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East Bay Booksellers @ebbooksellers.bsky.social · 1d

Would be horrible, so horrible (*sarcasm alert*) if Mark’s book suddenly became a bestseller right about now:

ebbooksellers.com/item/9JsuMsJ...

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Rutgers professor moving to Europe after threats over antifa accusations

Mark Bray says threats intensified after a Turning Point USA petition accused him of promoting political violence

www.theguardian.com

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East Bay Booksellers @ebbooksellers.bsky.social · 2d

As one who actually think it could/should be a force for good w/ respect to deep backlist, hard same!

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East Bay Booksellers @ebbooksellers.bsky.social · 2d

Upshot: this sort of corporate price gouging threatens a shallowing & narrowing of what you're likely to see in bookstores. Which, frankly, sucks.

Not much most of you can do about this. This is just me griping for the sake of those of who can, maybe, gripe collectively with purpose.

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East Bay Booksellers @ebbooksellers.bsky.social · 2d

Because a bookstore worth its salt contextualizes the books it chooses to feature -- via section choices, displays, etc. Contexts require depth and breadth of choice, and as superhuman as bookstore buyers like to imagine ourselves ... our attentions are as stretched as anybody else's these days.

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East Bay Booksellers @ebbooksellers.bsky.social · 2d

Because it's the smaller / more niche interest / cutting edge / innovative / regional presses who will feel the brunt of this increase, and will have to respond by cataloging fewer books. Fewer cataloged titles not only hurt individual authors not cataloged, but the the titles that are.

How?

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East Bay Booksellers @ebbooksellers.bsky.social · 2d

This is of niche industry interest, but here goes:

The digital catalog platform most independent bookstores use to peruse and order new books for their stores (called Edelweiss) has jacked up their prices on publishers to catalog new titles 200-300%.

Why does this matter?

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East Bay Booksellers @ebbooksellers.bsky.social · 5d

Two natural, surprisingly strong ciders & ninety minutes into our "After Dark" extra shift ... and ready to sell you a book.

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East Bay Booksellers @ebbooksellers.bsky.social · 6d

We had a photoshoot at the store this week. The photographer asked what sort of book in our store sets us apart. Already upstaged photogenically by a baby, I pitched him on this one about Kodak & its role in the modern weapon industry.

ebbooksellers.com/item/u60uZZa...

Tales of Militant Chemistry by Alice Lovejoy | East Bay Booksellers

The untold story of film as a chemical cousin to poison gas and nuclear weapons, shaped by centuries of violent extraction. The history of film calls to mind unforgettable photographs, famous direct...

ebbooksellers.com

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East Bay Booksellers @ebbooksellers.bsky.social · 6d

This is not our new closing hour. I’m old, and need my beauty rest. But we will from time to time — esp. when our friends at Local Economy are having a to-do.

Occasionally we’ll even tell you about doing so a little in advance. Such as now.

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East Bay Booksellers @ebbooksellers.bsky.social · 6d

Drink an afternoon espresso, everybody, because we’re staying open late this Friday, 10/3! Here for your slightly later than normal book cravings until 9pm!

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East Bay Booksellers @ebbooksellers.bsky.social · 9d

People steal the weirdest things. E.g., our gnarly rubber doormat.

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helen, gender goblin @gendergoblinhelen.bsky.social · 10d

'out of the three mass shootings today'

Our Earth Affairs @ourearthaffairs.bsky.social · 10d

Iraq War veteran Thomas Sanford has been identified as the gunman who attacked Grand Blanc Mormon church, killing 2 people and setting it ablaze. Out of the three mass shootings today, two of them have been carried out by Iraq war veterans.

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East Bay Booksellers @ebbooksellers.bsky.social · 10d

They unofficially run the city of Alameda.

East Bay Booksellers @ebbooksellers.bsky.social · 10d

Just saw a wild turkey gobble angrily at a car honking at it while it was crossing ... despite the turkey having the walk light.

Had the thought that the Claremont & College intersection could use for some angry gobbling. C'mon over, turkeys!

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East Bay Booksellers @ebbooksellers.bsky.social · 10d

Ta-Nehisi Coates expresses here on Ezra Klein’s podcast a fundamental ethic that informs my sense even of what should be & will not be housed in a welcoming, truly curious bookstore. As ever, he gives us a lot to think about.

