In case you haven't heard, Saturday is the first Chicago Independent Bookstore Day. Nine indie bookstores—the Book Cellar, City Lit, Open Books, Powell's, Sandmeyer's Bookstore, the Seminary Co-op and 57th Street Books, Unabridged Bookstore, and Women & Children First—are banding together to host a day filled with bookish events and giveaways that will, they hope, encourage readers to explore the city's book culture beyond their own neighborhood stores.

Herewith a complete list of the day's events. Warning: you may be facing some hard choices. Particularly fraught (to me, at least), is the 2 PM time slot: three very smart and engaging essayists are reading at Powell's, but Paula Haney of the Hoosier Mama Pie Company is giving a pie-making demonstration, with free samples, at Open Books.

10:30 AM: Storytime at City Lit and Open Books
11 AM: Storytime at Powell's
12 PM: Martha Bayne, author of The Soup & Bread Cookbook and former Reader writer, signs books and doles out gazpacho from Lula Café at City Lit
12 PM: Kat Barry and Jo Kaucher, authors of The New Chicago Diner Cookbook, give out free food from the Chicago Diner at Unabridged Bookstore
1 PM: Mary Schmich schmoozes and signs copies of her collection of columns, Even the Terrible Things Seem Beautiful To Me Now, at Women & Children First
2 PM: Essayists Eula Biss, Megan Stielstra, and Ben Tanzer read at Powell's
2 PM: Paula Haney, proprietor of the Hoosier Mama Pie Company and the author of The Hoosier Mama Book of Pie, gives a pie-making demonstration, with samples, at Open Books
4:30 PM: Poets Anthony Madrid, Kenyatta Rogers, and Virginia Smith Rice read at Powell's
5 PM: Five authors from the Curbside Splendor stable—Halle Butler, Susan Lanier, Dmitry Samarov, Scott McClanahan, and Juliet Escoria—read at City Lit
7 PM: Fiction writers Eric May, Joe Meno, and Shawn Shiflett read at Powell's

All day:
• The first 20 shoppers at each of the nine stories who spend $30 or more will receive the beginnings of a puzzle designed especially for Chicago Independent Bookstore Day by artist and former bookseller Lilli Carré. (They'll have until August 3 to visit the rest of the stores and collect the rest of the puzzle pieces.) If you're a late sleeper or a cheapskate, you can get a passport and collect stamps at all the stores.

• 20 percent off purchase with receipt from one other participating bookstore, 30 percent off with receipts from two or more at Powell's

• A sidewalk sale at City Lit

• Ten percent off everything in the store not already discounted at Unabridged

• Select titles 15 percent off, hourly raffles of gift bags filled with books and bookish accessories, free book samplers, and free gourmet cupcakes (while supplies last) at the Book Cellar

• Raffles and free bags and other publisher giveaways at 57th Street Books and the Seminary Coop

• Drawing for publisher giveaways at Sandmeyer's

Aimee Levitt writes about books on Fridays.