On Sept. 21 Keith Lewis opened his second Bookie’s New and Used Bookstore in Homewood. This is the first bookstore to open after Crown Books closed 20 years ago, according to the Homewood Patch.
Bookie’s replaced the former Medina Casafina Art Gallery on 2015 Ridge Road.
Rich Hoffeld, the mayor of Homewood reached out to Lewis at his Bookie’s in Chicago’s Beverly neighborhood due to the fact that a bookstore has been in demand for a long time in the Homewood community.

One day while Lewis was working a shift a customer asked for a book that was not in stock. Lewis told the customer to come tomorrow and the book would be on their shelves. The customer explained that he was not from Chicago, but from Homewood which made Lewis start thinking about possibly opening another Bookie’s.

The very next day, Hoffeld came to the store and asked Lewis if he would be willing to see a few properties in town and consider opening another Bookie’s in Homewood.

“You can’t ignore something like that,” Lewis said, “That’s like the world telling you it’s destiny.”
Lewis was invited to a business breakfast by Angela Mesaros, the Village of Homewood’s Director of Economic and Community Development, to view possible locations for the bookstore, one on Ridge Road and the other on Dixie Highway. Lewis said that once he saw the current location of Bookie’s, his decision was already made.

“I saw what it could be. It fit the vision of what I thought a nice bookstore would be,”Lewis said.
However opening a bookstore is much harder than it seems.

“To open a bookstore is a risk,” Lewis said, “You have to be in a community that is gonna accept a bookstore and understand what it does and can do.”

According to Lewis, bookstores have been drastically disappearing from several communities such as The Magic Tree Bookstore in Oak Park, that is closing this October.

He hopes that his success with Bookie’s Chicago will be the same for Bookie’s Homewood. It may be difficult but he is confident on the influence that books have in the community.

“Books bring a community together,” Lewis said, “They make the neighborhood more desirable.”
H-F librarian Alicia Rodriguez also belives this statement to be true and finds Bookie’s to be the missing piece of home sweet Homewood.

“I think it is really important for everyone to have outlets available to them where they have access to literature,” Rodriguez said. “Books can take you to different worlds, you can escape reality. They can teach you things and inspire you to be more creative. It’s almost like a fun adventure you go on.”