Karma Books

East Village

Art & Culture

Book Store for Contemporary Art Fans

Karma Books store exterior east village

Karma Books reading art east village

Karma Books interior east village

Karma Books shelves east village bookstore

Karma Books east village shop

Karma Books stack east village shopping

About Karma Books

& why it made the Carpe City list

The Carpe City team loves a good book store but we REALLY love a good ART book store.
Unconventional KARMA Books is a great stop for every contemporary art lover. The bookstore offers works by Jonathan Monk, Marley Freeman, Katherine Bernhardt, and many more artists; they also offer some great special editions from artists like Richard Prince and Robert Grosvenor.
With a small, curated selection and spartan, gallery-style walls, KARMA Books embraces the “less is more” vibe, giving a whole new meaning to “a picture is worth a thousand words.”
KARMA publishes its own selection and also sells rare artistic items from time to time.
If you like KARMA’s book selection, you’ll like their art. Be sure to check out the Karma Art Gallery on 188 E 2nd Street!

Carpe City Trivia

When did a picture become worth a thousand words?

The familiar phrase was first spoken in 1911 by Arthur Brisbane at the Syracuse Advertising Men’s Club, for a journalism event, and was seen in advertisements throughout the 1910s. Figuratively, however, this phrase has adaptations from many famous names: Leonardo da Vinci, Confucious, and Ivan Turgenev have all been credited with inspiring the phrase. Even Napoleon Bonaparte said, “Un bon croquis vaut mieux qu’un long discours,” which translates to “a good sketch is better than a long speech.”

By: Kelly McDermott

Photography by:
Anne Crays

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