Join us for Independent Bookstore Day, Saturday, August 29th, a celebration of local, independent bookstores and their communities. This year, bookstores are celebrating with online events. These online events range from discussions with authors, to drawing classes, to readings.

What is DIESEL doing for Independent Bookstore Day? We'll be giving out prizes with purchases and selling event-exclusive items! (While supplies last.) At our Del Mar location, we'll be giving out limited edition San Diego Book Crawl pins designed by Susie Ghahremani.

Online Events for Independent Bookstore Day

Independent Bookstore Day Exclusive Items For Sale

San Diego Book Crawl

Dear Reader,

We are now open, by appointment and walk-up, for one-at-a-time browsing from 11-4 daily at our bookstore at Del Mar Highlands Town Center! 

You can email or call us (delmar@dieselbookstore.com, (858) 925-7078) to reserve a 20-minute time to browse during those hours, either by yourself or with a small group or family.  You can also just walk up and browse at the store, if no other person or group is currently browsing.  We will require masks to be worn and hand sanitizer used, before entering the store.

We recommend and sell books in person at the door, by phone, online and via email.  You can browse our sections online, by clicking the Browse Del Mar tab. We ship; provide streaming audio online; and sell ebooks through our website, too – the whole shebang!

Have you checked in on our Elevenses events?  They are our daily 11 o'clock events -- publisher reps presenting great new titles; Children's Storytime videos; Ask A Bookseller; and video book reviews by booksellers, and others! They are on Facebook, Crowdcast and our website ~ join the fun! Please come to our website, dieselbookstore.com, for our upcoming, current, and past events.

Thanks to all of you for your support of our store through this strenuous time.   We hope to continue to supply you, your friends and your families with books for beach, school and home for many years to come.

Stay strong, healthy & well-read!
Alison, John & all DIESELfolk

Dear Reader,

Our letters over the last two months have been focused on the coronavirus.  Now we are dealing with a centuries-old plague that has never been successfully defeated in our country – structural racism.  The video of George Floyd’s death under the hands and knees of three Minneapolis policemen has traumatized a nation not because it is new, but because it is so vividly horrific, pornographic, and obscene that anyone who sees it clearly experiences the cold-eyed, heartless violence that has been visited on black bodies and souls for 500 years.

The passionate outrage by caring human beings throughout the whole country and the world has been, and continues to be, extraordinary.  The success of this massive intention to create a racially just police force and society is yet to be seen. 

Our readers have responded with an increased desire to be better anti-racists, better at transforming our city, state and country to be a more just society.  Enough is enough.  May the protests continue until justice, not structural racist violence, reigns. 

Publishers’ books have gone back to reprint as the desire for these books rises.  We are glad to provide them to you, in times of surging interest, and in times of relative neglect.  We have a list of books at the end of this email.

People have also asked us about other ways that they can help.  Joining peaceful protests is an obvious choice.  Another is to volunteer for organizations; write letters, emails and make calls to elected representatives; and express your outrage and the need for systemic justice to all you know, especially to those more distant intentionally or emotionally from this necessity.

People, more concerned about the dangers of viral exposure that protests may present, have been interested in how to donate.  There are many places to find and assess the efficacy of organizations working toward a just and equitable world.

For us, these organizations have maintained a mostly decades-long commitment to exactly these issues, working in the trenches to improve fatally unjust structures of our society:

Equal Justice Society

Dear Reader,

Hope you are well!

We are exceptional at recommending; offer a wondrous selection of books; have both print and digital gift certificates; wrap, ship, and special order.  Please make use of this community resource so that we can help you for years to come.

Humor, music, and entertainment have helped to sustain us through all of this, as they have humans since time immemorial!  Art too, let's please not forget art – in all of its forms. 

We are here to help you find books that entertain, engage, and inform.  You can communicate with us by phone and at the store, for recommendations and pickup only (Monday to Saturday 10-3),  or online and via email – all day every day. 

Please share news of our stores with your friends and family and encourage them to support local independent bookstores, wherever they live.  We think we are an important part of the community and culture, and want to be here a year from now, when you are needing books to read and to give.

Thanks for all of your support, and all of your orders these last two months.  It is helping us to weather this storm!

Stay strong, stay healthy & read a book!
Alison, John & all DIESELfolk

P.S. Yes we are promoting our social media and virtual events at this time: please join us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram! 

Dear Reader,

Hope you are well!

Now that we are in the initial part of Stage 2 of the state’s Covid Response, we wanted to update you on how things are doing at our store.  We are open 10-3 from Monday through Saturday for recommendations, orders, and purchases.  We are not open for browsing, however. 

