Hey, there's an interview with me about Murderbot, Platform Decay, and lots of other stuff on @smartbitches.bsky.social smartbitchestrashybooks.com/podcast/721-...

BRB, trademarking Homely Nonbinaries Read

😌

Just turned in final revisions on "AND LOKI IN HIS PRISON" It's going to exist at last, everyone!!! Big, deeply-built, intricate Norse myth fantasy. Book 1 of "HANGED GOD'S GAME" Coming from Tor Books Summer 2027

Snapping up what mass market paperbacks are still being printed... I do like some of these covers, though.

I cannot get over how gorgeous Mushishi's art is. And I'm so happy for the new reprints that allow more people to discover and enjoy it.

I got to read the ARC of Whalefall in 2023 and have been religiously pushing it on customers ever since, so I am celebrating @danielkraus.com winning the Pulitzer for Angel Down as though I'm personally responsible 😆

Enormous congratulations to this year’s Winner & Finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. Daniel Kraus - ANGEL DOWN (W) Katie Kitamaura - AUDITION (F) Torrey Peters - STAG DANCE (F) It was enormous honor to serve on this year’s jury & highlight such ambitious, amazing books. Read all three!

Customer: "ohhh, if I'd known you have a cat I would have come in sooner!"

Shoutout to my top two: @mainstbooksmonroe.bsky.social and @villagebookswa.bsky.social! I've got to put this holiday on my calendar so I stop forgetting it.

If you're an author visiting a bookstore, please don't litter your business card all over the shelves of your genre. It's annoying to clean up, and it HAS YOUR NAME ON IT so that's immediately going on my mental "do not order books by" list.

No other word has done more damage to the craft of writing in recent years than “content”. Even if you’re using the word “content” ironically, or as a cute little joke, don’t. When someone calls writing “content” they’re pissing on someone’s hard work & passion. “Content” is Technosatan’s henchword.

Reminder with the news that B&N is forcing people to charge 14.99 per paperback or have their listings deleted, you can get my pocket-size dyke knight novellas for just 10 from me directly: riengray.shop

I wish we bookstores collectively weren't so obsessed with being the first/only bookstore in an area/of a kind, if it leads to being dismissive or outright deceitful. I saw a fundraiser for a store opening in a certain city and was excited, ready to donate and repost--

I'm not actually going to do an April Fool's joke but I will put this book with boobies on the cover on our spicy books shelf (no customers have come in today, so no one will notice)

moby-dick, his eyes enormous: from hell's heart you STAB at moby? for hate's sake you spit your last BREATH at moby? oh! oh! the great shroud of the sea for ahab! the great shroud of the sea rolling on as it rolled five thousand years ago!!!!

Authors & publishers posting abt illustrated books: pls credit the ILLUSTRATOR. Not only are helping to boost them, but also shows people that you or your publisher hired a HUMAN artist. #PicturesMeanBusiness Art @sarahmcintyre.bsky.social #KidLit

Trying out the dating app thing and of course if I say I own a bookstore they ask for recommendations. I did name a few I thought they'd like based on profile, but why am I doing this for free AND in my free time?

If you're enjoying the new season of One Piece on Netflix especially Mr. 3, I just need to make sure you know that actor, David Dastmalchian, also writes comics and his newest THROUGH just came out with absolutely amazing art by Cat Staggs. bookshop.org/a/214/979888... (affiliate link)

I do like this trend of red-green covers to make the reader feel unsettled because it suggests Christmas and as we all know, Christmas is *terrifying*

All I want is to read my favorite genre: what if women, but worse

NEW COVER NEW COVER NEW COVER! I've been dying to show off this incredible piece of art by Martina Fačkova, and here it is! On October 6, 2026, you're all going to meet Judith Ban, and I cannot wait.

Things I do as a bookseller that could be in the Olympics: Carrying a stack of books (vertical) Moving a stack of book (horizontal) from one shelf to another Lifting a box of encyclopedia volumes onto the post office counter Pushing a cart full of books

Customer: I thought you were wearing a fur coat.

I'm torn between "If there were going to be any adaptation of a book about Alexander it should have been Mary Renault" and also knowing I wouldn't want the fandom chaos coming to the favorite books of my youth. ETA: ah, I see Annabel Lyon is a Canadian author so that makes sense for JT.

