“What do you recommend?” It’s a question every book lover yearns to hear. And for Jen Castagno, owner of the Book Shelf, Las Vegas’ first mobile bookstore, it’s a question that never gets old.
“This is my favorite question. Okay, what are you into? What do you like? I can kind of narrow it down,” Castagno says. “Then I say, if you like it, send me a DM on Instagram. They’ll send me messages like, ‘You recommended this book, I loved it so much. What’s next?’ That brings me this immense amount of joy to get to do that.”
Castagno, a Las Vegas native who taught English for nearly 10 years, launched the Book Shelf in 2024, transforming a trailer into a cozy reading nook on wheels. Like the magical wardrobe of Narnia, those trailer doors open into another world. It’s brightly lit, air-conditioned and stocked with curated books, from children’s fairy tales to fantasy novels.
“I want it to be like, I’m gonna go to my best friend’s house, I’m gonna look at her bookshelves and pick out a book that I like. That’s the feeling I want when someone’s inside,” Castagno says.
The Book Shelf travels around the Valley every week, including stops at farmers markets, festivals and book club nights. We caught up with Castagno to find out how it got moving and what it means to the community.
What inspired you to make the leap from teaching to running a bookstore on wheels?
I feel like that’s every reader’s dream, to own a bookstore and read all day long. It always felt like this very distant, non-attainable type of dream. But the year I quit teaching, I got really bored [laughs]. I went from having so much to do, and then … what am I supposed to do with my free time? I rekindled my love for reading. I’d always been a reader. But that year, I rediscovered how much I loved reading. I read 50 to 60 books that year. So I was like, I’m going to start this Bookstagram account, so I can tell everyone what I’m reading. And that’s what brought me to the Book Shelf.
What happened then?
My whole content was now book content, so I was getting little mini bookstores and all these other readers. Something popped up on my page one day and it was a mobile bookstore in Cincinnati. Right around this time is when the new Matilda movie came out on Netflix, and they had their little library-in-a-van thing. So ideas started forming, and I was like, how fun would that be?
Independent bookstores, we just don’t have very many. We have a very small amount for such a huge city. We have the Writer’s Block but it’s Downtown. Where I live, that’s a 30-minute drive. So having this mobile aspect, I felt would be really cool, because then I could serve other parts of Vegas. It gave me something that having a brick-and-mortar store wouldn’t allow me to do, to reach a broader audience.
What was the renovation like?
Oh, it was blood, sweat and tears. I have a friend who has an Instagram DIY page, and she does the coolest projects around her house. She was the first person I told that I was going to do this. I said, “Hey, I need your help doing something.” And she’s like, “I hope it’s building a library in your house.” I’m like, “Even better!” [laughs]. She was kind of the mastermind behind it. I wanted it to not feel like you were in a trailer. I wanted it to feel cozy. I didn’t want to see a lot of the trailer aspects on the inside, so everything’s covered. I really wanted it to feel like this transformative thing. You step inside and you’re ... in a tiny bookstore right now.
How you’re serving various parts of town now is kind of how our local libraries started, with bookmobiles.
I get told that constantly by a certain age of people who will say, “Oh my gosh, back in our day here in Vegas, we would have the bookmobile, and it would come around to our schools, and we would check out our books.” I get such positive feedback from this older generation. This is almost nostalgic to them.
Has your experience as a teacher influenced your approach as a bookseller?
It definitely does. I always felt like I wanted to know what the kids were reading, what I could recommend to them. We’re gonna read Frankenstein, but we’re also gonna read this other really cool book that is new and popular right now. There was a year that I read 100 books … and I just have this knowledge of books. I feel like it’s going to waste unless I do something with it. So everything that’s stocked in the Book Shelf is very much me and is curated by me. I hand-select every single book, books that I’ve read, books that I’ve loved, books that my close friends have read.
A more curated book-buying experience might be enough to entice young readers who are glued to their phones.
Absolutely. Since 2020, when we were all forced to pick up some new hobbies and you’d be okay with being home, reading really gained that popularity again. It’s always been popular. We’ve always had readers. But I feel like now I have so many friends who read, where I don’t feel like they did five or six years ago. It has gained this popularity thanks to BookTok, Bookstagram. I was in the Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Twilight, midnight releases, golden era of books. There was such big hype, and you wanted to get that book the day it came out. I feel like that’s happening again.
Some would say brick-and-mortar bookstores are a dying breed. What keeps you hopeful?
I do see more brick-and-mortar stores popping up around Vegas, like Buffy’s Book Boutique. Mad Red Books just opened in July. Xoxo Books is in Henderson. Henderson is doing great; they’re getting all the bookstores. Vegas, we are not doing great over here. So I would love to see more pop up. But there’s always the worry that the more we have, the less special they get.
What I really love about being mobile is that I’m not stuck in one spot. I can serve all different places.The Little Mermaid, I want to be where the people are. And so I bring the books to you. When I go pop up at a business, I want it to be a local business. I want it to be something that’s Vegas homegrown. There’s such a strong community out there in Vegas that is so supportive and so willing to shop local, even if that means spending a couple more dollars. They want to feel like, “I am supporting Las Vegas. I’m supporting my local community,” and that is a better feeling, I think, than sending my money to Amazon. Like
instagram.com/thebookshelf.vegas
Click HERE to subscribe for free to the Weekly Fix, the digital edition of Las Vegas Weekly! Stay up to date with the latest on Las Vegas concerts, shows, restaurants, bars and more, sent directly to your inbox!
