Have I mentioned how hard you’re going to groove to Hot Wax from @mlrio.bsky.social?

Can you find Crush from the incomparable @adacalhoun.bsky.social on the shelves @lovestruckbooks.bsky.social? Of course! In her debut novel, Calhoun delves into the perils and pleasures of a midlife affair in this whip-smart, funny and fabulously honest look at a rebellious romance.

I wrote a highly biased guide to (most of) my friends' books being published in 2025. This feels like the perfect use of my newsletter. open.substack.com/pub/mariskre...

Ok, at Lovestruck Books this year, we definitely had the hunky Australian firefighter calendar — next year we add the Sexiest Collard Farmer calendar, naturally.

When you keep finding old friends in your brand new store and it makes you smile! Like @minjinlee.bsky.social, who has a fabulous spot on our shelves! Yay, Pachinko!

Thanks to Elon Musk and Donald Trump, Republicans cut $190 million for pediatric cancer research from the funding bill. Congrats to DOGE on their first victory.

My retail brethren! I come to you today with a question, maybe THE question of our times! When setting up your cash drawer, do you arrange it as pictured, with your one dollar bills and your pennies on the left, or — are you a monster? @newtonvillebooks.bsky.social @portersqbooks.bsky.social

Really wish this was real, darn it.

This was for yesterday, the 2nd! Go read this book. There’s gin on, um, pg 147? Or 149. Gin is good. This book is better. Martyr, by Kaveh Akbar. @penguinrandomhouse.bsky.social

screaming this into the void f o r e v e r #StopBookBans

Last year, starting on December 1st, I posted a book a day for a month. I vowed not to do that again. I’m a bookseller, not an influencer, as Dr. McCoy could have told Kirk in an alternate universe. But! JT Geissinger gave me Ruthless Creatures, and now all bets are off. @panmacmillan.bsky.social

Small Business Saturday was a response to 2008’s horrific financial crisis brought on by — well, the usual suspects. So today, please remember, oligarchs never have your interests at heart. Small businesses often do. Buy a book from a neighbor, keep your $ local. Like at the @mysteriousbookshop.com!

Yes, I’m religious, I believe in the Holy Trinity.

It’s beginning to look a lot like… …at Green Apple Books in San Francisco! @greenapplebooks.bsky.social @raeannethayne.bsky.social

Listening to Patti Smith. Trying to take comfort from a poet. Usually, that’s a recipe for disaster. I mean, poets! But Smith is always freaking brilliant. “I awakened to the cry that the people have the power to redeem the work of fools…” (and relax. i’m joking about poets. mostly.)

Had champagne — which reminded me of the drink I made for Good Night, Irene, from @urrealism.bsky.social. A simple drink, just a nod to the champagne dinners Irene left behind & the raspberry pastilles she took with her when she enlists w/the Red Cross in 1943. A gorgeous book, beautifully told.

Tell me your fave indie bookstore by tonight to be entered to win a box of some of my favorite things. Books! Tea! Swag! Girl Scout cookies! (US only, because international shipping is well outside my budget.)

Post a movie gif from the year you were born. (The best adaptation of them all.)

My short shelf-talker for James by Percival Everett when it was released? “Read next year’s Pulitzer winner today.” I could have substituted National Book Award for Pulitzer, but you get it. I loved it so much I purchased a signed copy from another Indie — it’s so [email protected]

Did I mention I have a podcast at DrinksWithNick? I do, I do. The latest is my conversation with the fabulous @abbottkahler.bsky.social discussing her latest, Eden Undone. Recorded at the wonderful @newtonvillebooks.bsky.social. @penguinrandomhouse.bsky.social www.buzzsprout.com/1443181/epis...

Like I said, I create drinks for fab books w/ingredients I find in those books. This is a Chee Royale — mixed for @alexanderchee.bsky.social & his book How to Write an Autobiographical Novel. Ever in Boston? Let’s have a drink and we can discuss this spin on a Kir Royale. Or even better — the book!

This feels like when you were 21 and none of your friends could decide what bar to go to so everyone just stood there on the cold sidewalk debating and not going anywhere

I think a handy people barometer these days is to share Zora Neale Hurston’s words: “There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” I myself am in the former category re 2025. (Sign found in @portersqbooks.bsky.social in the Seaport. If you haven’t visited, do!)

Great to be on here. A relief. Hi. I'm a fiction writer and teacher, author of 6 books including The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake & The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, ever invested in folklore and magical realism as ways to consider our lives. Big believer in community of all kinds.

🚨 Publishing Job Alert 🚨 Grove Atlantic is looking for a Sales & Operations Executive www.publishersmarketplace.com/jobs/view.cg...

AND I make drinks for books I love w/ingredients I find IN those books, like this bubbly Mint Julep for Ilyon Woo & her Pulitzer winning Master Slave Husband Wife. Ellen & William Craft, on their flight to freedom, ate dinner at a restaurant that served champagne & juleps, so I combined them!

for anyone trying to extricate yourself from the clutches of Amazon: bookstores make more than a third of their money between now & New Year’s, & most bookstores ship nationwide 💌

I’ve been here for a good long while, only looking around, though! By way of introduction, I’m a bookseller & I try to champion words. All I can say is — full steam ahead. Or — I’m not letting the bastards get me down. Or — as Annie Dillard said, How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.