Alienated Majesty Books
613 W 29th St — Austin
alienatedmajestybooks.com ✽ @alienatedmajestybooks
Year Opened — 2023
Employees — 6, plus one cleaning robot
“Louche literary leastsellers”
What’s the story of your bookstore’s origin?
August 2023. We were inspired by Malvern Books, a visionary bookstore founded by Joe Bratcher in 2013 that specialized in small press fiction and works in translation. When Joe died in 2022, the current owners decided that they couldn't imagine the Austin literary community without a place to promote these hard-to-find books.
What makes your bookstore special?
Alienated Majesty Books specializes in small presses that readers generally won’t find at other bookstores in town, as well as poetry, comics, literary fiction, left political writing, essays/theory/academic writing, works on environments of all kinds, and a large variety of works in translation. We also carry a selection of cassette tapes, sourced from local DIY musicians as well as globally-imported labels like Death Is Not the End. In 2024, the Austin Chronicle named us a critics pick for Best Obscure Literature Collection.
We want to offer a more international vision of the literary community. Bookselling, to us, is not about pushing what’s popular or upselling or squeezing money from our community. It’s about being familiar with our stock, conversing with customers, understanding their needs and expectations, and recommending books from our stock that they might enjoy.
In the few years since we’ve opened, we’ve built a robust events & partnerships program with local arts and community orgs whose values we align with. From our literary screening series with AFS Cinema to our afterhours DIY punk shows, we pride ourselves in providing a gathering space for diverse, queer-friendly, and anti-apartheid readers, musicians, and organizers.
