So do I get to be the fan who writes an essay about technology (its allure, its ambiguous application) in Stephen Graham Jones' "The Buffalo Hunter Hunter"? Just finished listening to the audio production (wow, Owen Teale). If not technology, then about--what's the opposite of anachronism?

NEW ARRIVALS! Sophie is coming downstairs to see the commotion! Email [email protected] or call 319-337-2996 to order. We ship! In-person shopping (masks required) 12-6 Mon-Sat.

Just thinking, randomly, about how hard it is for a privileged class of persons to imagine what could happen, once a government begins to claim that actions specifically excluded by, say, constitutions are somehow in the 'spirit' of the law anyway. No, no reason.

A man with no criminal record being cuffed and abducted at work, in the middle of a busy grocery/eatery, near lunch time, in the "walkable" district. By people who wouldn't even identify which federal agency they worked for. This is political theater. www.press-citizen.com/story/news/l...

Well, this is an entire mood.

We are delighted to announce the winners of the 2025 Honey & Wax Book Collecting Prize! Stay tuned this week for more on the fascinating winning collection and honorable mentions: themillions.com/2025/09/meet...

Much too serious today. Don't worry. Esky knows what to do about that. #GingerCat #BookstoreCat #BookLife #CatsOfBluesky

Yesterday, history happened at the UN: For the first time hundreds of orgs signed a global pledge declaring that healthy indoor air is a human right. Healthy indoor air is a key tool for preventing pandemics, building climate resilience, and increasing health equity. We need it everywhere!

I'm not the only one in the trade who shudders at the sight of shrink-wrapped books. All it takes is a brief exposure to humidity to turn that plastic into a hothouse for household molds. "Shrinkwrapped" in the description of a book for sale on the internet is not really a selling point 😬

"One item of subtext that I think people miss in "Dracula" is that he's going to London because people there don't believe in vampires. Because that meant they wouldn't know how to protect themselves from him." #OverheardInABookstore

the booker prize judges make a lot of fuss about having to read 153 books. but assuming an average weight of 750g per book, that comes in at 115kg of literature - or just under the weight of a single adult male ostrich

The Crying of Lot 49, except it isn't really me that's changed

I've seen a few people commenting that blaming pregnant parents for their children's autism infantilizes adult autistic people. That's entirely on purpose. This administration doesn't know how to control people on the spectrum, so they want to reframe autism as a birth defect.

A recent kindness: Somebody came in looking for a particular book. The customer before him had just purchased it, but overheard the request and offered to return the book so that the new customer could buy it instead. May seem small, but it got the book that person wanted into his hands 📚❤️

The world is full of cruelties right now. We can't, and we shouldn't, look away. But... we also need to remember what we're here for. So here's my challenge: Post a story about a kindness you received or witnessed recently.

Just going to say, as a human who has given birth, that there were already a ton of bad takes blaming (women doing random things) for unrelated children's traits, going back *centuries*. This new bad take is *extra* terrible for several reasons, but it's not the first skunk to spray in this yard.

Fun fact: Doctor Oz, Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, close friend of Trump and RFK Jr., and self-admitted fraudulent supplement huckster, sells multiple forms of leucovorin through his supplement company, iHerb, which he didn’t divest when taking his federal gov role.

Medical ethicist Arthur Kaplan, quoted in the NYT: “The announcement on autism was the saddest display of a lack of evidence, rumors, recyling old myths, lousy advice, outright lies & dangerous advice I have ever witnessed by anyone in authority in the world claiming to know anything about science”

“Fascism is not new. It wears a new dress, buys new boots—but it can only reproduce fear, denial, and the loss of will to fight.” Toni Morrison’s timeless warning on fascism & censorship still rings out today. inthesetimes.com/article/toni...

Stumbled across this image. Our famous cat family 🥹 I've been missing Nierme and Logan so much. Dgmw, Sophie and the very boop-able Mr Esk are wonderful and beloved--it's just hard to be parted from old friends 💜

We don't expect to become grandparents for at least 20 years, if at all, but we might ask to join this organization anyway. I knew three of my great-grandparents, and each of them would have been horrified by the exceptionalism destroying our public health. grandparentsforvaccines.com

Hard same. This year, we've been learning a lot about 20th century book illustration, but we haven't yet learned who collects it 😅

We have a Poet Laureate with a special interest in translation! Congratulations to Arthur Sze. We hardly need to point out how vital translation - and poetry - are in a politically fractured world. Now more than ever, empathy across boundaries is necessary. share.google/iIrivE15Bl2Q...

