Las Vegas Mixtape v8: Vintage Neon, Amped Up Live Music, And Vegan Steak

Track #5: Bookstore Medley: The Writer’s Block @Downtown and Avantpop Bookstore @Commercial Center

The Writer’s Block describes itself as a bookstore and “artificial bird sanctuary,” with bird motifs throughout the space. (Image: Vegas 411)

It’s hard not to fall in love with The Writer’s Block, a “bookshop, coffee shop, young writer’s bookshop, and artificial bird sanctuary,” the latter a reference to all the artsy bird motifs placed throughout this attractively quirky space. You’ll find it on the same street as another intellectual gem—art house cinema The Beverly Theater. Go to the bookstore on January 23 at 6:30 pm for “Please Send Noodles,” a monthly “eating, cooking, reading” book club.

Over at New Orleans Square in Commercial Center, enter Avantpop Bookstore, whose brand—“Specialty. Subversive. Subculture”—is an open invite to bohemians everywhere. Thank heaven for writer Shwa Laytart and his wife Sugar for creating a space where you can buy vintage and new books like “Santa Sold Shrooms,” “The Acid Test,” and (naturally) “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” not to mention all of John Waters’ books including his deliciously twisted page-turner “Shock Value.”

Also on the store’s shelf: Laytart’s “F****d-Up Poetry for F****d-Up People” in F****d-Up Times,” a collection of moving poems that offer a strange kind of comfort.