The fires raging throughout Northern California have left thousands homeless.  Many are staying in shelters awaiting news of their homes.  Children are afraid, and bored, in the shelters, away from their homes, their pets, and their books.  We are mounting a Children's Book Drive at our store at the Marin Country Mart, as part of Fire Relief efforts spreading throughout our communitites. 

Dear Reader,

This is our last note to you from #1 DIESEL, in Oakland.  At midnight tonight DIESEL in Oakland becomes East Bay Booksellers, with Brad at the helm.  

It has been indescribably wonderful being your local booksellers for the last 28 years.  The community you’ve welcomed us into and that we’ve created and maintained together has been so important to us, and still is!  (We will continue to live in the neighborhood, so we will still see you around – but no longer behind the counter, or shelving books.)

For immediate release:
 
DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland Officially Becomes East Bay Booksellers on September 1, 2017

Oakland, CA — How often do you get to talk about a bookstore closing, and it actually is a good story? When we announced in November that the founders of DIESEL, A Bookstore wanted to sell their Oakland location to me, one of their longtime managers, I had no idea what the response would be. When I called a customer meeting at the store to explain what we had in mind and why we wanted to do it, my greatest fear was awkward silence. 

Our customers, however, were neither awkward nor silent. In two months, I raised half of what I needed to buy the inventory. A couple months after that, I had enough to do so. By mid-summer, I had sufficient capital to run a business. 

I've had some time now to reflect on why we met with such fundraising success. From the stories people told me, especially as we talked about their love of DIESEL and independent bookstores, it clearly wasn't because something had to change. As I repeated early and often, the changes we were pursuing were not necessary -- there was no financial doomsday behind it all. I think our customers recognized the positivity at the root of our plans. What better time is there to make a change than when it isn't being forced upon you? 

On Friday, September 1, 2017, the store will open its doors with relatively minimal fanfare as East Bay Booksellers. Customers will be forgiven if they don't immediately notice the new logo on the window. Or perhaps don't at the moment remark on the new bookmarks we slide into their books. We want the store to feel familiar, with touches of difference they can't quite put a finger on -- and not just when they come in for the first time after the change, but every time thereafter. Change doesn't have to happen, but thankfully it does anyway!

Of course, as the word spreads and the dust settles, we will schedule a party so everyone can celebrate their memories of DIESEL. In the meantime, moved by the devastating need of in Texas and beyond, East Bay Booksellers is honoring its history as a progressive cultural hub by donating 20% of its opening weekend sales to Hurricane Harvey relief.

Some things will never change. 

Brad Johnson
brad@ebbooksellers.com
5433 College Avenue
Oakland, CA 94618
Ph: (510) 653-9965

It's taken a long time -- just shy of a year -- but the transition of our Oakland store into East Bay Booksellers is very nearly complete. Current store manager, Brad Johnson, has raised the money he needs to move ahead. All that's left now are the legal and practical niceties. September 1 is marked on our calendars. Maybe now it is on yours, too.

Brad answered some questions for LitHub about buying the store, and we expect you have some as well. So here's a stab at answering some of them:

What will change (besides the name)? -- Did you notice the yellow in that logo?! You'll definitely be seeing more of that on bookmarks, tote bags, and the like.

You know what we mean? Are you still going to have the same diverse array of books? -- Oh, definitely! In addition to managing the store for a few years now, Brad's been buying the books we put on the shelves. You're in very good hands.

What about the staff? -- As above, you're in very good hands. DIESEL was built in Oakland by its booksellers being some of the best of the land. Brad believes that so much he put "Booksellers" in the name of the new store. There are no staffing changes in the works. 

Are you still going to host events and book groups? You better believe it. Check out the Oakland events calendar, and you'll see things booked in September. Those will become East Bay Booksellers events after September 1. That means: Jesmyn Ward! Santiago Gamboa! Daniel Handler! And you can expect so very much even after that. 

That East Bay Booksellers website looks kind of bare? Will I still be able to buy books online? Patience! We're still doing business in the East Bay, online and in person, as DIESEL. (& will continue doing so in the North Bay and SoCal!) In other words, DIESEL isn't going away. It's only a little complicated. Short version: if you shop DIESEL in Oakland, soon, very soon, you will be able to buy books at East Bay Booksellers, read staff reviews, and whatever else tech wizardry can conjure. In the meantime, follow them on Twitter and Facebook! 

More throughout the month! 

The April Issue of Word of the Worlds is out! This issue, we're excited to focus on Women Writers in Scifi, too often forgotten. If you'd like to receive Word of the Worlds via email (and who wouldn't?), click here to sign up. --Chris

For the month of April, we have created a video poem for each day. Check each day to see what's new. Spread the word and, most importantly, enjoy!

March 2017

February 2017

I've been hearing & reading a recurring sentiment since the election: I can't read fiction right now. That I hear it most commonly from those I consider "serious readers" (those who don't read fiction strictly for entertainment or diversion), is cause for concern -- as I understand both the importance they place on reading and the mournful loss they're experiencing at not being able to do so.

I have a suggestion. It will sound so pithy that some of you will stop reading. But here goes: try poetry.