T. Kingfisher's Wolf Worm starts out peacefully with nature and art and maybe a little bit of gothic ominousness, like A Girl of the Limberlost meets Jane Eyre, and then goes horrifically and grotesquely off the rails halfway. 10/10, would ride the roller coaster again. bookshop.org/a/214/978125...

I've been weeding books at home and brought several bags to the store to sell, but then yesterday I brought four boxes of books from the store back to my house... 😬

Rest in peace, Maisie from Connie Willis' Passage: you would have loved the What Was [historical disaster]? books.

there’s no way to stop my singing in this world but to cut my throat. And when that’s done, ten to one I sing ye the doxology for a wind-up

Sacramento friends: we're launching the Notes from a Regicide paperback at Capital Books on February 17, 7:00 p.m. If you're thinking of investigating the Locus list, well -- it's a good time for it.

I read nine books in January... In my defense, I started Tom's Crossing which is over a thousand pages and still haven't finished 😂 app.thestorygraph.com/profile/main...

X is hiring a creative writing specialist at $40 an hour to make Grok better at writing and a true LOL at the qualifications

NEWS! My next book, TRANSLUNAR, about a closeted trans woman who's an astronaut in the sixties, is coming out in fall 2027! It'll be on Wildthorn, Tor's brand-new general fiction imprint -- a dream, as it lets me work with @englelaird.bsky.social on my literary and historical fiction as well as SFF.

These 33 page Tasting and Reading journals are so fun! Which do you want to fill out? www.mainstbooksmonroe.com/s/search?q=33

The way AI is being shoved down our throats and how studios are starting to embrace it ??? Is so absolutely fucking terrifying to me, and scary for our industry and I feel like I can’t ignore it anymore. It’s so fucked. I hate it so much. What is happening. 🫠

It's always funny when a book comes in looking like it's been through the events of its own plot. The first rule of Book Club is that we don't talk about Book Club. Speaking of which, we'll have a Silent Book Club on January 24th 3-5pm!

At least I've been able to read some excellent books because in every other aspect 2026 has been absolutely horrific. app.thestorygraph.com/books-read/m...

I'm making biscuits for you but where are you? #BookstoreCat #MainStBooksMonroe

Bookstore cat crawled under my hair, guess she wanted to feel bonita.

Three years of college Russian that I have put to absolutely no use until now, watching Heated Rivalry without reading the subtitles.

DNFed a book for saying a character smiled showing all 32 teeth, which is a horrific image.

Having a slightly famous cat: 😁 Miranda had her regular checkup. Me: of course she's indoor only, but she is a store cat and sometimes birds or rodents come into our 120 year old building and are there diseases I should be concerned about-- Staff said "oh yeah, she's the Main St. Books cat, right?"

I'm otherwise enjoying this book but the author is way too fond of the word "screamed." The characters don't just laugh, or snap when they're annoyed, or go "hey!" to get someone's attention. Every. Scene. Someone screams, and it's especially incongruous as an audiobook.

Hey, I'm looking for comics and graphic novels *by* Indigenous writers and/or illustrators, especially in the Americas. Doesn't have to be a recent book. Any genre! Any topic, any themes, does not have to be a memoir or history, though that is welcome too!

I have a weekly "how much we need to make to pay expenses" goal... we have not reached it a single week since August... Anyway if you buy a book through our affiliate @bookshop_org you get a cookie 😉 and we get 30% of each sale! Some of my faves I've read this year: bookshop.org/lists/best-b...

Hooray! @authorsabb.bsky.social is *OFFICIALLY* a nonprofit, and is now open for donations! For the last two years we've been doing all this w free tools, or paying out of pocket, & we were STILL able to get SO MUCH DONE. Imagine what we could do with $$$ www.authorsagainstbookbans.com/donate/

When the amount of sales we make in a day is smaller than my age:

Feeling some good old-fashioned Korean spirit.

Bluesky Writers, what's something you've spent money on that you've found helps you with actually writing? An app or program, a workshop, a getaway to focus on writing, a timed safe to lock up your cellphone so you don't get distracted...? 😗

If you're looking for a book to satisfy the KPop Demon Hunters craving, Kylie Lee Baker's I'll Find You Where the Timeline Ends is so, so good! Food as love language! Time travel shenanigans! Balancing world-ending dangers with mundane teenage responsibilities! bookshop.org/a/214/978125...