It is best to order, and pay for, books in advance of picking them up.  We still have limited staffing at the store and are doing our best to provide the professional bookselling to which you’ve become accustomed. 

Shipping times to and from our store are still inconsistent due to the challenges on distribution systems.  It is a long road ahead, and we are struggling to keep the store going, our booksellers employed, and books coming into your homes.

We are again receiving shipments from publishers, with new titles coming in, and our inventory is being replenished daily.  We are glad to help with recommendations, as many of you benefitted from for Mother’s Day!  With graduations, Father’s Day, and the inevitable birthdays and weddings, we are expert at, and love, helping you to find the right books as gifts – and what is a better gift than a book?!

So, online ordering continues for books, digital gift certificates, audiobooks, ebooks, and even donations to help keep DIESEL going through these times.  We are as excited as ever to amplify your reading pleasure, engagement, and curiosity.  We look forward to seeing your faces at our door, and hopefully in the store, soon.

Thanks for all of your support through this time, and in the months to come!

Alison, John & all DIESELfolk
 

Books are the best way to social distance
and connect to the whole world.

Today -- May 8, 2020 -- is poet, essayist, and climate justice advocate Gary Snyder's birthday! Please enjoy this special video of our very own, John Evans, reading a small excerpt of Gary's work and join us in wishing Gary Snyder a wonderful 90th birthday by posting your own videos on social media reading a favorite work by Snyder - whether that's a poem, a stanza, or even a brief passage of prose! Be sure to use #GarySnyder90 and tag us (@dieselbookstore/@dieseldelmar) and Counterpoint Press (@counterpointpress). Again, on behalf of DIESEL, a very happy birthday to Gary Snyder!

And be sure to check out this incredible interview from the Brockport Writers Forum archive! It's a favorite clip of ours and a strange, interesting, and timely, time capsule of a video from 1972!! On the day after Nixon's re-election, Snyder talks about poetry, politics, ecology, and eating deer. This clip is an edited version of a 45-minute interview recorded on November 8, 1972. For more visit brockport.edu/wforum.

Please check out our virtual browsing feature (missing the serendipity of discovering a book in physical space?) by clicking either of the store buttons above! We'll be building this out in sections as we photograph the store. We also have video staff recommendations compiled here, on facebook, and featured on instagram story highlights. And while you're at it, celebrate National Poetry Month with us by checking out readings from years past! 

National Poetry Month Archive

30 Videos in 30 Days: Diesel Celebrates National Poetry Month, 2016

30 Videos in 30 Days: Diesel Celebrates National Poetry Month, 2015

30 Videos in 30 Days: Diesel Celebrates National Poetry Month, 2014

30 Videos in 30 Days: Diesel Celebrates National Poetry Month, 2013

Click Below to view our page of video staff recs, also featured on our instagram! 

Dear Reader,

We hope that you are all home, healthy and balancing the need to know the news with the need to tend your hearts and souls and those around you.

As you know, we are providing daily recommendations of books over the phone and via email.  We are also mailing your online orders from our warehouse.  The warehouse was overwhelmed this past week and so you may have had a delay in receiving your orders.  By all reports, they are all caught up and hopefully things will proceed more smoothly on that front.

We are continuing to be available for pickup only at the door for books that are in our store, from 10-3 Monday through Saturday.  And we are currently closed on Sunday, for a day of rest.

Thanks so much for your support through this treacherous time.  Many of you have asked how you can help.  Staying healthy is number one!  Check out our website for all kinds of ways to get books – www.dieselbookstore.com .

We are hoping this week to make it even easier to browse books on our website.  We know it is hard not being able to see and touch the books!   We’ll let you know when that is up and running!

Take Care,
Alison, John & all DIESELfolk

We hope that all are keeping well and starting to settle in to this new way of living. We continue to work under the assumption that we are an essential business and on what is best for all of us. So things are changing day to day.

At the moment, books can be ordered on-line at: https://www.dieselbookstore.com.

Our warehouse will ship them to your home in a matter of days. We encourage this.

There will be a couple of folks in the shop, to answer questions and recommend books between 10-3. If there is no answer on the phone, email us and we will respond by e-mail. Our email is: brentwood@dieselbookstore.com .

Our door will be slightly ajar for contactless pick up from 10-3 while we are staffed. For this you can call us to see if someone is there, pay for the book over the phone and pick it up from a table at the door. We are practicing social distancing at work and at the door.

As you may be able to tell from this, we will do our best but please bear with us if it gets jinky.

Stay well and stay in touch,

Alison, John and all DIESELfolk

Books are the best way to self-isolate
and be connected to the whole world.