Jackie Burrell, Writer

It’s heartening in these disheartening times to find there are book lovers everywhere. It may not alter the whole world/hell/handbasket dynamic of 2026, but there’s delight in discovering bookish nooks in unexpected places. A cozy reading spot 👆hides amid the over-the-top hallucinogenic spectacle of Denver’s Meow Wolf, for example. Despite its appearance, it’s strictly BYOBook. Everything’s glued in place, likely to appease the worries of Meow Wolf’s litigation team, who don’t approve of collapsing novels. (No word on how they feel about plot holes.)

And there’s more to enjoy out there, from literary cocktail bars — Oakland’s Clio’s Books and San Francisco’s Novela among them — to the #booksandbeer approach at Second Chapter Brewing in Ogallala, Nebraska.

We’re just back from a 700-mile meander through Nebraska and Wyoming, where we mixed Oregon Trail sights (of course) with other discoveries. Ogallala may be small — pop. 4,751 — but that brewery is irresistible. Owners Richard Gibson and Lisa Kraus took over the old city library in 2023 and committed to the literary bit big time. Beer flights are served in old card catalog drawers. The throw pillows look like vintage library check-out cards. The suds sport names like Sci-Fi-PA and Dewey Decimator — a Baltic-style porter — and there are books tucked everywhere, even under the bar. Those, you can read.

At Meow Wolf, you’re limited to the marvelously strange, Myst-like volumes tucked on nearby plinths that speak of dreams, bewildering creatures and a field journal whose pages are “trying to convince me they’ve felt my touch before.” Even the handwriting is mystical and fae. But there are no Dewey Decimal puns at all.