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Drunk Booksellers: The Podcast
Drunk Booksellers
Professional Booksellers. Casual Drinkers.
- 57 minutes 3 secondsEp 18: Drunk Booksellers LIVEEpigraph
Welcome to Episode 18, our first ever LIVE show, recorded on September 28th at King's Books in Tacoma, WA. We rapid-fire interviewed three booksellers and two authors. Surprisingly, the audio is better than episodes recorded in the comfort of our homes.
Listen on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, our website, or subscribe using your podcatcher of choice.
Support the show! All books in our show notes link to Indiebound, a website that connects you with your local independent bookstore. Purchases made through our affiliate links help fund Drunk Booksellers, so you can support your favorite indie bookstore and your favorite podcasting booksellers. #win
If you want to get our show notes delivered directly to your inbox—with all the books mentioned on the podcast and links to the books we discuss—sign up for our email newsletter.
This episode is sponsored by Soft Skull, Counterpoint, and Catapult. Special thanks to Joe and Stephanie Douglas, Big Hair Studios, Allen Watke, Phil Heaven and the Midnight Mystery Players, and George Kaas for the equipment loan that made this recording possible. And of course thanks to Sam Kaas (who longtime listeners may recognize from Episode 7) our production manager without whom this whole episode would not have been amplified, recorded, nor kept on track.
Chapter I: [2:51]In Which We Order a Mistress, Discuss Female Rage, and Are Def Profesh at This Whole Live Show Thing
Kim's Drinking: Hop Valley Citrus Mistress
Emma's Drinking: Elysian Men's Room
Kim's Reading:
- The Book of Dust 1: La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman
Emma's Reading & Excited About:
- Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower by Brittney C Cooper
- Good and Mad by Rebecca Traister
Emma is really into female rage right now, nbd.
Kim's Excited About:
- Vanishing Twins: A Marriage by Leah Dieterich
- also mentioned, And Now We Have Everything: On Motherhood Before I Was Ready by Meaghan O'Connell because (spoiler alert) we interview both authors later in the episode!
In Which We Talk About Big Books and Definitely Lie, Kim Gushes Over Leah Dieterich, and We Suggest People Stop Listening to Us and Buy Books Instead
sweet pea Flaherty, owner of King's Books in Tacoma, WA
For the record, A Room of One's Own is still a feminist bookstore
King's Books has fourteen book clubs, including one that only reads books about cults and one that only reads books about medical issues. They also have such unconventional events as virtual reality film showings and 80s workout nights (#Cher).
sweet pea's Reading:
- Before She Sleeps by Bina Shah
sweet pea's Excited About:
- Training School for Negro Girls by Camille Acker
- Nanny Helen Burroughs (she's a person, not a book—but sweet pea wishes there was a book about her)
sweet pea's Desert Island Pick:
- a book large enough to act as a sun hat
- Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
sweet pea's Bookseller Confession:
- "being a bookstore owner and event planner and bookkeeper and etc... that I don't have a lot of time to read"
Uh, can all the booksellers whose "confession" this is raise their hands?
sweet pea's Favorite Bookstore:
- a bookstore in the back of an antique store in Knoxville, TN (if you know what bookstore this is, tweet us!)
- Dixon Street Bookshop in Fayetteville, AR
Find sweet pea On the Internets:
Facebook doesn't let you have "queer" in your name and challenged sweet pea's legal name twice
Our first guest author, Leah Dieterich, is the author of Vanishing Twins (Soft Skull)
Leah's Reading:
- Amateur: A True Story about What Makes a Man by Thomas Page McBee
This is an artistic rendition of Kim's reaction to Leah's "what are you reading" answer:
The back covers of Soft Skull's galleys are on point:
Leah's Favorite Bookstore(s):
- Skylight Books in Los Angeles, CA
- Powell's in Portland, OR
Find Leah on the Internets:
Chapter III: [22:03]In Which We Discuss Sex With Frog Men, Realize America Is Doing Bookstores Wrong, and We Make the Audience Curse In Unison
Ariana Paliobagis, owner of Country Bookshelf in Bozeman, MT
Ariana's Reading:
- Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls
- "a woman falls in love with a frog man; [he] shows up at her door... and she takes him in, in all the ways"
Ariana's Excited About:
Ariana's Station Eleven Pick:
- What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets by Michael J Sandel
We are impressed by Ariana's practicality and thus let her, and the audience, in on our secret post-apocalypse library.
Ariana's Impossible Handsell:
- English, August: An Indian Story by Upamanyu Chatterjee (also mentioned, My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh)
Ariana's Favorite Bookstore:
- Librairie Actes Sud (it's in France, be jealous)
Find Ariana On the Internets:
Our second guest author is Meaghan O'Connell, author of And Now We Have Everything (Little, Brown and Company)
Meaghan's Reading:
- Hot Milk by Deborah Levy
Meaghan's Favorite Bookstore:
- WORD (a bookstore that brings true love [Meaghan and Dustin, Emma and Kim] together)
Find Meaghan On the Internets
Chapter IV: [38:38]In Which We Save Quarters to Buy Bookstores, Discuss Tricky Toddlers Who Sit On Toilets for Books, and Wrap This Shit Up
Jenny Cohen, co-owner of Waucoma Bookstore in Hood River, OR
Jenny's Reading:
- Oh Crap! Potty Training: Everything Modern Parents Need to Know to Do It Once and Do It Right by Jamie Glowacki
Jenny's Excited About:
- Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family by Mitchell Jackson (out March 5, 2019)
Jenny's Wild Pick:
- Juliet by Anne Fortier
- Fun fact, Waucoma Bookstore is only about 20 miles away from the Pacific Crest Trail where Cheryl Strayed ended her Wild trip.
Quick plug for Books & Whatnot, a newsletter by the wonderful Beth Golay
Jenny's Book for Booksellers:
- Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas
Jenny's Favorite Bookstore:
- Burnside Powell's in Portland, OR (but before the remodel)
Find Jenny on the Internets:
EpilogueIn which You See Us Shop for Booze and We Tell You Where to Find Us on the Internets
- Twitter: @drunkbookseller
- Litsy: @drunkbooksellers
- Newsletter
- Website
Emma tweets from @thebibliot and is working on a newsletter where she writes about books. Kim occasionally tweets from @finaleofseem, but not enough to justify you bothering to follow her.
Subscribe and rate us on iTunes!
30 October 2018, 7:00 am - 1 hour 8 minutesEp 17: Holland Saltsman - The Novel NeighborEpigraph
Welcome to episode 17! We're interviewing the a.m.a.z.i.n.g Holland Saltsman, owner of The Novel Neighbor in Webster Groves, MO.
Listen on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, our website, or subscribe using your podcatcher of choice.
Support the show! All books in our show notes link to Indiebound, a website that connects you with your local independent bookstore. Purchases made through our affiliate links help fund Drunk Booksellers, so you can support your favorite indie bookstore and your favorite podcasting booksellers. #win
If you want to get our show notes delivered directly to your inbox—with all the books mentioned on the podcast and links to the books we discuss—sign up for our email newsletter.
This episode is sponsored by Books & Whatnot, the newsletter dedicated to books, bookselling, and bookish folk; check out their newsletter archive here. Follow Books & Whatnot on Twitter at @booksandwhatnot.
Chapter IIn which We Discuss Bookstore Bathrooms, Discover that Staff Picks Work, and Talk About... Books...
Before we start drinking, check out Novel Neighbor's bathroom:
We’re Drinking
It's too hot for bourbon, so we're rocking dirty gin martinis out of mason jars, coffee mugs, and martini glasses (apparently Kim's the classy one this episode).
Holland's Reading
- Amazing Adventures of Aaron Broom by A E Hotchner (for Novel Neighbor's Subscription program)
- Paperback Crush: The Totally Radical History of '80s and '90s Teen Fiction by Gabrielle Moss (pubs 10/30/18)
- The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers by Maxwell King (the audiobook is read by LeVar Burton!)
- Harry's Trees by Jon Cohen
- The Anna Karenina Fix: Life Lessons from Russian Literature by Viv Groskop (pubs 10/23/18)
Emma's Reading
- I'm Fine, But You Appear to Be Sinking by Leyna Krow
- They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us by Hanif Abdurraqib
- Betwixt-And-Between: Essays on the Writing Life by Jenny Boully
- Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover
Kim's Reading
- Unbound: Transgender Men and the Remaking of Identity by Arlene Stein
- When Katie Met Cassidy by Camille Perri
- Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera
Forthcoming & Newly-New Titles We're Excited About
Hannah's Excited About
- The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell
- What If This Were Enough? by Heather Havrilesky (pubs 2018 Oct 2)
- The Disasters by M K England (pubs 2018 Dec 12) - The Breakfast Club meets Guardians of the Galaxy!
- Hungover: The Morning After and One Man's Quest for the Cure by Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall (pubs 2018 Nov 20)
- Time's Convert by Deborah Harkness
Kim's Excited About
- Washington Black by Esi Edugyan (author of Half-Blood for folks who love Sing Unburied Sing and The Underground Railroad. author of Half-Blood Blues)
- Monstress Volume 3 by Marjorie Liu
- Vengeful by V E Schwab (follow up to Vicious)
- The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis
- Shade: A Tale of Two Presidents by Pete Souza (author of Obama: An Intimate Portrait)
Emma's Excited About
- Severence by Ling Ma
- Rosewater by Tade Thompson
- Also mentioned: The Murders of Molly Southbourne
- Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles by Mark Russell and Mike Feehan (author of the Flintstones comic reboot)
- Bonus Podcast Recommendation: Super Skull
- All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung (pubs 2 Oct 2018)
- Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (pubs 23 Oct 2018)
Y'all. Hot take here. Staff picks work! Emma had a staff pick on All the Lives I Want and Holland actually picked it up at Elliott Bay while visiting Seattle before our episode! (Shout out to our episode with Amy Stephenson from The Booksmith, who initially recommended it to us, and to our favorite audiobook provider, Libro.fm.)
