I was looking over the ArtsJournal's new book blog, Beatrix, written by Ron Hogan of (naturally enough) beatrice.com, and I noticed that Hogan doesn't link to the usual bookstore suspects. All his generic book links run through Powell's Books. The good people at Bookslut don't seem to mind Amazon, if they've put any thought toward it.
An admittedly mundane observation that struck me because I picked up some interesting bookstore trivia recently: After Ayatollah Khomeni pronounced fatwa on Salman Rushdie following the publication of Satanic Verses, Canada's Coles Books and the U.S.'s B. Dalton Booksellers (Barnes & Noble) and the Borders Group (Borders, Waldenbooks), among others, pulled Verses from the shelves. Say what you will about decentralized bookstores, but short of a DNS attack, I don't see how the Islamofascists can get to them. Amazon's political involvements, however, leave much to be desired for liberals (and libertarians, for that matter).
Powell's sounds like the way to go for booklinking, and I'll adjust my recs in the sidebar. But for my money you can't beat Kramerbooks in the District, which resists the militant fundementalist threat whether it comes in the form of Islamist dictum or independent counsel overreach. And they serve Shiner.
UPDATE: Doubleday has announced that it will publish the Al Qaeda Reader, a collection of translated writings by Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri. And you thought the right got angry when people didn't say Merry Christmas enough. . . .
Posted by Kriston at January 26, 2005 10:41 AMKriston, the couple of times I've been to Portland, Powell's has been one of my favorite places to hang out. Their main store is, I'm told, the largest book store in the country. It takes up a whole city block and has (from what I remember) five or six floors filled with books, both new and used. The people who work there actually read, and I found them to be very helpful (both in person and when I've called from LA looking for some out-of-print thing).
Posted by: David at January 26, 2005 11:58 AMI've been to Powells in Portland. Awesome place. Browsed till I was dizzy.
I see Powells is 100% Blue because the CEO donated to Kerry. Kind of a silly way to decide who you want to do your book buying from.
Gotta give credit to Amazon for the way they raised money for Tsunami relief.
Posted by: j.scott barnard at January 26, 2005 3:35 PMYou know to link through the ILWU portal, right?
http://www.powellsunion.com/
Posted by: Anna Phor at January 26, 2005 5:47 PMPolitics & Prose is a bastion of NW DC progressivism too. I don't remember the book, but about a year ago they ordered 40 copies of some conservative screed. After three weeks or some similarly significant period they had sold none of them.
Posted by: Tyler Green at January 26, 2005 6:12 PMBy all means P&P. And I bet their food is better than Kramerbooks, as well; Carla Cohen (co-owner) is the sister of Mark Furstenberg (founder of Marvelous Market; owner of The Bread Line).
Posted by: theophylact at January 26, 2005 8:49 PMhmm... who is that silhouetted man on the right of that picutre &mdash the one with the spectacles.
really, i just thought it was funny that i originally titled my picture from my visit "kramer's books."
still, quite a place, even if their essays section was less than comprehensive.
Posted by: matty at January 27, 2005 2:46 AM