Some say New York City is a “melting pot.” I think not so much. Positively scads of vastly different folks exist in close proximity. But the vastly different doesn’t go away. That’s the secret! In this book a poor kid gets mixed up with a lot of rich ones. Uptown, Downtown, Eastside, Westside … she sees it …
This week, someone absconded (yes, it happens, especially in that corner of the store) with almost our entire Kafka section, but they left this one behind, which is somehow fitting. It’s the forgotten one of Kafka’s novels, and for that reason and many others I often say it’s my favorite of his books, or of …
It’s usually the case in books that the story takes place when people are not working: that’s when life, apparently, begins. Gill’s memoir flips that on its head: there is almost nothing in the book outside the work she did, along with troops of others, for almost twenty years: planting trees to replace logged clearcuts …
This week, 600 booksellers gathered in Denver for the 11th annual Winter Institute, a 3-day educational conference for people who own or work in independent bookstores, hosted by the American Booksellers Association (ABA). The ABA started a new tradition on the opening night: a backlist book swap. “Backlist” titlesare books that have been around (the opposite of …
One fact of life for a neighborhood bookseller is that we can’t satisfy all the needs of every single customer every day. Statistically it’s impossible, and most of the shoppers at Annie Bloom’s understand and accept this reality. I’ve only been insulted once by an unsatisfied shopper. The person came up to me and asked, “Do you …
