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Welcome to Today in Books, our daily round-up of literary headlines at the intersection of politics, culture, media, and more.
Amazon “Accidentally” Plans Book Sale Event At Same Time as Independent Bookstore Day
This Saturday was Independent Bookstore Day, a truly fun day to be a book person with access to, and affinity for, an independent bookstore. On April 15th, Amazon announced a week-long “book sale event” that included the 26th. Several folks were not pleased about this. And I can understand why of course. Amazon says that it was unintentional, though of course if you are an indie bookstore this rings pretty hollow. So either it was intentional…or it wasn’t. To my mind, either is a bad look for Amazon: either they new the optics would be bad and just wanted to flex anyway or it didn’t understand that the optics would be bad. (The Machiavellian move would have been to have it the week before Independent Bookstore Day to pull forward any marginal book-buying dollars and claim “we didn’t want to detract from the indies!”).
“Poetry City”: Iowa City, Iowa
A pretty interesting city-profile of Iowa City–which I will cede without protest as the most literary city in the U.S. on a per capita basis (1000 writers out of 75,000 citizens. Park Slope could never). It is also smack dab in the middle of Iowa, which like the rest of the Midwest has gotten red (and redder) over the last few decades. I grew up in Lawrence, Kansas, the home of the University of Kansas, which enjoys/endures a similar status as an oasis of strangeness for its state. Iowa City is iconic, but dozens and dozens of college-towns provide precious incubation and respite for people who think and exist differently. We’re lucky to have them, and we should not take them for (land) granted.
The Books of Marie-Helene Bertino with Marie-Helene Bertino
Last week, I had the great privilege of talking to Marie-Helene Bertino about her complete published body of work. We talked through all five of her books in chronological order–what they meant at the time, how they connect to each other, and what she thinks of them now. This was on the occasion of the publication of her new and excellent short-story collection, Exit Zero. This is a good gig sometimes.
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