In preparation for the announcement of the National Book Award in a few short weeks (Nov. 19), we thought we'd link to a few excerpts and/or reviews to each book shortlisted. Awards aren't such an important thing to us here at DIESEL, but we do love the attention they often bring to books that otherwise might escape the radar of even some of the best readers. This week, we're profiling the Poetry Short List. 

(1) See & hear Louise Glück reading from her lush and lovely new collection, Faithful and Virtuous Night. (N.B.: I read from this book at a recent Literary Karaoke, and oh my does it feel nice on the lips.)

(2) Read an excerpt from Fanny Howe's utterly powerful new work, Second Childhood.

(3) Maureen McLane hits it out of the park in this excerpt (she is the first reader in the video) from This Blue.

(4) If Patrick James Dunagan's review in The Rumpus does not send you to a bookstore shelf in search of Fred Moten's Feel Trio, you either are not a reader of poetry or you should check your pulse. (N.B.: More of this are coming to the store very soon. Order one from your local DIESEL!)

& lastly (5) Claudia Rankine . . . what can I say about her Citizen? Hers is a new American epic. It is something you simply must experience.

(1) “'We do not believe. We fear.'” -- Oh me, oh my . . . there is so much to chew on (& be chewed on by) in Mary Ruefle's essay on fear, originally from her very fine book much lauded in these parts, Madness, Rack & Honey.

(2) Itching to read something by the newly-named Nobel Prize winning novelist, Patrick Modiano? Our friends at Yale University Press are here to meet your needs by hastening their release of his novella collection, Suspended Sentences, to Nov. 3. Pre-order your copy here.

(3) This week was E. E. Cummings' 120th birthday. If Lawrence Fishburne's recitation of "as freedom is a breakfastfood" is any indication, Mr. Cummings has aged quite nicely.

So many thanks to everybody who came out to celebrate with us at DIESEL in Oakland during our 25th Anniversary Weekend. There was champagne and pie (a natural combination if ever there was one). There were cookies and milk (a previously unheard of combination if ever there was one). There was music and dancing, courtesy of our good friends Dodge's Sundodgers. There was an open mic and bourbon (oh my!). Oh . . . and stupendously gorgeous cakes that tasted as good as they looked, courtesy of the dear folks at Sweet Adeline Bakeshop.

Silver anniversary achieved, we're pushing onward now to gold. For twenty-five years we've been in conversation with our neighbors in Oakland, as highlighted in last week's excellent feature on our store in Oakland North. Our bellies filled with cake and heads with books (as are yours apparently), we're asking now for help to to make the conversation even better.

In the video below John & Alison quickly tell the story of DIESEL's past and their vision for its future, and unveil our IndieGoGo fundraising appeal. We hope you'll watch, click, & share. 

This year marks 25 years of bookselling for DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland and maybe it hasn't always been easy, but it has always been fun. We love this place. Over the years, we've had some fantastic authors and readers come into the store and fall in love with it too. Here, wishing us a warm congratulations, are three of them.

Up first is beloved local author, Michael Chabon, whose book Telegraph Avenue is perhaps one of the biggest bestsellers in our bookselling history. Thank you, Michael!

Up next is Mac Barnett, the author and illustrator of some of the best children's books ever, from the awesome Battle Bunny (repurposed from the far sappier and more boring, Birthday Bunny), to the new generation of kid sleuths series, The Brixton Brothers. Thank you, Mac!

And finally, we have author Edan Lepucki, whose book California rocketed into the bestseller stratosphere after booksellers, fellow authors, and the public united behind her (man, we wish all debut authors received such fantastic attention). Thank you, Edan!

People like Michael, Mac, and Edan are part of what makes bookselling a wonderful experience. They're the kinds of authors who understand the need for community and appreciate the chance to connect with the fans who love them. Help us keep bringing authors and readers together for another 25 years! Check out our upcoming Indiegogo campaign by clicking on the link at the top right.