Let me stop you at the first all-too-common, immediate objection: "But I don't know how to read poetry." Nonsense. You're not dead. If you're this far into this post, you're obviously still breathing: that's all it takes. The rest is negotiable. 

Some poems are meant to be read quickly, the ideas seemingly less important than their expression. I'm not going to tell you whose or which these are. Because like anything worth reading, poems beg to be read askew (I like that word): at different paces, in many places, and in enclosed (for a moment, like a photo) by as many frames as there are minds. The poem will tell you when to breathe -- but here's a secret, you can tell the poem, "No ... not just yet ... not here." The poet might object, but the poem won't suffer for it. It's really okay.

Some poems are stuffed with ideas. They're in a rage about something, even if you don't know quite what. You're not even sure if they do. The good ones are talking their way into a problem; beware the ones with solutions you immediately agree with. The ones that too quickly talk themselves out of trouble are usually not to be trusted. They're either a huckster or a friend -- though possibly both. Poets like C.D. Wright, my obsession this year, don't want to be your friend -- and the aces up their sleeves are clearly from another deck. They want you inhabiting the ideas. With or without them, they'll nudge you further along, in search of the last reference, until you're alone with it. From there, you're on your own. But only until the next page -- really, trust me, it's okay.

But why poetry at all, you might be wondering? There's political theory! There's philosophy! There's work to be done, Brad!

Because from time to time, you need to eat.

Who should you being reading now? I'm asked this from time to time. My interest and evangelism for the section at the store is known. It's usually a question asked by people who are not already reading poetry. Once you are, oh, you become the best browser ever! At Diesel, we don't carry a lot of multiple copies in our poetry section. I want to pack in as much as possible. Hulking epics flank the wispiest seventy-page masterpiece. You're going to miss things -- your eyes will not seize them that time around. Poetry readers get this -- it happens every time they open a book. Just as we read in order to re-read, we return to the shelves of our bookshops often. We keep discovering things that were already there. (Or, yes, sometimes previously sold out. The Revolution hasn't happened yet, we suddenly recall from that political theory.)

But seriously, who should you reading right now? Okay ... Some suggestions:

• Your local poets. Ask booksellers and librarians if you don't any know. Go to a reading. If it's not to your liking, sneak peeks at the books everybody brought with them. Here in Oakland, I'm fortunate to have places like Small Press Distribution, Commune Editions & Timeless, Infinite Light. Fortunately, for you, they all have websites.
• C. D. Wright -- There are so many places you can start with C.D. Or you can do like me, and just read it all. If you're not like me, grab what you can find. It doesn't matter if it looks more like essays or lectures either -- it's poetry all the same. What's more, it'll turn into an encyclopedia of poetry before your very eyes. Humane: it's such a dry, dull word. And yet the one I keep associating with her, and realizing it's become so foreign.
• Robert Creeley -- He is C.D.'s titanic lion ... and in many respects opened many ears (mine anyway) for the poets we so desperately need to be reading today.
• Daniel Borzutzky -- He won the National Book Award for poetry this year. I know, you don't trust award committees. (Maybe reassess that with poetry, by the way. There's not a ton of people reading it seriously [or at all]. Usually, I feel like Fiction prize juries really should hang out more with Poetry prize juries. Do some trust-falls at a camp or something. Grab a coffee at the very least.) There is a rawness to Borzutzky's anger (principally at a capitalist system not meant to fit the living world) that could, with a lesser writer, slip out of his control. It never does.
• Solmaz Sharif -- I thought her debut collection Look would win the National Book Award this year. I was wrong about that, but certainly not at its enduring place in our thinking about role language places in assessing, processing, admitting, and denying identity.
• Ari Banias -- There's a wonderful funny tenderness to a lot of Ari's poems in his debut collection, Anybody. But not in a facile sort of way. Rather, more like that of a body -- wonderful because it is so permeable and present, but precarious for the very same reason.
• Harryette Mullen -- A co-worker, a poet (naturally), got me to read Sleeping With the Dictionary. Oh my . . . some books change not simply the way you see the word, but the way it sounds.
• Dawn Lundy Martin / Tonya Foster / Robin Coste Lewis -- Again, lumping together for the sake of space. These three rocked my world, in the sense of opening it to each of theirs. They remind me that my greatest political contribution might be to shut up and listen.
• Susan Howe / Tess Taylor / Etel Adnan -- Wildly different, all three, but I thought of them together. They all orbit that brilliant star called by the scientists "Emily Dickinson," and contain multitudes. .
• Mary Ruefle -- Ah, dear Mary! Quirky and funny, until you realize she's gone pitch black dark on you in a second. Kind of like life.

Okay . . . that's enough right now,  I think. There's so many more -- Fred Moten, Nathaniel Mackey, Douglas Kearney, Eileen Myles . . . somebody stop me.

Basically, the answer to "What poets should I read now?" is simple: read the poet who at any given moment doesn't so much take your breath away (again, you need to keep doing that if you want to read poetry at all) . . . but rather seizes it, holds it but for a moment, and returns it, changed into oxygen.  

The fiction you're not able read right now builds worlds; poetry breathes.