‘Q: OK, what do you think of the MP3 revolution? A: Ah, revolution, wow. It’s great to hear the word ‘revolution’ again.’ -aging hipster doofus, Richard Katz, in Jonathan Franzen’s new book, Freedom Like my high school English teacher who smoked off brand cigarettes so no one would ever ask him for one (and called my AP [...]

Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture is yet another hardcover book I ‘rescued’ from the returns pile last year so it could ‘fulfill its life purpose.’ It’s just out in paperback so don’t be cheap lol. . .pick this up! In the very friendly and humorous writing style many social science writers are adapting [...]

David Mitchell has been a buzz author for awhile now and his small fanbase is eclipsed/shared in its seriousness only by Mark Danielewski fans (have you ever had to tell a Danielewski fan they couldn’t buy their second replacement copy of House of Leaves because you were inexplicably still waiting for the Random House shipment? [...]

Before I’d read a word of it and well before it was published this spring, I knew that Karl Marlantes’s debut novel, Matterhorn (Atlantic Monthly Press, $24.95), was the recipient of some major publishing industry push. The hype machine had been well oiled for this one. But sometimes hype surprises; sometimes it’s completely warranted. I’m not going [...]

I’m just nosy to begin with, but I love customers who are so totally into what they’re buying that they might explain it a little but aren’t trying to recommend it. ( This is also why I’ve historically respected the Jews cus they throw great quinceñear@s but never knock on my door trying to get me to buy [...]

We spend a lot of time looking at book covers here. Among the myriad of slightly blurry blond women with obscured faces and third world fonts, I found a clear winner for my favorite book cover of 2010, designed by Patrick Barry: Good color scheme, design actually related to book subject, old timey letter press [...]

Tags: compulsive hoarding, psychology

*this was actually printed on the copyright page** The new Slavoj Žižek book, ‘Living In The End Times’ arrived at the store last week and I had the good fortune of ‘unwrapping’ it (mere mortals call it ‘receiving’). I made a little gasping noise like the kind Victorian women made when their corsets were tightened, or [...]

Tags: philosophy, Žižek

If you’re wondering where the What We’re Reading posts got moved to, well wonder no more.  They’re here and I try to update them weekly (well, really every other week but I’m pretty sure that Marina’s the only one who actually finishes anything within that week). It’s one of my favorite things and I don’t think [...]

The post title’s a stretch but great news, Roberto Bolaño fans! New material was found by the recently deceased Chilean sci-fi/war/realist novelist (??). I’m not sure what genre he is, but I like him. Some really cool customers told me about this and I think I found the Guardian article from 2009. It promises some new [...]

Tags: Bolaño

                                       If you’ve known me for longer than five minutes you’ll know that I’m a big fan of Seamus Heaney. (He’s that poetry-writing Irish gentleman who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995.) Right now we’re pleased to be offering a pair of older Heaney titles we’ve not stocked before. First up [...]