(1) Given the recent events in Ferguson, Missouri, which brought to brilliant light an issue too many for too long chose to ignore, one of the more timely paperback releases last week was Radley Balko's provocative book Rise of the Warrior Cop. Glenn Greenwald's endorsement graces the cover of this edition, and he goes considerably further in this piece at his new news site, The Intercept:

"Balko, who has devoted his career to documenting and battling the worst abuses of the U.S. criminal justice system, traces the history and underlying mentality that has given rise to all of this: the 'law-and-order' obsessions that grew out of the social instability of the 1960s, the War on Drugs that has made law enforcement agencies view Americans as an enemy population, the Reagan-era 'War on Poverty' (which was more aptly described as a war on America’s poor), the aggressive Clinton-era expansions of domestic policing, all topped off by the massively funded, rights-destroying, post-9/11 security state of the Bush and Obama years. All of this, he documents, has infused America’s police forces with “a creeping battlefield mentality.”

(2) Peter Mendelsund's new book What We See When We Read is delightfully puzzling -- the sort of thing you're unsure about until the very moment you realize you haven't set it down for nearly an hour. Because it is about what our mind's eye is serving up to us as we read, it's naturally enough hard to fit a description of the book itself purely into words. Thanks to the folks over at the Paris Review for serving up an excerpt-sized taster. Do check it out.  

(3) In his prime and well-beyond, Orson Welles could be one of Hollywood's most ornery visionaries and talents. As demonstrated in the recently transcribed lunch conversations he had with (and that were recorded by) his friend Henry Jaglom, My Lunches With Orson, Welles was as accustomed to holding court off-screen as he was on. Such was the lesson learned (and also recorded) by the producers of this commercial for frozen peas. 

(1) It’s “funny,” isn’t it, how the most sobering of thoughts is often the very one most apt to send us rummaging for the closest intoxicant at hand?

Having said that, Charles Simic is always a joy. Choose for yourself whether his "Portable Hell" is a prose-poem, editorial-poem, or poem-poem. (via NYRBlog)

 (2) Philip Larkin's haunted commemoration of the First World War rings true still today.

(3) Who hasn’t awoken late at night — or possibly midday — and thought to themselves — or possibly out loud to nobody — there really should be — or possibly there is already — a Tumblr of Samuel Beckett Motivational Cat Posters?

One needn't have an excuse so humdrum & ordinary as a birthday to quote the great William H. Gass. But hey, if you're lucky, you only turn ninety once. And today is Willie's turn! So let's raise our glasses high, friends, and sip some sentences with him.

“[The ideal reader] is skilled and generous with attention, for one thing, patient with longeurs [sic - intentional?], forgiving over error and the author’s self-indulgence, avid for details . . . ah, and a lover of lists, a twiddler of lines. Shall this reader be given occasionally to mouthing a word aloud or wanting to read to a companion in a piercing library whisper? yes; and shall this reader be one whose heartbeat alters with the tenses of the verbs? that would be nice; and shall every allusion be caught like a cold? no, eaten like a fish, whole, fins and skin; . . . oh, [the ideal reader] will be a kind of slowpoke on the page, a sipper of sentences, full of reflective pauses, thus a finger for holding its place should be appointed; a mover of lips, then? just, so, yes. large soft moist ones, naturally red, naturally supple, but made only for shaping syllables, you understand, for singing . . . singing. And shall this reader, as the book is opened, shadow the page like a palm? yes, perhaps that would be best (mind the strain on the spirit, though, no glasses correct that); and shall this reader sink into the paper? become the print? and blossom on the other side with pleasure and sensation . . . from the touch of mind, and the love that lasts in language? yes. Let’s imagine such a being, then. And begin. And then begin.”

– Preface to In the Heart of the Heart of the Country

Close readers & clickers of links will notice that the wonderful NYRB Classics is  breathing new life into Gass' indispensable collection In the Heart of the Heart of the Country this fall. Sentences are dribbling down my chin at the thought!

Enormous congratulations are due Oakland’s own (&, let’s be real, she’s also one of Diesel’s beloved customers) Maxine Hong Kingston, for being awarded the 2013 National Medal of Arts.  Awards are rarely so deserving as this one.

For a wonderful interview from a few years back, where she reflects on what it means for an artist and activist to age, see here.