View this post on InstagramA post shared by The Novel Neighbor (@novelneighbor) on Jul 29, 2018 at 4:54pm PDT
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Chapter II [26:37]In Which No One Tells Holland She's Crazy, People Love Their Greeting Cards, The Drunk Booksellers Marvel at Novel Neighbor's Ability to Handsell Events, and We Reiterate that Bookstores are a Business (whaaaa?)
The Novel Neighbor: More Than A Bookstore
The Novel Neighbor is not just a bookstore. In addition to author events, they host birthday parties, summer camps, bookstore yoga, and adult classes (like continuing ed, but sexier), among other things (sorry Amanda!).
Recommended reading for staff retreats:
- StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath
- 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think by Laura VanderKam
Beware of squirreling, y'all.
Chapter III [47:06]In Which We Move From Books to Books, Talk About Hybridity, and We Finally Meet a Bookseller Who Has Read Harry Potter
Book Description Guaranteed to Get You Reading
Anything meets anything. NOT "It's the next" NOT EVERYTHING IS THE NEXT HUNGER GAMES, Y'ALL. Hybridity.
Holland loved a book that was Comic Con meets The Help. FYI, it's called The Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson.
Emma recommends Hawkeye by Matt Friction. It's Buffy meets Veronica Mars. Which apparently is listed on Emma's shelf talker. But, like, who reads those?
Desert Island Pick
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Emma hasn't finished The Secret Garden, but The Little Princess might be Emma's Desert Island pick. That said, she hearts Mandy by Julie Andrews, which is kinda the same thing, so that counts, right?
Station Eleven Picks
Practical: anything from the Did you Know shelf, such as How to Stay Alive in the Woods: A Complete Guide to Food, Shelter and Self-Preservation Anywhere by Bradford Angier
Political: Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard
Wild Pick
The Amazing Adventures of a Nobody and The Kindness Diaries: One Man's Quest to Ignite Goodwill and Transform Lives Around the World by Leon Logothetis
Book of Joy by the Dalai Lama
Bookseller Confession
Holland hated Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff and The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney. Also, she never read Catcher in the Rye, which both Kim and Emma are totally okay with. Emma says you should skip Catcher and read Franny and Zooey.
Shout out to a bookseller who has actually read Harry Potter.
Go-To Handsell
Best book Holland has read since she opened the bookstore (whoa): The One-In-A-Million Boy by Monica Wood
Kids of Appetite by David Arnold (if you liked Outsiders, read this)
Go-To Picture Books:
Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast by John Funk, illustrated by Brendan Kearney
Interstellar Cinderella by Deborah Underwood, illustrated by Meg Hunt
Impossible Handsell
Good Luck of Right Now by Matthew Quick (author of Silver Linings Playbook and The Reason You're Alive)
FYI: Emma's really into Richard Gere.
Book for Booksellers
Throw back to Laura VanderKam
10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works by Dan Harris
Favorite Bookstores
- Flyleaf Books - Chapel Hill, NC
- Elliott Bay Book Company - Seattle, WA
- Strand Book Store - New York, NY
- novel. - Memphis, TN
- The Last Bookstore - Los Angeles, CA
Road Trips are for bookstores, right?
Favorite Literary Media
- Shelf Awareness
- What Should I Read Next Podcast (hosted by Anne Bogel, author of Reading People: How Seeing the World through the Lens of Personality Changes Everything and I'd Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life)
- Book Riot
- Drunk Booksellers
In which we tell you where to find Novel Neighbor on the Internets
- Website: thenovelneighbor.com
- Facebook: @novelneighbor
- Twitter: @novelneighbor
- Instagram: @novelneighbor
You can find us on:
- Twitter: @drunkbookseller
- Litsy: @drunkbooksellers
- Newsletter
- Website
Join us for our FIRST EVER LIVE EPISODE on Friday, September 28th at 10pm at King's Books in Tacoma, WA. Also, spoiler alert, this will be our next episode. And it will be fucking incredible. Promise.
Emma tweets from @thebibliot and writes bookish things for Book Riot. Kim occasionally tweets from @finaleofseem, but not enough to justify you bothering to follow her.
Subscribe and rate us on iTunes!
30 August 2018, 7:37 pm - 1 hour 1 minuteEp 16: Julia & Christen, Itinerant LiterateEpigraph
Y'all. It's been a minute (or, ya know, 8 months). But we're back with a brand new episode featuring Julia Turner and Christen Thompson Lain, the founders of Itinerant Literate, a mobile bookstore in Charleston, SC.
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher, our website, or subscribe using your podcatcher of choice.
Support the show! All books in our show notes link to Indiebound, a website that connects you with your local independent bookstore. Purchases made through our affiliate links help fund Drunk Booksellers, so you can support your favorite indie bookstore and your favorite podcasting booksellers.
If you want to get our show notes delivered directly to your inbox—with all the books mentioned on the podcast and links to the books we discuss—sign up for our email newsletter.
This episode is sponsored by Books & Whatnot, the newsletter dedicated to books, bookselling, and bookish folk; check out their newsletter archive here. Follow Books & Whatnot on Twitter at @booksandwhatnot.
Chapter IIn which a local coffee shop assists in alcohol acquisition, we want more spaceships and dragons, and a book brings Emma to tears.
We’re DrinkingChristen and Julia were given some free beer from their local coffeeshop, Orange Spot Coffee: Stillwater Artisinal's Stateside Saisan and Sake-Style Saison. As our cocktail for the evening, we're drinking the Lime of the Ancient Mariner from Tim Federle's Tequila Mockingbird.
Christen's Reading-
War Storm by Victoria Aveyard
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I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara
- Shout out to Joan Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem
-
Girl in Snow by Danya Kukafka (audiobook via Libro.fm)
-
How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan
-
Monsoon Mansion by Cinelle Barnes
-
Daphne by Will Boast
- Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann (audiobook via Libro.fm)
- Amateur by Thomas Page McBee (pubs August 14, 2018)
- McBee's previous book, Man Alive, is also excellent
-
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai
Julia & Christen are Excited About
-
The White Darkness by David Grann (pubs Oct 30, 2018)
- My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite (pubs Nov 20, 2018)
- Cult X by Fuminori Nakamura
- So Lucky by Nicola Griffith (audiobook via Libro.fm)
- also check out her bestselling historical fantasy novel, Hild
- Any Man by Amber Tamblyn
-
There There by Tommy Orange
- Fight No More by Lydia Millet
- Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik (pubs July 10, 2018)
- her previous book, Uprooted, is one of Emma's faves
- Half-Witch by John Schoffstall (pubs July 17, 2018)
In which we discuss how bookstores work (and how you keep books on the shelves in a bookstore that moves), Julia and Christen give advice to future bookmobile owners, and the mobile bookstore finds a forever home!
Customer: So, is this a library?
Interested in breaking into publishing (then abandoning your fancy degree to become a bookseller)? Check out the University of Denver Publishing Institute. Julia and Christen met there, so that bodes well.
Shout out to Blue Bicycle (founder of YALLFest, Charleston's Young Adult Book Festival)
Fun fact: the aunt in Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson is described as itinerant. Maybe not the best role model, but not the worst!
The bookmobile is so purrrrrrrrrty:
Books that Itinerant Literate must have in stock:
- City of Thieves by David Benioff
- Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
- Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
- Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine
- Lunar Chronicles Series by Marissa Meyer
- Replica and Ringer by Lauren Oliver
Tips for potential bookmobile owners:
- What's an SAN? Ok, go to www.bowker.com
- Have an accountant in the family.
- Indiegogo is your friend. (Kickstarter only gives you the funds if you meet your goal, whereas Indiegogo allows you to choose to still get your funds if you don't meet your goal.)
- Bungie cords are clutch.
- Know your legal obligations (you need separate business licenses for every municipality!)
- For the first few months, plan two hours more than you think you'll need.
- Ask someone who is not in your field to walk through your store and give you feedback.
- Don't take everything a customer says to heart.
- Engage sometimes, but not always.
- Bookstores are businesses too, y'all.
In which Julia, Christen, & Emma have the same wheelhouse; we debate Christen's concept of "feel-good" books; and Christen wants to be fierce & fearsome while naked
Book Description Guaranteed to Get You Reading
Christen loves fiction containing witches, dystopias, feminism, misandry, unreliable narrators, and anachronistic elements. Also, nonfiction books about product and content marketing. Highly recommend Building a Storybrand by Donald Miller.
Emma recommends We Were Witches by Ariel Gore, cause witches + misandry = win!
Julia digs retold fairy tales and pop science/medical nonfiction (shout out to This is Your Brain on Parasites by Kathleen McAuliffe).
