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New Indie Astoria Bookshop Starting Monthly Book Club

 A sign on display at the Astoria Bookshop. The store, at 31-29 31st St., will be launching a monthly book club in September.
A sign on display at the Astoria Bookshop. The store, at 31-29 31st St., will be launching a monthly book club in September.
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Lauren Mirsky

ASTORIA — Mark your calendars, Queens book-lovers.

Astoria Bookshop, which recently opened in the neighborhood, has started a new chapter in the borough's literary scene — a monthly book club that will start in September.

"It's like English Lit class, light," joked Lexi Beach, who started the shop with her partner, Connie Rourke.

The store opened its doors at 31-29 31st St., near 31st Avenue, on Aug. 21, joining fellow bookseller Enigma — a sci-fi, fantasy and mystery book shop that opened at 33-17 Crescent St. in July — in adding to the neighborhood's blossoming literary scene.

Before the shops opened, the area had not had an independent book store since Seaburn Bookstore closed on Broadway at 34th Street in 2011.

"People are so glad there's a book store in the neighborhood," Beach said of the community's reaction to the opening of the shop.

"The number of people who come in and just come over to the checkout desk and say 'thank you' before they even buy anything — it's just so overwhelming," she said.

Beach is still hammering out the details of when the book club will meet, but said the goal is to hold it once a month, with the first session held in late September.

The first book up for discussion will be the novel "Babayaga," by Toby Barlow, which can be purchased in hardcover on Astoria Bookshop's website.

The store has other events planned in the coming months, including a creative writing workshop, a meditation class, a book release party for Astoria author Sara Polsky's first novel and a reading with the contributors to Newtown Literary, a literary journal for Queens' writers.