Opening the Eyes of Every Customer, One Book at a Time

In our first “Indie Bookstore Spotlight,” we spoke to writer Nikkya Hargrove about her virtual-for-now bookstore and her dream of having an in-person shop someday that will serve as a local hub.

Photo by Jordan Rathkopf/The Rathkopfs; collage by Yunuen Bonaparte

Writer Nikkya Hargrove has been a lover of books for as long as she can remember, and she values her community above all else. Which is why she founded Obodo Serendipity Books, a virtual-for-now bookstore that speaks to both of these passions. Nikkya works full-time at a health nonprofit, has been a staff writer at Scary Mommy and has written about subjects like motherhood, adoption, marriage and prison for The New York Times, The Guardian, Shondaland, Parents and others. She has a book coming out this fall called Mama: A Queer Black Woman’s Story of a Family Lost and Found about adopting her little brother after their incarcerated mom unexpectedly died, leaving her to create, at a young age, the kind of family she’d always dreamt of having. 

While Obodo is a virtual-only store right now, Nikkya plans to open up a physical bookshop in the town of Stratford, Connecticut, near where she lives as soon as she can. For our new Indie Bookstore Spotlight column, in which we hear from some of our favorite entrepreneurs about their bookselling journeys, we spoke to Nikkya about her impetus for starting Obodo, what she imagines for its future and what she’s been enjoying most about it so far. (Please shout out your favorite indie bookseller in the comments, and what you love about them!)