Desert Island Pick
Christen: Harry Potter, natch
Julia: Young Adult faves, such as Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
Station Eleven Picks
Christen's practical book: Peterson's Field Guides to Medical Plants
Christen's "feel-good" books: Letters to a Young Poet, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Exit West by Mohsin Hamid, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, and The History of Love by Nicole Krauss. Or, to go more apocalyptic: The Giver by Lois Lowry (aka "The Handmaid's Tale for children")
Julia: The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
Wild Pick
Julia: Nature reading (The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery) or books about female resistance
Christen wants a guidebook about how to be Lady Godiva. #legit
Lady Godiva, the ultimate Rebel Girl
Bookseller Confession
Christen actively doesn't finish things she doesn't enjoy. Real talk, this is a necessity for all booksellers. And readers. And humans.
Neither Julia, Christen, nor Emma have read Philip Pullman's
10 July 2018, 9:00 am -
- 1 hour 4 minutesEp 15: Javier Ramirez, The Book TableEpigraph
We are thrilled to welcome our new BFF to Drunk Booksellers: Javier Ramirez, manager of The Book Table in Oak Park, IL and co-host of industry get-together Publishing Cocktails.
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher, our website, or subscribe using your podcatcher of choice.
If you want to get our show notes delivered directly to your inbox—with all the books mentioned on the podcast and links back to the bookstore we’re interviewing PLUS GIFs—sign up for our email newsletter.
This episode is sponsored by Books & Whatnot, the newsletter dedicated to books, bookselling, and bookish folk; check out their newsletter archive here. Follow Books & Whatnot on Twitter at @booksandwhatnot.
IntroductionIn which we apologize profusely for the delay in our episode posting, bond over Kelly Link, and get excited about books that are... already out
We had the pleasure of chatting with Javier nearly every week for a month while trying to record this episode (#techfail), then ran into a few other delays (#lifefail), but WE HAVE PREVAILED. That said, we talk about books that are already out as if they're forthcoming and we're drinking a nice "summer" drink because it was, you know, still summer when we first started this wild ride of an episode. Just pretend you're a time traveler visiting the halcyon days of late August 2017.
We’re DrinkingVodka & Tonics with NO FRUIT
Javier's Reading-
a bunch of nonfiction for the Kirkus Nonfiction Prize
-
The Sun in Your Eyes by Deborah Shapiro
-
Heartbreaker by Maryse Meijer
-
The Seventh Function of Language by Laurent Binet
-
Ranger Games by Ben Blum
-
Mother of All Questions by Rebecca Solnit
-
(and check out the Huffington Post article about being mansplained to while reading about Solnit's Men Explain Things to Me)
-
-
You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me by Sherman Alexie
-
The Store by James Patterson... 'cause Patterson is awesome, gives booksellers (including your grateful hosts) money for fancy things like student loan debt and ridiculous urban rent, trolls Amazon for funsies, and rocks a photoshopped Santa hat like a boss:
-
Kim's reading aloud: My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
-
MIS(H)Adra by Iasmin Omar
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Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado... Emma's favorite story from the collection is “Inventory”
-
Lumberjanes: Unicorn Power! by Mariko Tamaki
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Spinster by Kate Bolick
Forthcoming Titles We're Excited ForKim's Epic List of Titles that Are Already Out
-
The Golden House by Salman Rushdie
-
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
-
Miss Kopp’s Midnight Confessions by Amy Stewart
-
What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton
-
Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
-
Afterglow by Eileen Myles
-
Never Stop by Simba Sana
-
The Origin of Others by Toni Morrison
-
The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne
-
Release by Patrick Ness (if you haven't read Ness before, Javier recommends you start with The Chaos Walking series, which beginning with The Knife of Never Letting Go)
-
Dinner at the Center of the Earth by Nathan Englander (also mentioned The Ministry of Special Cases and What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank)
-
The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch (pubs 2/6/18)
-
The Grip of It by Jac Jemc
-
The Glass Town Game by Catherynne M Valente
-
In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan
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We Were Witches by Ariel Gore (How to Become a Famous Writer Before You’re Dead)
-
A Loving, Faithful Animal by Josephine Rowe
In which Javier conquers the Chicago bookselling scene
Javier started at Tower Records (RIP)
He currently manages the Fiercely Independent Chicago-area bookstore, The Book Table.
Javier has worked at pretty much every bookstore in Chicago. Other than the OG Powell's. Unless you're talking time travel.
Javier's epic Tour de Bookselling (chronologically):
Tower Books --> Crown Books --> Barbara's Bookstore --> The Book Cellar --> Seminary Co-op Bookstores --> 57th Street Books --> Newberry Library Bookstore --> Book Stall --> City Lit Books --> The Book Table
Chapter II [33:45]In which we talk Publishing Cocktails and how to network IRL in the internet age
Publishing Cocktails, created by Javier and Keir Graff (senior editor at BookList) brings Chicago-area book industry folk from around the country together. They have two primary meetup events: Book Swap & Cash Mob.
Follow Publishing Cocktails on Twitter at @PubNight.
Sign up for the Publishing Cocktails email list for future updates.
Chapter III [38:20]In which Emma is, once again, deeply disappointed
Book Description Guaranteed to Get You Reading
Anything not blurbed by Lena Dunham (shout out to Gary Shteyngart’s epicly excessive blurbing). Anything blurbed by Kelly Link or George Saunders. Check the blurbs on Patrick Rothfuss’s Name of the Wind. Plus time travel! Kim and Javier bond over All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders (shout out to the Booze and Lasers Book Club at Third Place Books Seward Park), with references to Michael Crichton’s Timeline and, you know, Harry Potter. Emma ruins the ending of one of the stories in A Guide to Being Born by Ramona Ausubel.
Desert Island Pick
The entire body of work of Agatha Christie
Station Eleven Pick
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, which has Javier’s favorite first line: It was a pleasure to burn.
In case you were wondering, Emma’s favorite first (and second) line(s) come from Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. Javier’s posting staff’s favorite lines from literature in his store and he drunkenly promised Emma that he’d post hers too. Pics or it didn’t happen, Javier.
Wild Pick
The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben
Bookseller Confession
HAS ANY BOOKSELLER ACTUALLY READ HARRY POTTER? JESUS, YOU GUYS.
Go-To Handsell
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
Here's Javier's blurb, blatantly stolen from The Book Table's website:
When confronted with the "What is your favorite book of all time?" query, most people will often pause, looking over the inquisitors head while thoughtfully scratching his or her chin. I, on the other hand, will not hesitate when I tell you this. Geek Love is my favorite book. Of all time. Period. This oddball masterpiece (a National Book Award Finalist in 1989) shaped me as a reader and more importantly as a bookseller 20+ years ago. It's one of those reading experiences that make you feel like you're in on some life-changing secret. A novel that will chill you, move you and make you laugh, often at the same time. Help celebrate the 25th anniversary of the publication of Geek Love, quite possibly the best novel you've never read.
Master & the Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov: There's a cat that drinks vodka and talks!
Bonus Bookseller Confession from both Emma and Kim: They’ve never read either of Javier’s go-to handsells. #booksellerfail
Impossible Handsell
The End of Alice by A M Homes (author of This Book Will Save Your Life and Music for Torching)
Also mentioned, the origin impossible handsell: Tampa by Alissa Nutting
Book for Booksellers
The Grip of It by Jac Jemc
Still Life with Tornado by AS King (author of Ask the Passengers)
Another stolen blurb from The Book Table's website:
In Still Life with Tornado A.S. King captures the human condition we refer to as "being a teenager" with so little effort I found myself utterly floored. Exploring the way that memory affects grief and vice versa was second in genius only to how King manifests said memory/grief in the mind of 16 year old Sarah. King weaves family history, art and what our past, present and the future can tell us about ourselves into a perfect storm of a book.
Favorite Bookstores
The Last Bookstore in LA
Favorite Literary Media
This podcast you’ve probs never heard of called Drunk Booksellers.
But really:
Beth Golay’s Books & Whatnot
EpilogueIn which we tell you where to find us, but not Javier, on the Internets
Javier is a ghost and cannot be found on the internet. He has… a work email… and a telephone number… neither of which we are going to post here. You’re welcome, Javier.
You can find us on:
-
Twitter at @drunkbookseller
-
Litsy at @drunkbooksellers
- Website
Emma tweets from @thebibliot and writes bookish things for Book Riot.
Kim tweets from @finaleofseem less frequently than Drunk Booksellers posts new episodes. #sickburn
Subscribe and rate us on iTunes!
17 October 2017, 7:45 am -
- 34 minutes 5 secondsBONUS EPISODE: #SEABookstoreDay Year 3Epigraph
For the third year in a row, the Drunk Booksellers drove all over Seattle (and the surrounding regions) for Indie Bookstore Day. We asked booksellers at each of the 21(!!!) stores we visited to tell us what they're recommending in the current political climate. We also collected recommendations from past guests and #SEABookstoreDay Champions! (For an epic TBT, check out our episodes from Seattle Bookstore Day Year One and Year Two.)
Chapter 1In Which Your Fearless Hosts Wake Up Far Too Early, Take a Ferry, Drink an Obscene Amount of Caffeine, and Get Our First Round of Bookseller Recommendations
Emma, Eagle Harbor Book Co.
