit, helps rescue dogs become trained therapy animals in children’s literacy, life skills, and humane education programs throughout the region, everywhere from Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital in Towson to the Baltimore County Public Library in Pikesville.

At various venues, the nonprofit hosts H.E.A.R.T.S. (Help Encourage All Readers To Succeed), sessions in which dogs provide moral support to children with reading difficulties. The nonprofit’s president, Kelly Gould, says dogs are the best audience because they “just give positive feedback.”

Karma Dogs started after Gould and her husband, Andrew, adopted two dogs—Dirk, a hound-chow mix rescued from Hurricane Katrina, and Ernie, a blind puppy. Because of his disability, Ernie needed extra help navigating the world, and Dirk stepped in.

Watching the dogs together made the Goulds wonder if that same helpful spirit could be applied with humans. So in the summer of 2006, they co-founded Karma Dogs with Bridget Strama, a special education teacher and Kelly’s childhood friend. All dogs enrolled in the program must pass obedience and temperament tests.

Though the bar is high to join, the payoff is worth it, says Kelly. “We’re teaching kids that dogs can help them, that dogs can be their friends.”