Drunk Booksellers: The Podcast Drunk Booksellers

Epigraph 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! Chapter II: [7:25] 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 Twitter Instagram King's Books Facebook Twitter Instagram 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 Po

Epigraph 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 I In 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.)
 
 
 
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Picked this up @elliottbaybookco from their #stafffavorite shelf, cracking it open tonight. #essays #hollandreads #literarytourism #shoplocal @grandcentralpub
A post shared by The Novel Neighbor (@novelneig

Epigraph 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 I In which a local coffee shop assists in alcohol acquisition, we want more spaceships and dragons, and a book brings Emma to tears.
We’re Drinking Christen 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
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara
Shout out to Joan Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem Julia's Reading    
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
Kim's Reading  
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 Emma's Reading  
Circe by Madeline Miller (audiobook via Libro.fm)
The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai 
Forthcoming & Newly-New Titles We're Excited About 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 Kim's Excited About  
So Lucky by Nicola Griffith (audiobook via Libro.fm) also check out her bestselling historical fantasy novel, Hild Any Man by Amber Tamblyn Emma's Excited About    
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) Chapter II [23:30] 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 o

Epigraph 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.
Introduction In 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 Drinking Vodka & 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
Kim's Reading 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
Emma's Reading MIS(H)Adra by Iasmin Omar
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado... Emma's favorite story from the collection is “Inventory”
Lumberjanes: Unicorn Power! by Mariko Tamaki
Spinster by Kate Bolick
 
Forthcoming Titles We're Excited For Kim'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
Javier's Excited About 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

Emma's Excited About The Glass Town Game by Catherynne M Valente
In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan
We Were Witches by Ariel Gore (How to Become a Famous Writer Before You’re Dead)
A Loving, Faithful Animal by Josephine Rowe
Chapter I [26:50] 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 --> Crow

Epigraph 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 1 In 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 2 In 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 3 In 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 4 In 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

Epigraph  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.
Introduction In 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) Chapter I [18:50] 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 wi