American War by Omar El Akkad
Madison Duckworth, Liberty Bay Books
Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff
Ron Woods, Edmonds Bookshop
The Nix by Nathan Hill
Robert Sindelar, Third Place Books
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
Annie Carl, The Neverending Bookshop
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Ruth Dickey, Seattle Arts & Lectures
The Fire This Time by Jesmyn Ward
Chris Jarmick, BookTree
Dark Money by Jane Mayer
Red Notice by Bill Browder
Laurie & Marni, Island Books
Why We March: Signs of Protest and Hope
It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis
What We Do Now: Standing Up for Your Values in Trump's America ed. Dennis Johnson
The Book of Joy by Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu
Hallelujah Anyway by Anne Lamott
Larry Reid, Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery
American Presidents by David Levine
Amber, Seattle Mystery Bookshop
Golden Age mysteries by authors like Agatha Christie and Elizabeth Daly
Chapter 2In Which Kim and Emma Make it Back to Seattle-Proper and Still Have... a Lot of Bookstores to Visit
Tegan Tigani, Queen Anne Book Company
Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist by Sunil Yapa
Georgiana Blomberg, Magnolia's Bookstore
Bobcat & Other Stories by Rebecca Lee
Lara Hamilton, Book Larder
Soup for Syria by Barbara Abdeni Massaad
Madison, Secret Garden Books
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid (2nd mention!)
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
Tom Nissley, Phinney Books
Ghettoside by Jill Leovy
Billie Swift, Open Books: A Poem Emporium
Whereas by Layli Long Soldier
In the Language of My Captor by Shane McCrae
Trophic Cascade by Camille T. Dungy
The Boston Review's Poems for Political Disaster
If You Can Hear This: Poems in Protest of an American Inauguration by Bryan Borland
Resist Much / Obey Little: Inaugural Poems to the Resistance
Water & Salt by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha
Into Each Room We Enter Without Knowing by Charif Shanahan
Sea and Fog by Etel Adnan
Pam Cady, University Bookstore
Make Trouble by John Waters
Christina, Third Place Books Ravenna
Against Equality: Queer Revolution, Not Mere Inclusion ed Ryan Conrad
Garrett, Ada's Technical Books
No Place to Hide by Glenn Greenwald
Chapter 3In Which Guests from Episodes Past Return to Give Their Recommendations
Pete Mulvihill, Green Apple Books (episode 8)
Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Make Trouble by John Waters (2nd mention)
Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel
White Tears by Hari Kunzru
The Dark Dark by Samantha Hunt
Leah Koch, The Ripped Bodice (episode 13)
Prime Minister by Ainsley Booth & Sadie Haller
A Promise of Fire by Amanda Bouchet
Paul Constant, The Seattle Review of Books (episode 14)
Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America by Ari Berman
Chapter 4In Which the Seattle Bookstore Day Champions Tell Us What They're Reading
Katie
The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt
The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
The Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee
Ed
The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs (which totes has a white cover)
(also mentioned: The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein)
Courtney, Three-Year Seattle Bookstore Day Champion(!!!)
Borderlands by Gloria Anzaldua
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (for the Book Club for Courtneys)
Kristianne, Shelf Awareness
The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch
Kendra
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis
(check out Michael Lewis's episode on the Freakonomics podcast)
Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics by Richard H. Thaler
Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein
EpilogueWhat are you reading in the current political climate? Let us know at @drunkbookseller.
Non-book political media that Emma recommends:
The New York Times (support journalism, y'all)
What the Fuck Just Happened Today?
Indivisible Guide - A Practical Guide for Resisting the Trump Agenda
Kim's listening to:
You can find us on:
- Twitter at @drunkbookseller
- Litsy at @drunkbooksellers
- Newsletter
- Website
Emma tweets @thebibliot and writes bookish things for Book Riot.
Kim tweets occasionally from @finaleofseem, but don’t expect too much.
Subscribe and rate us on iTunes!
Kim went on a v weird youtube rabbit hole while procrastinating from editing, but had enough self control not to add this track to the end of the episode. You're welcome.
26 May 2017, 3:54 am - 1 hour 5 minutesEp 14: Paul Constant, Seattle Review of BooksEpigraph
The Drunk Booksellers get stoned on this 4/20 themed episode with Paul Constant of the Seattle Review of Books.
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher, our website, or subscribe using your podcatcher of choice.
This episode is sponsored by Books & Whatnot, the newsletter dedicated to books, bookselling, and bookish folk; check out their newsletter archive here. Follow Books & Whatnot on Twitter at @booksandwhatnot.
If you want to get our show notes delivered directly to your inbox—with all the books mentioned on the podcast and links back to the bookstore we’re interviewing PLUS GIFs—sign up for our email newsletter.
IntroductionIn which we make pot jokes and get excited about books
We're switching up our intoxicant of choice this episode and getting stoned rather than drunk (mostly). Paul's rocking Mr. Moxey's Mints (of the peppermint/sativa variety). Emma's smoking CBD (not to be confused with William Steig's children's picture book, CDB!). Kim stops talking while stoned—which would make for a really awkward podcast episode—so she's drinking the hoppiest IPA she could find instead. Everyone's a little too high to explain the varieties of weed particularly well, so you should just read David Schmader's Weed: The User's Guide: A 21st Century Handbook for Enjoying Marijuana.
Paul's Reading:
- Up South by Robert Lashley
- The Nameless City by Faith Erin Hicks
- A collection of books from Mount Analogue Press
- Manners by Ted Powers
- Final Rose by Halie Theoharides (a comic book tone poem about love and loss made up screenshots from The Bachelor)
- Reading Through It book club pick: What We Do Now: Standing Up for Your Values in Trump's America, edited by Dennis Johnson
Emma's Reading:
- First Position by Melissa Brayden (thanks to a recommendation from our episode with The Ripped Bodice)
- Giant Days 4 by John Allison, Max Sarin, Lissa Treiman, Liz Fleming, and Whitney Cogar
- All the Lives I Want: Essays about My Best Friends Who Happen to Be Famous Strangers by Alana Massey (thanks to a recommendation from our episode with Amy Stephenson)
Kim's Reading:
- We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit
- On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder
- The Aisles Have Eyes: How Retailers Track Your Shopping, Strip Your Privacy, and Define Your Power by Joseph Turow
Forthcoming Titles We're Excited For:
- You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me by Sherman Alexie (out June 13)
- Love and Trouble: a Midlife Reckoning by Claire Dederer (out May 9)
- also mentioned Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses
- Theft by Finding: Diaries (1977-2002) by David Sedaris (out May 30)
- Hunger: a Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay (out June 13)
- Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood (out May 2)
- Borne by Jeff VanderMeer (out April 25)
- Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch (out April 18)
- Woman No. 17 by Edan Lepucki (out May 9)
- Isadora by Amelia Gray (out May 23)
- Dreaming the Beatles: the Love Story of One Band and the Whole World by Rob Sheffield (out April 25)
- Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Conjuring the Sex Positive by Kristen J Sollee (out June 13)
- Modern Tarot: Connecting with Your Higher Self Through the Wisdom of the Cards by Michelle Tea (out June 13)
- The Perfect Mix: Everything I Know about Leadership I Learned as a Bartender by Helen Rothberg (out June 20)
In which we learn what The Seattle Review of Books is, talk about book reviews as a meta art form, and get advice on promoting diversity and being a safe, welcoming place for people who aren't white bros
The Seattle Review of Books is a book news, review, and interviews site. This isn't consumer reports, with a thumbs up or down on each title; each review aims to have a conversation with the book. It's a site that aims to look like your bookshelf, without genre classification.
Emma & Kim don't quite understand Paul's assertion that people don't organize their bookshelves, but we roll with it.
SRB makes all their money through a single sponsor (which changes each week). If you're interested in their sponsorship program, you can learn more here.
Paul wants to promote young, new writers and help them build up their clip file. So you should probably pitch him with your brilliant, bookish ideas. Email submissions@seattlereviewofbooks or fill in the contact form on their about page.
Emma particularly loves the Help Desk by Cienna Madrid. Ask Cienna an awkward book-related question at [email protected].
Being a couple of white guys, Paul and his co-founder Martin McClellan are extremely concerned with diverse representation. You can learn more about how SRB encourages diversity in both the books they review and the reviewers they publish on their about page (or by listening to this episode...). But you should know right off the bat, they are not here to promote the new Franzen novel and they will not pander to bros.
Chapter II [33:10]In which we talk about life in the US post-election, say something negative about a book, and discuss Paul's past (and current) life as a bookseller
Reading Through It is a post-election book club hosted by Seattle Review of Books, the Seattle Weekly, and Third Place Books Seward Park. They meet the first Wednesday of every month.
On our post-election world, Paul Constant says: "This is what books were made for. Books are engines of empathy... the only way to do a deep-dive into an issue. It's our stored knowledge... This is the moment for books."
The next Reading Through It book group pick is The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt. They'll be meeting Wednesday May 3rd at Third Place Books Seward Park.
Read Paul's article on his time at Borders: Books Without Borders: My Life at the World's Dumbest Bookstore Chain
Though he's not technically a bookseller anymore, Paul is still "on team books." Keep an eye out for our "I'm On Team Books" t-shirts, which may or may not be a thing we sell one day.
Chapter III [43:20]In which Paul is better at explaining our questions than stoned Emma is at asking them, Emma and Kim give Paul major side-eye due to his bookseller confession, and Emma continues to push Uprooted by Naomi Novik
Desert Island Pick (what would you read that you never had the time to read before): The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro (beginning with The Path to Power)
We couldn't find a video of the following clip of Caro on the Colbert Report, so we'll just leave you this series of gifs to explain why you, too, should consider bringing an epic five-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson as your desert beach read:
You're welcome. Now, back to your regularly scheduled show notes.
Station Eleven Picks (the books to preserve for society) The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (everything you need to know about living in a society) Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (everything you need to know about life and how it doesn’t always work out the way you want, but you should live it anyway)
Read Paul's essay about The Scarlet Letter, originally written for Scarecrow Video.
