We are the Brays—Leslie, Melvin and the kids.  Those little ones aren’t so little any more, but we are still trying to scatter seeds to see what we can get to grow.

We have called Atlanta, GA, home for most of our adult lives.  We both started out as educators and have since moved into curriculum, program, and project design, facilitation, and problem-solving (particularly around issues of equity and community).  We started this online and pop-up bookshop in 2024.

We think of the bookshop as an extension of our work as designers, facilitators, and problem-solvers.  In every group we work with, we are either recommending books or hearing about new ones we should read.  Beyond that, when we speak at events, we are often promoting books we’ve published ourselves.  It just seems natural to want to point you to ideas complementary to our own.

It’s like sitting in our living room, seeing something on our bookshelf related to what we are talking about, and handing it to you.  Which is, by the way, what we’ve been doing with each link throughout this whole write-up.  Feel free to take something with you.

Now that the kids are stepping into adulthood, we can see how those early decisions to read to them, with them, in front of them, and with others around them has shaped them.  They too are avid readers, although they may do so as much with their ears as with their eyes.  They like knowing things, and they are drawn to people who know things, people who create, people with ambition to leave the world better than they found it.  We love that.

If books can do all that, why wouldn’t we want to sell them?  So pick up a few while you are here.   Then reach out and let us know what you thought about them.  You’ll be glad you did, and we’ll be glad to hear from you.