All I can go to is my role as a writer, and my role as a writer is to state things as clearly as I possibly can, to make them in such a way that they haunt, to state truths and to reinforce the animating notion of my politics — which is that all humanity is equal and is worthy of that.

And I actually think all of the political and policy positions that I find myself in sympathy with are attempting to affect that in the real world. So, again, I’m putting aside your piece, but I’m just thinking about the moment we’re in. When I hear or see people who are honored and commemorated in such a way that they almost become a national religious figure, and then I see their content, and I see that their content is actively destructive to humanity, I have to draw a line there.

I think what you try to do is — again, this is the difference. I don’t necessarily have the crystal ball to say that in this time I’m going to be able to convince a majority of people that, for instance — let’s just take the thing that’s hot right now: Trans folks are human beings and deserve humanity.

Although I think most people know that you shouldn’t say what he said — like, that [expletive] is rude. It’s just rude to talk to people like that. And I think most people know that.

So as I’m thinking my way through the question, I actually think that’s not a hard line to draw. I think not calling people out of their name, that’s actually a basic value that most people have.

And I think people who think it’s not, who are pushing that, are actually themselves on the other side of the line.

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Lydia Kiesling @lydiakiesling.bsky.social · 11d

These bitches are like "1984 made some points"

Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 11d

Larry Ellison envisions a surveillance state in which techbros rule. '“Citizens will be on their best behavior, because we’re constantly recording and reporting everything that is going on,” Ellison said in an hour-long Q&A during Oracle’s Financial Analyst Meeting last week.'

Larry Ellison predicts rise of the modern surveillance state where ‘citizens will be on their best behavior’ | Fortune

Oracle's Larry Ellison believes citizens and police alike will be under constant surveillance of each other.

fortune.com

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James Goetsch @profjrg.bsky.social · 12d

(1) So the Secretary of Defense says that the soldiers who fought at Wounded Knee will keep their medals.

In the evening they marched off up Wounded Knee Creek, and then we saw all that they had done there.

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East Bay Booksellers @ebbooksellers.bsky.social · 12d

Was alerted yesterday that it had been a minute since I'd updated the curated Coming Soon portion of our website. Mon Dieu!!

October is stacked. Our little store is going to be bursting at the seams.

ebbooksellers.com/lists/Lovk68...

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East Bay Booksellers @ebbooksellers.bsky.social · 14d

My favorite response to “Is this your new permanent location?” is “Oh, but what is permanent in this life anyway?”

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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 14d

a serious, ethical media industry could leverage modern op/ed sections to amplify revolutionary, thought-provoking, under-platformed ideas

instead it's all been converted into lazy, engagement-chasing contrarian trolling by the least remarkable thinkers and writers imaginable

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East Bay Booksellers @ebbooksellers.bsky.social · 14d

Is wishing the Times would replace Bret Stephens with a better writer & thinker a free speech issue?

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East Bay Booksellers @ebbooksellers.bsky.social · 17d

Had a funny surprisingly prolonged, perplexed conversation with a co-worker today. The whole while she was talking about Jon Klassen, I kept hearing Jon Fosse. Confusion ensued.

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East Bay Booksellers @ebbooksellers.bsky.social · 18d

If the horns fit ...

www.dhs.gov/news/2025/09...

DHS Calls for Media and Far Left to Stop the Demonization of President Trump, His Supporters, and DHS Law Enforcement | Homeland Security

Following the evil act of political violence witnessed in the country last week and two attempts to resist arrest resulting in severe injuries of ICE law enforcement officers—one being drug by a car a...

www.dhs.gov

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Nancy @plaintanjane.bsky.social · 18d

In 1958, Link Wray’s ‘Rumble’ was banned from the radio by FCC: as far as I know, it’s still the only instrumental ever banned.

Recorded Live: 11/19/1974 • Winterland • San Francisco, CA

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East Bay Booksellers @ebbooksellers.bsky.social · 19d

To be clear. We are against fascists. Anti-fascists, even. I gather most of you are, too. Don't let the (not at all new) scaremongering, alchemizing of disdain for *them* turn into an organization fool you.

This is a great book to start with, if you're curious: ebbooksellers.com/item/UfU8gx4...

The Black Antifascist Tradition by Jeanelle K Hope | East Bay Booksellers

Fighting Back from Anti-Lynching to Abolition

ebbooksellers.com

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