It's Saturday, September 20, and we are closed for some repairs and rearranging. We're very sorry to be closed on such a lovely fall day, but we invite you to visit our bookstore neighbor, @captainsbook.bsky.social ! Happy Caturday, all 🐾

"Because of the absence of standards and audit requirements for AI algorithms, different parts of a country - even the world - could have completely different AI software.... No one subject to these systems could know what rules are being applied to them...." bookshop.org/a/868/978125...

"Apophenia by proxy" is probably too obscure? www.wired.com/story/ai-psy...

Esky got a "Get Well Soon" card 🥹

In the 50s-80s there was a sub-subgenre of biography about serial impersonators. People who crossed the country, pretending to be someone important, but always fleeing and changing 'careers', now a doctor, now a gangster, etc. The great 2000's impersonator *fantasy* novel has not yet been written.

Absolutely humiliating and exhausting experience trying to get our cov*d vaccines. Also expensive.

Friends. The world's sweetest ginger #bookstorecat has pancreatitis. How do you go about wishing a kitty well? A prayer, a kind word, a sympathetic thought?Please do that for Esk. He seems to be out of pain right now, thanks to the amazing Cat Clinic of #IowaCity, but we have a rough week ahead 😿

Durham County saying the part that should never have been quiet. Masks work. More masks work better. Cases are rising again. Protect yourself and others by getting vaccinated, yes, but also? KN95 (or better) masks. dconc.gov/Public-Healt...

Your periodic reminder that, while there are many convenient features to electronic/digital media... We have 47,000+ second-hand books that have been written, edited, published, and enjoyed by humans - unaltered by anything digital. The Haunted Bookshop is an anthology of human accomplishment.

Diary of a bookseller, year 20, day 364: I already respected the owner of this book collection, but tonight, going through their boxes, I found a well-thumbed reference book. No, not a dictionary, not even a thesaurus. An encyclopedia of world religions. Man, I respect this reader.

On Earth We're Briefly Striking

Me: *urgently scanning a historic document about a place in Iowa City and converting to .pdf* Adobe: This appears to be a long document. Save time by reading an AI summary. Me: *hissing* It's 122 pages, you fool. Don't insult my tenacity.

Why did the federal government cut funding for (arts organization)? "They wanted to know how we would make America stronger, safer, and more prosperous." And then they rejected the organization's answer. This is how we lose our freedoms, world influence, and prosperity: We lose the *arts* race.

"[Richard] Erdmann says his association [IOBA] is concerned that efforts to comply with new U.S. tariff rules could result in E.U. shippers charging ruinous flat fees, such as $80 for a single $10 book." IOBA members, like me, usually ship books one by one. s2.washingtonpost.com/camp-rw/?tra...

tl;dr Even though books under 100 years old are supposed to be exempt from tariffs because they are "informational material"... Many of the books we sell are 101 or more... and that means flat fees, which are caused by... Nobody knowing who's going to be left after the next game of musical tariffs

The tariffs are political glitter. Somebody thought it was a good idea, and now all of us are struggling to get it out of... everything. How is it impacting the rare book trade? Because yes, it is... s2.washingtonpost.com/camp-rw/?tra...

It's textbook season, and that means it's time for this reminder: Always use an aggregate site to comparison shop BOOK PRICES. AddALL, Bookfinder, and viaLibri.net will all search multiple websites for you, so that you can see the prices everywhere - so that you won't be fooled by bookjackers.

I know exactly who needs to hear this, but he's not listening: TYLENOL is not THALIDOMIDE. (Also, autism is not a birth defect.)

Just found an illustrated edition of The Last of the Mohicans with big The Way Things Work energy! It's an abridged edition of the story, but wow, having this visual glossary would have helped me when I read the book for the first time (at age 9 👀)

Okay, which of these should I try to write? 😁

Trying to imagine Shirley Jackson writing a story about tradfluencers and I'm giggling too much to hold the hinge I'm supposed to be regluing

Next Tuesday will mark Nialle's 21st anniversary with the Haunted Bookshop. What this means, for the most part, is that Nialle knows who previously owned your used book because of the pattern of margin marks. Seriously. Sometimes I pick up a book and think, "this must have been William B_____'s"

Some of y'all never read Old Yeller and it shows. ... seriously though: vaccines don't cause autism. Not for you, not for Rover. If you can't or won't get your dog vaccinated, you shouldn't have a dog.

NEW ARRIVALS! Sophie sounds a barbaric chirp over the rooftops of the world! Email [email protected] or call 319-337-2996 to order. We ship! In-person shopping (masks required) 12-6 Mon-Sat.

*snicker*

If you can't make it to the bookshop on Tuesday because you're busy hassling the brown shirts in CR, we'll understand.

Hard for Americans to imagine this now: it was once completely normal to take the train from a town with a population under 1000 to any of several major cities for a week's visit with relatives. Salesmen hauled trunks of fancy goods, whole circuses traveled, and laborers moved to job sites by rail.