What's in a name

One of the things people ask most often is why the bookstore is called 'The Base'. Reading as a child made me feel grounded and safe. I could be feeling anxious at a big family gathering, grab a book and sit down in a corner somewhere, lost in a world of words.  Reading brought me a lot, not just in education but also in creativity and curiousity, and acceptance for people whose stories are so different from mine. A lot of people stop reading when they get older, or maybe they never liked it in the first place. With The Base I want to show that storytelling is at the base  of our lives, it's what our culture is build on. We need Black voices to tell our narratives, and we need to continue reading them.