Brad Johnson
A part of the Twitter Diaspora.
Also run East Bay Booksellers in Oakland, CA - @ebbooksellers.bsky.social
- Reposted by Brad JohnsonThis, from @meganwachspress.bsky.social, is so good. Starts off as an explainer picking apart a dumb NYT story about Oakland and winds up reimagining the very idea of a city in the dying days of the coal economy.
- Is there a betting line on an audible, verifiable “Fuck ICE” chant at the Super Bowl?
- Guys, we received a ton of new nerdy books today. Who did this, wonders the guy placing the orders.
- So I guess the upshot is if complicity is the apparent default status of the consumer, indies should make a profit off it? www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...
- Reposted by Brad JohnsonA WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR: www.oaklandreviewofbooks.org/why-were-spo...
- Reposted by Brad Johnson[Not loaded yet]
- This arrived this week, and appears from a cursory spin through it as interesting as I'd expected. ebbooksellers.com/item/9ZxRdsP...
- I don’t like getting didactic and moralistic about buying from Amazon. It’s not my way. But, seriously, for books? Books?! If you’re reading - versus simply buying (there’s a difference!) - and still rationalize that it’s fine, I truly question your comprehension.
- My spiritual gift is getting other small business owners to tell me how they’re three bad months away from eating their lease and closing. Kidding. That’s the baseline.
- I loathe reality tv, but I have to confess I binged the first season of Traitors UK. Don’t know that I have subsequent seasons in me. But I’ve rarely yelled “play the fucking game!!” at a tv.
- For the past year, I've changed how I do new title/frontlist ordering. Basically, opposed to ordering months in advance of their release, I'm generally ordering about 4-6 weeks. W/ an array of ordering analytics at my fingertips, I can now more definitively identify my baseline ordering philosophy:
- I read a lot of blurbs, but this one is a first: "I have never eaten god before, but reading [...] feels like coming mighty close."
- Reading a click-baity story about a sandwich place in the Bay Area that closed, the owner says, due to the abuse she took for her prices. But let me tell you, I've had at least $20+ grilled sandwiches, and in each instance they were pretty goddamn great.
- The judges, it seems, are fucking pissed. It’s a nice thing to see.
- Even if you don't have time to read all 83 pages of Judge Reyes's opinion barring the Trump administration from rescinding Temporary Protected Status for 350,000+ Haitians, please at least check out the four-page introduction. It's a tour de force: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
- I always imagine, when they see me blurbing a book, people who know me saying out loud: "But he doesn't like anything!"
- I’m not objecting, but I was not expecting this to be a store bestseller. It’s become now a weekly reorder ebbooksellers.com/item/6CvPe_C...
- My jaw hung open dumbfounded throughout this long article.
- terrific new Ben Taub piece — it cracks a long-cold case of infanticide; it's a bombshell for maternal health, child protection & opiate toxicology protocols; it exposes the Lancet’s scandalous indifference to validity of what it publishes — it should make noise www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
- Good lord, the fire dept was RIGHT THERE.
- HBO Is Making A Police Version Of ‘The Pitt,’ ‘American Blue www.forbes.com/sites/paulta...
- I wasn’t expecting so many preorders for the anniversary edition of Infinite Jest.
- This gives real @colonellovely.bsky.social vibes.
- “The hardest part of growing up?” — the tidal pull of mortality? the pounding waves of regret? the sinking realization that there may be nothing better than what is?
- MAGIC ARCHITECTURE is the more expensive (shockingly trade) cousin to MIT Press’s SICK ARCHITECTURE (saddled with an unnecessary academic designation). Both are deceptively & wildly cool. ebbooksellers.com/item/7u0AIzf...
- Reposted by Brad Johnsonwhen our smoke was over, he pressed his forehead against mine, clasped me round the waist, and said that henceforth we were married
- Does an economic boycott make any sound in the woods when it isn't argued about on a billion-dollar social media platform?
- Operating a book store is not a sound business decision, so we are not to be trusted.
- This is pretty great. www.laborpolitics.com/p/how-minnea...
- Trump’s version of “de-escalation” is stopping to reload.
- Chatting with a couple of folks who closed shops/restaurants at the end of last year, and my takeaway: don't assume somebody else has replaced you somewhere that you love but haven't been in a long time for whatever reason.
