On Chicago’s ever-shifting cultural map, there’s one very special store that just got recognized for its kindness on a national level: Semicolon Books in West Town. Recently named one of America’s five “Nicest Places” by Reader’s Digest , this independent bookstore has long been more than just a retail space.

Founder DL Moore launched Semicolon in 2019 with a vision that extended beyond bookshelves, a space " for readers who enjoy stories by and about minority authors," according to its website. A former museum curator who found herself unable to fly for work after a cancer diagnosis, Moore chose the name “Semicolon” intentionally.

“A semicolon is where an author could stop the sentence but chooses not to," she told . "So it was kind of a space for me to figure out a way to sti

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