Wild Pick (traveling is about observing things... soaking everything in) We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order to Live by Joan Didion ("because she is the greatest observer on the planet and I would want to be like her when I was traveling")
Bookseller Confession Once again, we have a guest who hasn't read Harry Potter. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE? Paul also hasn't read Lord of the Rings and Kim proceeds to side-eye him from across the city.
(In case you were wondering, the title of the direct link to this gif is "wtf-i-cant-even-you-are-stupid." Just sayin'.)
Emma, naturally, tries to convert Paul to fantasy w/ an Uprooted recommendation because "nobody doesn't like it." Paul commits to reading it in order to prove her wrong.
Go-To Handsell Fup by Jim Dodge Paul saved the book from going out of print and—arguably more importantly—he handsold a copy to Allison Hannigan.
Impossible Handsell Paradise by AL Kennedy (and everything by AL Kennedy)
Book for Booksellers Saving Capitalism by Robert Reich
Favorite Bookstores Elliott Bay Ada’s Technical Books Third Place Ravenna
Favorite Literary Media
Not to brag, but, we’re the only podcast Paul listens to.
The Rumpus Lit Hub Book Forum Electric Literature Shelf Awareness
EpilogueIn which we tell you where to find us on the Internets
You can find Paul on:
- Seattle Review of Books is also on Twitter
- Seattlereviewofbooks.com
You can find us on:
- Twitter at @drunkbookseller
- Litsy at @drunkbooksellers
- Newsletter
- Website
Emma tweets @thebibliot and writes bookish things for Book Riot.
Kim tweets occasionally from @finaleofseem, but don’t expect too much 'cause she saves all of the interesting (ie. book-related) shizzle for Drunk Booksellers.
Subscribe and rate us on iTunes!
25 April 2017, 5:35 am - 1 hour 5 minutesEp 13: Bea & Leah Koch, The Ripped BodiceEpigraph
On this episode we discuss ALL THE ROMANCE BOOKS with Bea & Leah Koch, owners of The Ripped Bodice—America’s only Romance bookstore. The Ripped Bodice is celebrating their one year anniversary this month!
This episode is sponsored by Books & Whatnot, the newsletter dedicated to books, bookselling, and bookish folk; check out the newsletter archive here. Follow Books & Whatnot on Twitter at @booksandwhatnot.
We now have an email newsletter! If you want to get our show notes delivered directly to your inbox—with all the books mentioned on the podcast and links back to the bookstore we’re interviewing PLUS GIFs—sign up HERE.
IntroductionIn which we feel real fancy, learn more about geography, and can’t stop asking for recommendations.
We’re drinking French 75s and feeling classy as fuck.
We’re Reading
Bea is reading Murder on Black Swan Lane by Andrea Penrose (out June 27). And she recently finished An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole, which she thinks will be a great gateway romance (out March 28) about a female spy posing as a slave. Fun fact, Alyssa Cole lives in Martinique, and Kim and Emma’s geography lessons continue.
Leah is reading Kiss Me That Way by Laura Trentham and Flirting with Disaster by Victoria Dahl.
Emma is reading Hot Dog Taste Test by Lisa Hanawalt—a graphic foodie memoir that is weird and delicious. She also just started Kim & Kim by Magdalene Visaggio, which is a comic about punk rock bounty hunters in space.
Kim is reading Love Is Love a graphic anthology written in response to the Orlando shooting curated by Marc Andreyko; an important, but difficult read. All proceeds for the book go to the victims, survivors, and families affected by the Orlando Pulse shooting. Which is to say, everyone should buy this book. She’s also reading The Book of Joan by Lidia Yuknavitch (out April 18) a futuristic space Joan of Arc story, which hits weirdly close to home in its political content.
We’re Excited About:
Bea and Leah have so many frontlist romance novels to tell you about:
An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole (more than worth a second mention and out March 28)
Full Mountie (#3 in the Frisky Beavers series) by Ainsley Booth & Sadie Haller (out April 4)
First in the Frisky Beavers series is Prime Minister “and is basically about if Justin Trudeau weren’t married and liked kinky sex.”
Ramona Blue by Julie Murphy (author of Dumplin’; out May 9)
The Thing About Love by Julie James (out April18)
Julie James will be making an appearance at Ripped Bodice on her author tour!
The Devil in Spring by Lisa Kleypas (#3 in The Ravenels series, with the kids of characters from her Wallflowers series)
Emma is excited for Tender by Sofia Samatar (writer of A Stranger in Olondria and out April 11 from Small Beer Press) and Next Year, for Sure by Zoey Leigh Peterson, which is the only book about polyamory she has read so she asked for more recs...
SIDETRACK: Polyamory Recommendations
Laid Bare by Lauren Dane (#1 in the Brown Family series)
Glutton for Pleasure by Alisha Rai
Back to frontlist...
Kim is looking forward to
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Whereas: Poems by Layli Long Soldier
The Mother of All Questions by Rebecca Solnit
Dear Ijeawele, or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Chapter I [19:00]In which we discuss Bea & Leah’s Romance Origin Story, Talk Vaginal-Looking Covers, and Get ALL THE ROMANCE RECOMMENDATIONS
Bea loved historical fiction (and historical fashion) and introduced Leah to The Bridgertons series by Julia Quinn (which is great for people who want to test the waters of regency romance)
First in the series is The Duke and I
Leah ultimately came to love contemporary romances and became a hardcore romance fan with the help of Nora Roberts—The Bride Quartet series is one of her favorites
First in the series is Vision in White
Also mentioned: Julie James, whose newest book is The Thing About Love (mentioned earlier and out April 18) and Susan Elizabeth Phillips whose newest book is First Star I See Tonight
Where to Start with Contemporary:
First, what level of heat are you looking for? Super graphic and dirty? Or cloaked in metaphor?
Not Quite As Dirty
It Had to Be You (Chicago Stars #1) by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. You know, the one with the boobs on the cover:
Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn (for geek fandom readers)
Really Dirty Recs
Beautiful Bastard (Beautiful Series #1) by Christina Lauren
Vampire Romance Recommendations (because we love Buffy)
Dark Lover (Black Dagger Brotherhood #1) by J.R. Ward (super dirty)
Nice Girls Don’t Have Fangs (Jane Jameson #1) by Molly Harper (funnier romance)
The Care and Feeding of Stray Vampires (Half Moon Hollow #1) by Molly Harper
Famous people make appearances as vampires—people like Dick Cheney
Witchbian Romances (because we love Willow)
Better Off Red by Rebekah Weatherspoon (Vampire Sorority Sisters #1) (lesbian vampire sorority)
Dance Upon the Air (Three Sisters Island Trilogy #1) by Nora Roberts
Dark Witch (Cousins O’Dwyer Trilogy #1) by Nora Roberts
Lunatic Fringe by Allison Moon (Kim rec: werewolf lesbian feminist)
Two Sexy Nonfic Picks
Girl Sex 101 by Allison Moon
Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski
Side note: Send us a pic of your favorite vaginal cover (via email or Twitter)! Like this:
Non-Paranormal Queer/Diverse Recs
Rebekah Weatherspoon (also has non-vampire lesbian romances)
For Real by Alexis Hall (author of some gorgeous MM romances)
Damon Suede writes super hot romances, which are frequently about firemen; his newest title is Lickety Split (out March 17)
The Prince’s Psalm by Eric Shaw Quinn (a Biblical gay romance)
First Position by Melissa Brayden (lesbian ballerinas)
I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson (MM YA)
Georgia Peaches and Other Forbidden Fruit by Jaye Robin Brown (FF YA)
The Soldier’s Scoundrel by Cat Sebastian (gay regency)
K.J. Charles (also writes gay regency, but they’re not all dukes)
Wanted, A Gentleman is one of her newer titles
The Spare and the Heir (Lords of Time #5) by Jenn LeBlanc (gay victorian)
LeBlanc is also a photographer and illustrates many of her romances with super hot photos.
Glutton for Pleasure by Alisha Rai (mentioned earlier as poly rec)
Trade Me by Courtney Milan (Cyclone #1) (contemporary romance with POC characters)
The Countess Conspiracy (Brothers Sinister #3) by Courtney Milan
Beverly Jenkins writes African American historicals
Breathless (Old West #2) is her newest release
Daughters of a Nation by Alyssa Cole, Piper Huguley, Lena Hart & more (an anthology of stories about black suffragettes)
Silk, Swords, and Surrender by Jeannie Lin
The Tang Dynasty series by Jeannie Lin (about the ancient Chinese Tang dynasty & recommended if you liked the Netflix show Marco Polo. This series is even better with intrigue and sword fighting)
Butterfly Swords is the first in the series
Chapter II [36:50]In which we chat about The Ripped Bodice, the romance community, and what it means to be feminist.
-Fifty Shades of Gray, why they don’t sell it (it’s not a good representation of BDSM), and how they help customers find their next read after Fifty Shades
-Ripped Bodice looks like a very fancy lingerie dressing room (yes, they have a fainting couch). The store is separated into 5 Zones, which are decorated to reflect their genre: Historical, Contemporary, Paranormal, Erotica, and Everything Else
-Sidelines: bookish things, but also things that will appeal to romance readers like stuff about feminism. Solid rec for Juniper & Ivy’s nerdy wood laser cut pieces.
