In 2008, JoAnne Kohler took a leap. With bookshops all over the country closing at an alarming rate she decided to open one in Salem, Oregon. She named it the Tea Party Bookshop. Kohler thought that the some of the aspects of the Boston Tea Party (think independence, community involvement, and the desire to shop locally) would mirror much of what she was trying to accomplish.From the About Us page of the Tea Party Bookshop website The historical Boston Tea Party took place December 23rd, 1774. This event inspired our name as it was the first instance where an American...
The Camera Work of Allen Ginsberg
W. S. Burroughs at rest in the side-yard of his house..., 1991, gelatin silver print, © Copyright 2010 The Allen Ginsberg LLC. All rights reserved. A new exhibition of the photographs of Allen Ginsberg opened this week at the National Gallery of Art. The exhibit, titled Beat Memories: The Photographs of Allen Ginsberg, features 79 black-and-white portraits. Most were donated to the National Gallery by Gary S. Davis who acquired, via the poet's estate, one print of every photograph in Ginsberg's possession at the time of his death. Most of the usual suspects of the Beat Generation are represented.The exhibition is divided...
Thrift Books ‘Aims for Domination of the Internet’
We are all well aware by now of how the internet and online bookselling has forever altered the trade. For many of the new players the book has become the latest commodity with all its cultural and material attributes having been stripped away. We are left with a torrent of cheap books.One of leaders in this new space is Thrift Books, an online only bookseller based in Auburn, Washington which, ironically enough, is in Amazon's backyard. They claim to be the "nation’s largest online seller of used books."Thrift Books has just issued a press release celebrating the selling of their...
The Great Northwest Bookstore Destroyed by Fire
A three alarm fire ripped through the 120 year old church that housed The Great Northwest Bookstore in Portland, Oregon on Sunday. About 70 firefighters battled the blaze and when it was all over the building and the bookstore were completely destroyed.Phil Wikelund, the owner of both the building and the bookstore, said that over 100,000 books where in the building at the time of the fire. Due to the recent economic downturn Wikelund had let his insurance for both the building and the bookstore lapse.The Benevolent Fund of the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America (ABAA) will likely provide some...
Bill Murray Gives the First Poetry Reading at the New Poets House
At first glance it looks like a skit right out of Saturday Night Live. Bill Murray in a hard-hat reading poetry to a room full of construction workers. Just think of the comic possibilities.But this was for real. Murray stopped by the then soon to be completed new home of Poets House in lower Manhattan to read some poetry.