I know not everyone is as fortunate as we Portlanders and Brooklynites. We get to choose from a variety of wonderful independent booksellers–kind, nurturing people (some good-looking) who nudge us toward a special volume and take great joy and pride when we return to tell them we loved it. Before the chains took over, and before Amazon’s dominance, many readers were limited to whatever selection graced the shelves of that store in the mall, the one crammed between an Orange Julius and the place with cool knives…so lets give credit where credit is due. Still, in an age of corporate conglomeration, dwindling arts coverage in the major newspapers, and faceless paypal checkouts, small presses like us rely on indie bookstores who take the time to fall in love with our books and then, thank god, hawk our wares.

So, basically, we love you Powells, and Annie Blooms, and McNally Jackson, and Word, and Book Soup, and Skylight, and Housing Works, and Bookworks, and Square Books, and Prairie Lights, and City Lights, and The Tattered Cover, and The Strand, and Greenlight, and Book Passage, and Book People, and RiverRun, and Fountain, and all you other awesome and supportive stores. We love you all. But in the spirit full disclosure, Tin House is having an illicit, epistolary affair with Pepper Parker (lets pause for a moment and acknowledge how great that name is…she could play short stop for the 1972 Cincinnati Reds) from Vintage Books in Vancouver, WA. This morning, her lovely note was in our inbox (stand by for a shameless plug of our forthcoming novel, Agaat, available, I hope, in all of the aforementioned stores come May):

Thank you for sending us a copy of Agaat.  I have everyone I know reading it.  It floored me.  I found it to be the most astonishing thing I’ve read in a long, long time, and as a bookseller, I read all the time.  We are handselling it here, of course, and wishing it the very best.  We have nominated it for the IndieNext List. It deserves every award it receives…I hope it wins something here in the states. PLEASE pass on our utter gratitude to Ms. van Niekerk. Her work is achingly beautiful. Wish we could see it in hardcover.

And thanks again,

Pepper Parker
Vintage Books
6613 E Mill Plain Boulevard
Vancouver, Washington  98661

I take back all the awful things I yelled (alone, unreasonable, and  in traffic on I-5 North) about Vancouver. I’m coming to visit you soon. Without support from the indies, the books we love would have a hard time finding the readers they deserve.

Love,

Tony