“Part of being a romance bookstore is being unapologetically feminist and sex positive”
Chapter III [48:35]In which Bea goes hardcore practical for her Station Eleven pick, people are kinda boring (in a good way), and we talk sexy nonfiction.
Bea’s Station Eleven pick is Robert’s Rules of Order by Henry Robert. Leah is bringing “the most comprehensive survival guide [she] can find.”
Originally posted by batesmotel
On a desert island, Leah is bringing Happy Ever After Nora Roberts (#4 in the Bride Quartet) and Bea is bringing A Week to Be Wicked by Tessa Dare.
On their Wild adventure, Bea would bring one of Alison Weir’s “crazy tudor histories” and Leah would bring The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg
Anne Boleyn, a King’s Obsession (one of Weir’s newest books out May 16)
Bookseller Confession: “Your tawdry thing that you think is super scandalous is really boring...”
The Dirtiest Romance You’ve Read
Olivia Cunning’s Sinners on Tour series
First in the series: Backstage Pass
J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood series
First in the series: Dark Lover
Impossible Handsell
Self-published titles with god-awful covers and non-fiction i.e. Come As Your Are by Emily Nagoski and Playing Well with Others: Your Field Guide to Discovering, Exploring, and Navigating the Kink, Leather, and BDSM Communities by Lee Harrington and Mollena Williams
The Romance Books Every Bookseller Should Recommend
Daughters of a Nation by Alyssa Cole
Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan
Also, have more than two romances and don’t laugh (or sneer) at your customers who are buying romance novels. Come on.
Originally posted by yourreactiongifs
Favorite Bookstores
LA Bookstore: Diesel
Childhood Bookstore: Women & Children First
Not-Yet-Open Bookstores: The Queens Bookshop and Books Are Magic
European Bookstores: Persephone Books (London) and Shakespeare & Co. (Paris)
Favorite Literary Media
The romance/life blog Smart Bitches, Trashy Books and their podcast Smart Podcast, Trashy Books
Romance Twitter—follow all your favorite authors on Twitter
Epilogue [1:02:20]The Ripped Bodice can be found so many places on the internet
You can also sign up for the Ripped Bodice newsletter on their website—they’ve got events, recommendations, and a thing called Fitzwilliam’s Corner (that’s Fitzwilliam Waffles; he’s their dog, he is awesome, and he has his own Instagram).
You can find us on Twitter at @drunkbookseller and everywhere else as DrunkBooksellers (plural).
Emma tweets @thebibliot and writes bookish things for Book Riot.
Kim tweets occasionally from @finaleofseem, but don’t expect too much.
BONUS CONTENTWe always have more content than we can fit into one hour and this time said content was extra interesting. So for all the people who read our show notes and/or subscribe to our newsletter, here are a few more recommendations from Bea & Leah
Romances That Are Library/Bookstore-Adjacent
Broken Resolutions (Lovestruck Librarians #1) by Olivia Dade
Taking the Heat by Victoria Dahl (Girls Night Out #4)
Rock Addiction by Nalini Singh (Rock Kiss #1) (librarian falls in love with a rockstar)
Romances About Publishing/Writing
The Hating Game by Sally Thorne (publishing romance)
Temptations of a Wallflower by Eva Leigh (#4 Wicked Quills of London) (historical where the woman writes erotica)
How to Woo a Reluctant Lady by Sabrina Jeffries (#3 Hellions of Halstead Hall) (main character writes gothics)
14 March 2017, 6:49 am - 59 minutes 36 secondsEp 12 Amy Stephenson, Booksmith & ShipwreckEpigraph
On this episode we becomes best friends with Amy Stephenson, Events Director at Booksmith in San Francisco and co-creator/host of Shipwreck, a competitive literary erotic fan fiction live show.
This episode is sponsored by Books & Whatnot, the newsletter dedicated to books, bookselling, and bookish folk. We were too excited about hosting Books on the Nightstand to mention Books & Whatnot on air, but you should definitely check out the newsletter archive here. Follow Books & Whatnot on Twitter at @booksandwhatnot.
IntroductionIn Which We Discuss Sad Sociology Books and Amy’s Twitter Life Coach, and Furiously Take Notes On the Books We’re Recommending Each Other (but oh wait look, show notes!)
We’re drinking Manhattans—Amy’s go-to, “I’m fancy on a Friday night” drink—and making jokes about robotripping.
We’re Reading:
Amy is reading Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (and Kim & Emma are SO excited) and Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin.
Kim is reading Necessary Trouble by Sarah Jaffe, The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis, and The Revenge of Analog by David Sax—which is her favorite book of 2016.
Emma is reading My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris (out from Fantagraphics Feb 14) and The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson.
Also mentioned: Shirley Jackson’s memoir(ish) essay collections Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons and the new biography on Jackson, Shirley Jackson: a Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin. She recommends all the Shirley Jackson book. Because Shirley Jackson is a #bosswitch
Emma’s favorite book of 2016 is Trainwreck by Sady Doyle. Amy’s is Evicted by Matthew Desmond (paperback out Feb 28). If Kim were allowed to pick two favorites, her other favorite would be While the City Slept by Eli Sanders (paperback out Feb 7).
We’re Excited About:
Amy is looking forward to so many books in 2017, but, when pressed, narrowed it down to these six:
All Grown Up by Jami Attenberg (out March 7)
All the Lives I Want: Essays about My Best Friends Who Happen to Be Famous Strangers by Alana Massey (out Feb 7)
Alana Massey is Amy’s “Twitter life coach,” so you should probably follow her too: @alanamassey
The Road to Jonestown by Jeff Guinn (out April 11)
Woman No. 17 by Edan Lepucki (out May 9)
And We’re Off by Dana Schwartz (out May 2)
Dana Schwartz is also the creator of Guy In Your MFA. Amy says, “She’s so talented it makes me angry.”
Emma is excited about
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders (out Feb 14)
Seriously. Read this book. It’s his debut novel and it’s amazing. Or listen to the record-breaking audiobook.
What We Do Now: Standing Up for Your Values in Trump's America edited by Dennis Johnson and Valerie Merians
shout out to Melville House for putting this out with a quickness.
Always Happy Hour by Mary Miller
the cover is done by the amazing painter Lee Price.
And Kim is looking forward to The Animators by Kayla Rae Whitaker because she’s pretty sure it’s queer.
Chapter I [19:50]In Which We Discuss How Kids Book Authors Write The Best Erotic Fan Fic, Dick Jokes, and Shipwreck in Seattle
Amy works at Booksmith in San Francisco, California. She is their Events Director, does all their social media, and is their de facto HR dept. Because bookstores.
Booksmith recently celebrated their 40th anniversary and they’re opening a new store called The Bindery—a sort of wine bar/living room space/events annex—across the street.
Amy is also the co-creator and host of Shipwreck, “a competitive literary erotic fan fiction live show,” which began in June 2013 and runs once a month at Booksmith (and sometimes travels to Comic Cons). They record ALL the shows so you can enjoy crazy dick jokes from the comfort of your own headphones.
They were inspired by the competitive reading series Write Club, which also has a podcast!
Shipwreck is such an amazing concept, that Grand Central Publishing wanted to collect the stories in a book: Fanfiction Parodies of Great (and Terrible) Literature from the Smutty Stage of Shipwreck edited by Amy Stephenson and Casey A. Childers
Hey, Seattleites, does this sound awesome? You too can enjoy live erotic fan fiction at Emerald City Comic Con this year on March 2nd.
The line-up includes:
Seanan McGuire (whose most recent book is Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day and who wrote for the very first Shipwreck) Peter Mountford (author of The Dismal Science) Scott Westerfeld (who has a graphic novel called Spill Zone coming out May 2nd) Matt Fraction (who writes Sex Criminals, so you know his erotic fanfic will be excellent).
They’ll be writing fan fiction for Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman comics. And their San Francisco performer, Baruch Porras-Hernandez, will be reading for both shows.
Buy tickets here. There will be two shows, one at 7pm and another at 9:30pm. BONUS: we, the Drunk Booksellers, will be there selling books and representing Elliott Bay Book Co.
Chapter II [40:00]In Which We Reveal Bookseller Secrets and Are Super Supportive of Each Other
The book description guaranteed to get Amy reading is: “strong female character written by a women involved in a murder somehow and you won’t believe the twist… bathtub gin reading.”
If you need a gateway mystery, Amy recommends Tana French, specifically The Likeness.
Her desert island pick is The Comedians by Graham Greene because she already reads it every year.
Her Station Eleven pick (aka the world is falling apart, which it kind of is) is Erich Fromm: The Sane Society (NOTE: this is still in print, despite what we say in the episode) and On Disobedience by Eric Fromm
Her Wild pick: something Didion “because Didion teaches you how to see the world.”
Bonus bookseller confession: neither Kim or Emma have read Didion. So where do you start with Didion?
- If you want to read something that’s going to make you cry: The Year of Magical Thinking
- If you want astute cultural commentary: Slouching Towards Bethlehem
Amy’s bookseller confession: she can’t get into Ferrante
Go to handsells:
- Tana French
- Margaret Atwood’s contemporary fiction: Cat’s Eye and The Robber Bride
- Fred Vargas, who writes police procedurals that are weirdly witty, funny, and entertaining; her newest book, A Climate of Fear is out March 7th
- go to non-fiction: A Thousand Lives by Julia Scheeres (who also wrote a memoir called Jesus Land
The book Amy wants to champion to other booksellers: Spare and Found Parts by Sarah Griffin, which she describes as “a modern, feminist telling of Frankenstein, sort of”
Chapter III [50:40]In Which Our List of Bookstores to Visit and Sites to Check Out Grows Almost As Long As Our List of Books to Read
Bookstore Crushes
- WORD Bookstores (in Brooklyn, NY and Jersey City, NJ)
- Skylight Books (in Los Angeles, CA)
- Title Wave Books (in Anchorage, AK)
Favorite Literary Media:
website:
- Book Riot—“I think they’re doing the lord’s work out there.”
podcasts:
- Let’s Not Panic: podcast by bookseller Maggie Tokuda-Hall who is spending the year traveling around South America in a Jeep with her husband Adam Wolf. WARNING: it will make you want to quit your job and travel the world.
