City of Asylum hosts second annual overstock sale

For the second year in a row, City of Asylum Books at Alphabet City will host an overstock sale of "deeply discounted books." The sale runs from Aug. 1-8 and includes fiction, poetry, cookbooks, memoirs, and children's books.

The event will also feature Blind Date With A Book, wherein customers buy mystery gift-wrapped books without knowing the title, based on a description or suggestion. The event will also feature a free raffle.

Since opening in 2017, City of Asylum Books has specialized in international and translated authors, as well as stocking local and critically acclaimed literature. The space also hosts visiting authors and translators, including an upcoming reading by R.O. Kwon, author of The Incendiaries, on Sun., Aug. 4.

In 2018, store manager Lesley Rains, who previously owned East End Book Exchange, told Pittsburgh City Paper that the stress of the current political climate has “steered a lot of people towards us who are looking for a safe place to read the books they like.”

The bookstore is affiliated with City of Asylum, an organization that provides sanctuary to writers who are seeking refuge or have been exiled from their home countries.