37 Main St., 718-666-3049, powerhousearena.com 
While there's something romantic about cozy little bookstores, the 5,000-square-foot powerHouse compound proves that big doesn't mean impersonal. While employees from powerHouse labor on the visible upper level, customers below browse books on photography, urban art, children's interests and local culture. Besides hosting the new pop-up shop from Japanese camera-maker PowerShovel, the store—which is billed by powerHouse as an event and gallery space—holds frequent fetes such as the launch party on December 10 of Michael Loyd Young's Blues, Booze, & BBQ, a photographic documentation of the Mississippi Delta, the birthplace of the blues. And, yes, drinks will be complimentary in the store. "After 7pm, it transforms into a vibrant event space, which gives it a livelier dimension," says Susanne König, the company's director. A section of the upper mezzanine is sometimes used as a VIP area—what other bookstore has that?

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