- Boars, Gore, and Swords: Game of Thrones-y pop culture podcast by stand-up comics Ivan Hernandez and Red Scott
other:
- Alana Massey’s twitter @alanamassey
- Maris Kreizman’s tinyletter
- Drafts, a writing prompt newsletter by Joe Wadlington
-
- you can send him what you’ve written and he’ll send you back validation. How awesome is that??
Amy can be found on the internet as @losertakesall—a Graham Greene reference, in case you were curious.
You can also follow Shipwreck on Tumblr and Facebook. And keep up with ALL the hilarity and eroticism by subscribing to their podcast. Having a bad day? Listen to an old episode. Mood = instantly transformed.
You can find us on Twitter at @drunkbookseller and everywhere else as DrunkBooksellers (plural).
Emma tweets @thebibliot and writes bookish things for Book Riot.
Kim tweets occasionally from @finaleofseem, but don’t expect too much.
31 January 2017, 5:00 am - 1 hour 8 minutesEp11: Michael Kindness and Ann Kingman, Books on the Nightstand & Penguin Random HouseEpigraph
We are fucking thrilled to have Michael Kindness and Ann Kingman on Episode 11. Michael and Ann are the hosts of the late, great Books on the Nightstand podcast and sales reps for Penguin Random House.
This episode is sponsored by Books & Whatnot, the newsletter dedicated to books, bookselling, and bookish folk. We were too excited about hosting Books on the Nightstand to mention Books & Whatnot on air, but you should definitely check out the newsletter archive here. Follow Books & Whatnot on Twitter at @booksandwhatnot.
IntroductionIn Which Ann Doesn’t Let Us Set Anything on Fire, Emma Makes Coworkers Awkward, Michael Activates Host Mode, and Kim Finds a Book Too Relevant
We’re drinking Cider House Drools (local hard cider, shot of rum, dash of bitters). The alternate drink is the Out-cider (sub bourbon for rum). Or, if you’re Michael and rockin’ the cold medicine, tea.
Ann had originally planned to have us drink Charles Dickens’s punch, which involves a shit ton of alcohol and, uh, fire. If you’re braver than we are, here’s the recipe: https://food52.com/blog/18626-the-punch-you-add-a-spoonful-of-fire-to-literally
What We’re Reading:
Emma is reading: Where Am I Now?: True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame by Mara Wilson and Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson (Bonus reading! Check out The New Yorker article about the new Shirley Jackson bio: The Haunted Mind of Shirley Jackson)
Michael is reading: Shadow Man by Alan Drew (pubs 23 May 2017... also mentioned: Gardens of Water)
Ann is reading: The Stars Are Fire by Anita Shreve (pubs 2 May 2017)
Kim is reading: Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear... and Why by Sady Doyle
Emma and Kim just read Vicious by V E Schwab (shout out to book club!)
Chapter I [11:00]In Which We Discuss the Noble Role of the Bookseller to Booksellers and How To Be an Introvert in a Socially-Focused Industry
Ann and Michael work for this little publishing house you’ve probably never heard of named Penguin Random House. Yeah, we think they should have called themselves the Random Penguin House, too.
Be among your people at BookRiot Live. They have designated reading rooms, for all y’all introverted book nerds. We see you.
Chapter II [19:20]In Which We Unveil the Creation Story of Books on the Nightstand, Michael Issues a Mea Culpa for not Reading Ann’s Recs Sooner, and Kim Wonders About Knitting Podcasts
Books on the Nightstand readers voted on what Michael should read over the summer. The results:
So, due to popular demand, Michael finally read Ann’s recommendations from yeeeeeeears ago: Stoner by John Williams and The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. He also recently discovered how great Stephen King is and treated himself to Salem’s Lot for Halloween.
Ann recently reread The Secret History by Donna Tartt. She also loved The Nix by Nathan Hill and Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill by Candice Millard
Check out the last eight years of Books on the Nightstand episodes at their website: http://booksonthenightstand.com/podcasts.
BTW, Booktopia is still alive via Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, VT. Field trip?
Michael’s Recent Favorite Comics/Graphic Novels/Graphica:
- The Vision by Tom King
- DC: The New Frontier by Darwyn Cooke
- Paper Girls by Brian K. Vaughan
Emma follows up with a rec for Joyride by Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly, then we all nerd out about Lumberjanes. (Seriously, y’all. it’s awesome.)
Chapter III [35:10]In Which Ann Wants to Read The Road Set at a Boarding School, Kim is Uncomfortable with Magical Realism, and We Crush on Bookstores
Ann’s book description guaranteed to get her reading: A dark and disturbing apocalyptic story collection of thrillers set in boarding schools.
- The Unfinished World: And Other Stories by Amber Sparks
- The Secret History by Donna Tartt
- The Secret Place by Tana French
- Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel
- The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Favorite Short Story Collections
- Strange Pilgrims: Twelve Stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
- Emma has to name drop Kelly Link (obvi) and everybody flips out.
- Ann: Tenth of December by George Saunders. She also loves the individual stories “Anything Helps” by Jess Walter (from We Live in Water) and “Governor’s Ball” by Ron Carlson (expanded upon in Ron Carlson Writes a Story)
Desert Island/Station Eleven/Wild Books
- Michael used to say The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, but he doesn’t actually... like reading Shakespeare, so maybe not. So then he thought he’d pick 100 Skills You'll Need for the End of the World (as We Know It) by Ana Maria Spagna, illustrated by Brian Cronin. But, naw, nevermind. He’d bring DC: The New Frontier by Darwyn Cooke.
- Ann would take The Complete Essays by Michel De Montaigne, because she got a crush on him due to How to Live: Or a Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer by Sarah Bakewell.
Go-To Handsell
- Michael: Any Human Heart by William Boyd and Stoner by John Williams
- Ann - The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell (IT’S ABOUT JESUITS IN SPACE, GUYS)
Bookseller Confessions
- Michael still hasn’t read Great Expectations. But, I mean, he read A Christmas Carol, so he’s read Dicken’s okay? Also, he hasn’t read Sandman by Neil Gaiman. Neither has Emma. Or Kim. But we’ve read Alan Moore’s Watchmen, so that balances out, right? Right??
- Ann convinced hundreds of people to read War and Peace with her, but only got to page 75. At least she’s inspiring.
Bookstore Crushes
- Ann: Green Apple in San Francisco, CA (featured in Ep 8 with Pete Mulvihill)
- Michael: Powell’s Books in Portland, OR (featured in Ep 3 with Kevin Sampsell)
Favorite literary podcasts
Chapter IV [52:45]In Which Michael and Ann Tell Us About Two Three Books They Can’t Wait for Us to Read
Michael:
- Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
- Gilded Cage by Vic James (pubs 14 Feb 2017)
- The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley by Hannah Tinti (pubs 28 March 2017)
Ann:
- The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel (pubs 7 March 2017)
- American War by Omar El Akkad (pubs 4 April 2017)
- Standard Deviation by Katherine Heiny (pubs 23 May 2017)
You can follow Ann and Michael on Twitter at:
- Ann: @annkingman
- Michael: @mkindness
They’re also on Instagram, Litsy, and Goodreads, so look them up there.
You can find us on Twitter at @drunkbookseller and everywhere else as DrunkBooksellers (plural).
Aaaaaaand, we’re about to launch an Instagram account, so you should probably start following that @DrunkBooksellers. Our dear friend and fellow bookseller is in charge of it, and it’s gonna be weird and wonderful. Here’s a teaser:
Emma tweets @thebibliot and writes bookish things for Book Riot.
Kim tweets occasionally from @finaleofseem, but don’t expect too much.
13 December 2016, 10:09 am - 58 minutes 7 secondsEp10: Amy Stewart & Scott Brown, Eureka BooksEpigraph
Oh hai, friends. Remember us? Sorry for the hiatus, but we’re back! For episode 10, we’re thrilled to be chatting with Amy Stewart and Scott Brown of Eureka Books in Eureka, CA. Get psyched.
We apologize for the extended delay in episodes, and promise to post more often now that Emma has completed her cross-country move. Apparently moving across the country is time-consuming and stressful. Who knew?
This episode is sponsored by Books & Whatnot, the daily newsletter dedicated to books, bookselling, and bookish folk. Brought to you by Beth Golay. Check out the newsletter archive here. Follow on Twitter at @booksandwhatnot.
Introduction
In Which There Will Be Cats. And Gin. And Books.
Amy Stewart is the author of (among other things) Drunken Botanist, Girl Waits with Gun, Lady Cop Makes Trouble. She and her husband, Scott, are co-owners of Eureka Books in Eureka, CA.
We’re drinking Girl Waits with Gin (gin & tonic). Amy recommends using tonic syrup (available at your local fancy liquor store), but Fever-Tree tonic is a solid backup.
