Celebrating academic books and the joys of neighborhood bookstores
Brad Johnson, owner of East Bay Booksellers, graciously answered questions about the life of a local bookstore and EBB's new subscription program, The Syllabus, which introduces readers to academic books from the last ten years.
You recently launched a new book subscription service called The Syllabus, which is focused around “new-ish” academic books organized around a quarterly theme. How long has this idea been in the works and why specifically books within the last ten years?
I’ve been wanting to do subscription packages for individual bookseller’s staff recommendations for years, even before I bought the store. The timing just was never quite right. I think, as well, something more focused might be more helpful (both for the customer and the bookseller). This is very much “Brad’s Subscription Service,” with a hope that others on staff might decide to do something else. As for the “last ten years” – that’s just a way for me to limit the range of possibilities for me to choose from. My curiosities are pretty broad, so any help I can get with that is good.
Aside from the obvious instructional angle, what aspect of academic books are you most eager to share with readers?
I love academic publishing because it is passion projects feeding into other passion projects. The citations and bibliographies alone show that all deep thinking has an entwined and complex root system. That’s basically all research is, following trails blazed by way of bibliographies and citations. There’s something humbling and grounding to this idea that knowledge comes by cooperating with the knowledge of others.
I want general interest readers to engage in the rigor of knowledge formation and evolution as it is happening, versus simply consuming information that’s already been formed. You see the latter in a lot of commercial nonfiction that’s drawing from academic publishing but not necessarily engaged with it in a creative way. There’s something to be said for this, but I think something like The Syllabus attracts readers who are keen, as it were, to know how to prepare the dish rather than just eat it.
This quarter’s theme is “The Aesthetics of the Self,” why did you choose this subject to introduce The Syllabus? Was there any internal debate, or was this always the first topic choice?
I have the first few themes already mapped out in my head, but I sort of knew this would be the first. My own academic research, decades old now, is along these lines. That definitely played a part. But it has also been an especially interesting period for books that fit the very general mold I had in mind. The first book, which we just sent to subscribers last week, is Jamāl al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥīm al-Jawbarī’s The Book of Charlatans (New York University Press). I was torn between this and NYU Press’ jaw-dropping translation feat, Impostures, but decided al-Jawbari’s curious work detailing (quite possibly in the manner of a charlatan) the work of a charlatan was a good introduction to what I had in mind. It’s a troubling book at times; but like many confidence games, at times quite funny.
What advice would you give to readers unaccustomed to academic books?
Read all the Introduction material, whether it’s a Foreword or Translator’s Note. These will set the scene, and generally will introduce you to the terms and concepts in their completed state (i.e., before they are either built from scratch or dismantled in the book itself).
As I alluded to above, I also think the bibliography and citations are crucial. Whether you’re checking the citations as you go along, or referring to them periodically (maybe during section or chapter breaks), they are markers toward possibly the next book you had no idea you needed to read.
East Bay Booksellers is part of a twenty-seven year bookstore legacy, first as DIESEL, in the same space. How does EBB’s role as a neighborhood bookstore influence the day-to-day?
While we certainly take cues from our regulars, in terms of what they’re reading, we most decisively defer to our booksellers’ curiosities and tastes. Sometimes this might present itself as a challenge, for lack of a better word, to our customers – especially our non-regulars. But we think it’s important to let people know what sort of bookstore they’re in and/or supporting. If nobody is buying what we’re selling, clearly our curiosities and tastes are not matching up in any way what our customers are looking for or want to be surprised by. At which point it’s on us as a store to adjust.
What is a hidden joy of operating an independent bookstore?
First and foremost, it’s the people with whom you work. People who read, who really read, are almost inevitably interesting people. Maybe they’re shy, but underneath that quiet exterior there is a churning pool of ideas. A good bookstore figures out ways of freeing its booksellers to explore those ideas – via displays, curatory decisions, signage, event ideas. If the possibilities aren’t necessarily limitless, they’re certainly wide open to interpretation.
Do you have a preferred reading soundtrack for example, a specific album, white noise, a purring cat etc..?
For me, it has to be something that doesn’t call attention to itself, but also isn’t determined to remain unnoticed. Great piano compositions do the trick for me. It could be the deceptive simplicity of Erik Satie or Steve Reich, but also the unexpected moments in pieces by Oscar Peterson or Thelonius Monk. I don’t play the piano, but there’s something about it that lends itself to the manner of my reading.
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