Ep 4: Hannah Oliver Depp, Politics & Prose

Drunk Booksellers: The Podcast

Epigraph

It’s episode number 4! Featuring bookseller-extraordinaire Hannah Oliver Depp from Politics & Prose in Washington, D.C.

Introduction [0:30]

In Which We Drink To Detective Fiction By Dead White Guys, Become Jealous of Literary Paper Dolls & Ecstatic Raccoons, And Dive Into Frontlist Season With ALL the September Releases

Drink of the Day: The Gimlet a la Raymond Chandler (recipe and quote from Hemingway & Bailey's Bartending Guide to Great American Writers by Mark Bailey and Edward Hemingway)

Emma’s reading Spinster: Making a Life of One's Own by Kate Bolick

Kim’s reading Boss Life: Surviving My Own Small Business by Paul Downs and Out on the Wire: The Storytelling Secrets of the New Masters of Radio by Jessica Abel

Hannah’s reading Magna Carta: The Birth of Liberty by Dan Jones (pubs 20 Oct 2015) and Bright Lines by Tanwi Nandini Islam

HOLY SHIT THERE ARE SO MANY SEPTEMBER RELEASES! Here are some:

• Furiously Happy: A Funny Book about Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson (22 Sept 2015)
• • Also mentioned: The Monsters of Templeton and Arcadia and anything written by Zadie Smith)
• Trans: A Memoir by Juliet Jacques (22 Sept 2015)
• Fates & Furies by Lauren Groff (pubs 15 Sept 2015)
• • Also mentioned: The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi
• Gold Fame Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins (pubs 29 Sept 2015)
• Step Aside, Pops: A Hark! a Vagrant Collection by Kate Beaton (pubs 15 Sept 2015)
• • Also mentioned: Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton
• The Story of my Teeth by Valeria Luiselli, translated by Christina Macsweeney (pubs 15 Sept 2015)
• The Culinary Cyclist: A Cookbook and Companion for the Good Life by Anna Brones, illustrated by Johanna Kindvall (8 Sept 2015)
• • Also mentioned: Fika: The Art of the Swedish Coffee Break, with Recipes for Pastries, Breads, and Other Treats
• Girl Waits with Gun by Amy Stewart (1 Sept 2015)
• • Also mentioned: The Drunken Botanist: The Plants That Create the World's Great Drinks
• The Sleeper and the Spindle by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Chris Riddell (22 Sept 2015)
• Jonathan Franzen wrote another “Great American Novel” called Purity (1 Sept 2015). But you probably already knew that, so do yourself a solid and check out #FranzenAirQuotes instead.

Chapter I [16:25]

In Which Business Books are Chauvinistic (Shocking!), Hannah Brings Wildlife Into the Store, Galleys Meet their Death, and the Drunk Booksellers Nerd Out About Writing Bookselling Manuals

Hannah is the Merchandise Display Manager at Politics & Prose in Washington, D.C. aka. President Obama’s local independent bookstore.

[image credit Reuters]

Due to their recent partnership with Busboys and Poets, Hannah also rides the Metro around D.C. merchandising their displays.

[totally official Washington DC Metro map courtesy of Dave’s Geeky Ideas]

Interested in the business of retail? Kim won’t stop monologuing about Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping: Updated and Revised for the Internet, the Global Consumer, and Beyond by Paco Underhill

If you want to shell out a lot of money to travel abroad, you should do it with a book bent, obviously: Politics & Prose Trips

Remember what you liked about your major before you had to actually do all that fucking work? Join the rogue students taking Classes at Politics & Prose. It’s like in Center Stage where she goes to the wrong side of the tracks and moves her hips, but for books.

Originally posted by artecommovimento

Y’all remember Harry Potter release parties, right? Of course you do.

Originally posted by walkingdead3000

Chapter II [33:57]

In Which Hannah Schools the Drunk Booksellers on Lady Detective Fiction & a Couple Books Written By Dudes

Want to get into Mysteries?

Step One: Read The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

Originally posted by internetgirlwithnolife

Step Two: Read these books

1. The Beekeeper's Apprentice: Or, on the Segregation of the Queen by Laurie R King (also: A Grave Talent, Book 1 of the Kate Martinelli Series, which features a lesbian detective!)
2. The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler (Chandler does it better than The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett)
3. Jo Walton’s Small Change trilogy: Farthing, Ha’penny, and Half a Crown

Also check out Whose Body? (Book 1 of the Lord Peter Wimsey series) by Dorothy L Sayers (also check out her essay Are Women Human?, a great companion to Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own)

Chapter III [42:00]

In Which We Discuss Books About Black Lives in America (and Beyond)

Required reading:

• Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
• The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
• Books by James McBride: The Good Lord Bird (fiction) and The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother (memoir)
• Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (also: We Should All Be Feminists)
• Dear White People: A Guide to Inter-Racial Harmony in "Post-Racial" America by Justin Simien
• How To Be Black by Baratunde Thurston (also check out the podcast he co-hosts, About Race)
• This is your bi-racial lady plug for everyone’s favorite Brown Science Fiction writer, Samuel R Delaney. Get started with Dhalgren.

For more recs, check out Hannah’s Book Riot post: Black Coolness (Or Not)

Epilogue [54:37]

In Which Hannah Picks Her Station Eleven & Wild Books, Then Tells Us All the Places You Can Find Her On the World Wide Web

Hannah’s Wild book: The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis, specifically The Silver Chair

Originally posted by shadow-wolfgirl

Hannah’s Station Eleven book: The Miracle at St. Anna by James McBride or The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (also mentioned: The Color Purple by Alice Walker)

Originally posted by putahorseonit

Find Hannah on the Internet:

• Twitter: @OliverDepp
• Instagram: instagram.com/oliverdepp
• Tumblr: oliverdeppink.tumblr.com
• posts on Book Riot & LitHub

Find Emma on Twitter @thebibliot and writing nerdy bookish things for Book Riot. Kim occasionally tweets at @finaleofseem. And you can follow both of us [as a podcast] on Twitter @drunkbookseller!

Originally posted by surplaceouaemporter

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