Emma is reading: I’ll Tell You In Person by Chloe Caldwell, Joyride by Jackson Lanzing, Collin Kelly, Marcus To, and Irma Kniivila
Scott is reading: Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley by Antonio Garcia Martinez
Amy is reading: The Gypsy in the Parlour by Margery Sharp (who, fun fact, wrote the Rescuers!) and Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
Kim is reading: On Trails: An Exploration by Robert Moore, You Can't Touch My Hair: And Other Things I Still Have to Explain by Phoebe Robinson
New & Forthcoming Books We’re Excited About
- Footnotes from the World's Greatest Bookstores: True Tales and Lost Moments from Book Buyers, Booksellers, and Book Lovers by Bob Eckstein
- The Artists' and Writers' Cookbook, edited by Natalie Eve Garrett and illustrated by Amy Jean Porter
- The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds by Michael Lewis (pubs 6 Dec 2016)
Also mentioned: Legs Get Led Astray by Chloe Caldwell, So Sad Today by Melissa Broder, Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy by Cathy O'Neil, Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
Chapter I [22:25]
In Which We Learn About Fake Harry Potter Books, Bullshit California Laws, and LITSY!
Eureka Books is really pretty. Check it:
Antiquarian books are weird to booksellers in the new book world. Here’s a primer from the ABAA.
A first edition signed copy of Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is apparently worth shit. Kim’s annoyed at herself for failing to monetize her book collection.
More on the California Autograph Law
You guys. Fake Harry Potter books are a thing and they are... weird. LOOK AT THIS SHIT:
You’d think weed folk would dig Cannabis Cocktails, Mocktails & Tonics: The Art of Spirited Drinks and Buzz-Worthy Libations by Warren Bobrow. Sorry, Amy.
Litsy is great. It’s Instagram for books. Come experience the internet sans trolls. The internet isn’t just trash, y’all. Check out #getindie for all the fuzzy bookstore feels.
Join the Out of Print t-shirt club. We just made that up organically. It’s cool. We’re cool. You can be cool too.
Chapter II [36:40]
In Which We All Have Too Many New Yorkers Piled Up In Our Apartments/Houses, Junot Diaz is the New Shakespeare, and You Can Learn to Craft Vagina Ornaments
Amy’s desert island picks: Charles Dickens: David Copperfield or Great Expectations. Or all of those New Yorkers that pile up in your house that you keep meaning to read.
Scott’s Station Eleven picks: The Road by Cormac McCarthy, The Walking Dead series, A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
Scott’s Go to handsell: The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt
The epic LOL/OMG Display: Crap Taxidermy by Kat Su, books by The Oatmeal, Crafting with Feminism: 25 Girl-Powered Projects to Smash the Patriarchy by Bonnie Burton, How to Talk to Your Cat about Gun Safety: And Abstinence, Drugs, Satanism, and Other Dangers That Threaten Their Nine Lives by Zachary Auburn
Scott’s impossible hand sell: A Void by Georges Perec
Bookseller confession: Once again, they haven’t finished Harry Potter.
Favorite bookstores (other than Eureka): Powell’s, natch. Also, all the feels for Bookshop Santa Cruz.
Favorite lit media: Amy. Also, RIP Bookslut & The Toast.
You can find Amy all over the internet:
- Website: Amystewart.com
- Twitter: @Amy_Stewart
- Goodreads
Eureka Books can be found IRL across from the gazebo. Obvi.
Epilogue
You can find us on Twitter at @drunkbookseller. Unsurprisingly, we tweet more than we post episodes. But not by, like, that much, so don’t get your hopes up. We’re v clever tho.
Emma tweets @thebibliot and writes nerdy bookish things for Book Riot. Her most recent post, 25 Picture Books that Promote Empathy and Respect, is really important... particularly right now.
Kim tweets occasionally from @finaleofseem, but tries to focus her social media energy on @drunkbookseller and playing nerdy #BookGames on the @ElliottBayBooks account when the store is slow.
22 November 2016, 10:18 am - 1 hour 5 minutesEp 9: Benjamin Rybeck, Brazos BookstoreEpigraph
Episode nine has finally dropped! We speak with the lovely and talented Benjamin Rybeck, Marketing Director and Events Coordinator at Brazos Bookstore and author of The Sadness.
Introduction [0:30]In Which Emma and Kim Have a Sponsor and Make Terrible Puns, Plus Ben Invents the Phrase “Page Turner”
Currently drinking: screwdirvers with Stolichnaya, inspired by Sabbath’s Theater by Philip Roth
This episode is actually brought to you by a sponsor! Books & Whatnot is an excellent and informative newsletter for booksellers; it’s quick to read and filled with tips! Brought to you by Beth Golay. Check out the newsletter archive here. Follow on Twitter at @booksandwhatnot.
Ben is reading: Nick Flynn’s memoirs, Maggie Nelson, The Other Side by Lacy Johnson, and Madeline E. by Gabriel Blackwell
Shout-out to cool indie publisher: Outpost 19!
Emma is reading: … spreadsheets? No, but seriously, she finally started Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel—but also the apocalypse causes her some anxiety, so she might have put it down.
Kim is reading: Uprooted by Naomi Novik, Shrill by Lindy West
When Kim started reading Uprooted, Emma was like
Kim recalls possibly the best customer interaction ever, in which a male teacher from an all-girls school requests recs for a primer on feminism; Shrill by Lindy West, We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozie Adiche, and Rad American Women A-Z by Kate Schatz and Miriam Klein Stahl (illus.) are among her recs.
New & Forthcoming Books We’re Excited About
- Underground Airlines by Ben Winters (pubs July 5 2016)
- The Well-Stocked and Gilded Cage by Lawrence Lenhart (pubs Aug 2 2016)
- Here Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Benn (pubs July 19 2016)
- The Sunlight Pilgrims by Jenni Fagan (pubs July 19 2016)
- Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty by Ramona Ausubel
- The Crimson Skew by S.E. Grove (pubs July 12 2016)
- Collections: Birds Bones and Butterflies by Leah Sobsey (pubs July 12 2016)
What do you do when a customer asks for a happy read?
Emma tries to make them into a romance reader and, if that fails, recommends Beauty Queens by Libba Bray.
Kim recommends graphica (though Emma’s first three thoughts when she says graphica are Watchmen, Persepolis, and Fun Home—not the happiest of reads…)
Chapter I [21:21]In Which Ben Walks Into a Bookstore and Receives a Job, Coins the term “litizen,” and Says the Word Smartypants a Lot. Plus Emma Freaks Out About Events Coordinators/Drunk Booksellers’ Guests Not Reading Harry Potter
Longfellow Books of Portland, Maine was Ben’s childhood bookstore.
We discuss the joy of bookstores, record stores, and video stores—half-retail and half-cultural places where you go to meet friends and discover gems.
Ben’s advice for getting a job at a bookstore? Walk into said bookstore with no intention of getting a job (it worked for him!)
Learn more about Brazos Bookstore here. They do “down and dirty highbrow” bookselling.
In Houston this summer? Here are a couple fun things going on:
Have you heard about this new Harry Potter book coming out? Kim imagines that it will be mostly about ennui of adulthood, and compares it to Ben’s book The Sadness.
Chapter II [37:46]In Which Ben Pitches His Book Succinctly—It’s a Book About Film and Failure— and We Discuss Adulting
“Booksellers as adults is a strange thing; you’re asking people to become adults and go out into the world where their primary relationship to anything in their lives has been sitting alone in a room…that’s not going to end well.”
Chapter III [44:34]In Which We Speculate Alice Munroe’s Drinking Habits, Declare Adult Connect-the-Dots as The Next Big Thing, And Bring Up the Fact That Ben Hasn’t Read Harry Potter Again
Ben wants to drink with John Updike to see if he’s as insufferable a person as Ben finds him as a writer. Kim mocks his reasoning. His second choice is Alice Munroe (who may or may not listen to this podcast? We’re pretty sure she doesn’t. But we can dream.)
Ben’s bookseller confession is he doesn’t keep up with trends—but it’s ok, Emma and Kim haven’t read Knausgaard or Ferrante either.
Ben’s Station Eleven/Wild/Desert Island Books
- 2666 by Roberto Bolaño
- Collected Stories of Joy Williams
- How to Read a Film by James Monaco
- Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
- ALL the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling
Go-to Handsells
- Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson
- Faces in the Crowd, The Story of My Teeth, and Sidewalks by Valeria Luiselli
Impossible Handsells
- Thrown by Kerry Howley (shout-out to the awesome small press,Sarabande Books)
- Don’t Suck, Don’t Die by Kristin Hersh
In Which We Talk About Where We Can Be Found On the Internets & Remind You of Our Awesome Sponsor (Books & Whatnot)
Shout out to Kramer Books in Washington, DC
Hey, remember Books & Whatnot? Ben subscribes, we subscribe, and you should subscribe too!
Check out Ben on twitter at @BenjaminRybeck or give him a shout at[email protected]. Don’t forget to read his book, The Sadness, which has been compared to the new Harry Potter book (by Kim, on this episode).
Did you know you can enjoy our wit and charm on Twitter? Follow us at @drunkbookseller. Kim also occasionally tweets from @finaleofseem. Emma can be found at @thebibliot and also on Book Riot, where she writes articles which are both nerdy and informative!
If you know a bookseller who would love to spend a few hours drinking and chatting with us, have them shoot us an email at [email protected].
Finally, if you like the show, you can rate/review us on iTunes & subscribe using your favorite podcatcher.
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