St. Louis Is Getting a New Bookstore, Leviathan, This Year

Two experienced booksellers have come together with plans to open a new independent bookstore in the City of St. Louis this year. The location is TBD, but you can get a sneak peek this weekend on South Grand.

Leviathan Bookstore is the brainchild of Amanda Clark and James Crossley, two experienced booksellers who fell in love and decided to form a professional partnership in addition to their personal one. Clark is well-known in St. Louis' literary circles as the events and marketing manager for the Novel Neighbor in Webster Groves and more widely as the founder of Renegade STL Tours, the groundbreaking historical tour company that the RFT named "one of 75 reasons to love St. Louis." (She is also a public historian and community tours manager for the Missouri Historical Society, a job she plans to keep even after Leviathan launches.)

Clark met Crossley in 2018 at the publishing trade show BookExpo — and bookselling tips soon turned into a long-distance romance. Crossley is the founding manager of Seattle's Madison Books, a five-year-old indie that Publishers Weekly listed as a finalist for the best bookstores in America.

Fortunately for St. Louis book lovers, Crossley didn't just fall in love with Clark. He also fell in love with the city.

“There’s a strong sense of the past here that I love, but I also see amazing potential for the future,” he said in a prepared statement. “I think it’s a great bookstore town, and I’d like to help make it an even better one.”

To that end, the couple plans to open Leviathan Bookstore later this year — but you don't have to wait that long to get a glimpse of the titles they'll be offering. They plan to debut this weekend at Dunaway Books (3111 South Grand Boulevard). Since Leviathan won't sell used books and Dunaway doesn't sell new ones, you can expect to see an ongoing collaboration as Clark and Crossley figure out their brick-and-mortar plans.

Said Clark in a statement, "We visited Dunaway one Saturday evening to talk about our plans to open a bookstore, and said that we might be interested in doing a pop-up as a sort of prelude to a permanent brick-and-mortar shop. Claudia and Kevin immediately jumped in with what the next step would be, and it wasn’t long before the four of us had planned Leviathan’s pop-up grand opening on April 27.”

That day is Saturday, and it also happens to be Independent Bookstore Day. If you'd like to celebrate that auspicious occasion with one of the great second-hand shops, even while launching what will likely be the city's newest great new book sellers, they're offering refreshments and music from 5 to 7 p.m.

Also worth noting is that unusual store name. Naturally, with Clark's love of history, there's a good story behind it.

According to the shop's press release, Clark and Crossley were inspired by the Missouri Leviathan, a skeleton of a mighty beast that a German immigrant named Albert Koch assembled in the 1830s. Unfortunately, the massive creature was fictional.

"More cautious scientists in later years realized he'd jammed multiple mastodon skeletons together," the release notes. "Notwithstanding this minor error in judgment, Koch is an inspiration for the scope of his vision, his eagerness to please the public, and yes, his chutzpah. That's why the Leviathan partnership is rolling up their sleeves, using what they find, and creating something bigger and better than the sum of its parts, just as a growing number of independent booksellers are doing all across the country."


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