Best place to buy gift cards for bookish graduates?

May 1, 2020 5:00 AM

I want to send gift cards to three young graduates in the US, and i'm trying to avoid Amazon. I'd actually prefer to find someplace with physical gift cards. I live in Jakarta, so I need to buy them online. They in turn would also need to buy online due to remote locations. Any suggestions?
posted by frumiousb to Shopping (6 answers total)

I think you probably want Powell’s - big independent bookstore with physical gift cards you can buy online.
posted by mskyle at 5:26 AM on May 1, 2020 [3 favorites]

Or you could do bookshop.org and support indie bookstores (all of them or one specific one) that way!
posted by Tamanna at 5:41 AM on May 1, 2020 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Can you point me to gift cards on bookshop.org? I could not find them. I may be blind.
posted by frumiousb at 7:22 AM on May 1, 2020

Book Club Bar in the East Village sells physical gift cards.

So does the Harvard Bookstore (not actually affiliated with the university).

Both of them ship.

(Because I'm making recs, I feel ethically obliged to note that any indie bookstore is going to be struggling at this time and there's a possibility that if your grads don't spend the cards right away, they might end up not being able to. But this will be less of a worry if you think they'll spend them right off.)
posted by praemunire at 8:33 AM on May 1, 2020

Books are Magic - https://www.booksaremagic.net/
posted by something_witty at 11:01 AM on May 1, 2020

I am a fan of Parnassus Books in Nashville. They may appreciate that the store is owned by author Ann Patchett.

According to their website, they will mail physical gift cards for free.
posted by bluebird at 11:02 AM on May 1, 2020