Open Stacks

On this special episode of Open Stacks, we hear from Jeff Deutsch, the Director of the Seminary Co-op Bookstores. Jeff's book, In Praise of Good Bookstores, came out from Princeton University Press this Spring, and Jeff has been traveling the country visiting other independent bookstores to talk about it, and about the value of bookselling and bookstores in the 21st century. Jeff spoke at the Seminary Co-op with Ydalmi Noriega, a member of the Co-op's board of directors, and director of programs and community engagement at the Poetry Foundation. Find out more about the Co-op's mission and help these important spaces thrive.

This episode was produced by Jackson Roach, hosted by Alena Jones, and features music by Andrei Pohorelsky and Daniel Birch.

On this episode of Open Stacks, the last of the fourth season, Mikki Kendall remembers a childhood at 57th Street Books and the reading that shapes her writing. We also hear from old friends Jack Cella and Colin McDonald, and from booksellers on the books they return to year after year.

For a list of books discussed, music credits, and directions for submitting your favorite passages, head to our website.

This time on Open Stacks, with Philip Leventhal, Elizabeth Branch Dyson, Paul Yamazaki, and Dan Wells, we ask what makes a book "serious." Booksellers Amélie, Annie, and Artemie share scholarly favorites.

We're releasing this episode during University Press Week 2021, the 10th annual celebration of these important institutions and the knowledge and culture they help to cultivate. 

Philip Leventhal is Senior Editor at Columbia University Press, acquiring titles in journalism, film and media Studies, and literary studies. He also worked at the Co-op for many years, and was the managing editor of The Front Table, the Co-op's print catalog and newsletter. You can hear him on this episode from earlier in the season.

Elizabeth Branch Dyson is Assistant Editorial Director and Executive Editor at The University of Chicago Press, acquiring titles in education, sociology, and music, especially jazz and blues studies. She's appeared a few times on this season of Open Stacks. 

Paul Yamazaki is the principal buyer at City Lights, where he has worked for over 50 years. He has also appeared a few times on this season of Open Stacks, and will soon be publishing with Ode Books.

Dan Wells is the founder of the publisher and bookstore Biblioasis. He also appeared on an earlier episode this season.

Thanks to listener Marie for sharing a passage from My First Thirty Years by Gertrude Beasley. If you'd like to share a piece of great writing with us, send us a voice memo.

This episode was hosted by Alena Jones and produced by Jackson Roach, and features music by Blue Dot Sessions, Los Amparito, Loyalty Freak Music, and Daniel Birch.

Find a list of books discussed in this episode here.

This time on Open Stacks: We explore the rabbit warren of the Co-op’s original location in the old Chicago Theological Seminary with manager emeritus Jack Cella and veteran bookseller Katy O’Brien Weintraub, then emerge from the underground with architect Margaret McCurry, who was integral in the creation of our new space in the sun. Paul Yamazaki, legendary book buyer at City Lights in San Francisco, gestures toward a spatial theory of bookstores—how the shape of the room and the number of books on a shelf can encourage the symbiosis of reader and bookseller—and Co-op manager Bryce Lucas takes an ecological (and mycological) squint at the Front Table.

Head to our website for music credits, a list of books, extra material, and directions for sending us your favorite passages from books.

On this episode, authors, publishers, editors and booksellers reflect on the value of their work, and what it takes to make a great bookstore thrive. Plus, an out-of-the-way reading list from our bookseller Mrittika: queer historical fiction... thrillers.

For more from the voices you hear in this episode, a list of books mentioned, music credits, and instructions for sending us audio of yourself reading writing that you love, visit us here.

On this episode of open stacks: a ghostly tour of the Co-op's Front Table, from the hauntings of american history to life (and death) advice from Spinoza.

For a list of books featured in this episode, music and production credits, and more, visit our website.

This time on Open Stacks we hear from Philip Leventhal, editor at Columbia University Press and veteran Co-opian, about the history of the famous Front Table catalog, in its print and digital forms. Then we head to the Front Table (the actual table) for some recent titles on underground transformation.

Philip Leventhal is Senior Editor at Columbia University Press, acquiring titles in Journalism, Film and Media Studies, and Literary Studies. He also worked at the Co-op for many years, and was the managing editor of The Front Table, the Co-op's print catalog and newsletter. Last year we revived The Front Table as a digital publication, featuring bookseller recommendations and notable titles, author interviews, news and numbers from the Co-op, and much more. You can read every issue of the digital Front Table here, and find many of the original print issues on display in the vestibule leading into the Co-op.

Thanks to our Children's Marketing Manager, Thulasi, for sharing a passage from Inkheart for this episode, released only a week or so after the re-opening of 57th Street Books for in-person browsing. We'd love to hear something wonderful you've read recently. Find instructions for recording yourself and sharing your reading with us here.

Open Stacks is hosted by Alena Jones and produced by Jackson Roach. This episode features music by Blue Dot Sessions, Loyalty Freak Music, Daniel Birch, Joni Void, and LJ Kruzer.

Find a list of every book mentioned in this episode here.

On this episode of Open Stacks with Katarzyna Bartoszyńska and Reuben Jonathan Miller, we trace paths between: academia and bookselling; Poland and Ireland; animal navigation and interpersonal knowledge; the inside and the outside of the American prison.

For a complete list of books mentioned in this episode, music credits, and supplementary materials, click here.

Want to submit a passage you've dog-eared? Click here.

On this episode of Open Stacks, books from the land of the ice and snow, from the midnight sun, where the hot springs flow. In the middle of the Summer, a stack of Front Table books from the heart(s) of Winter.

Thanks to bookseller Joey for sharing a favorite passage from Roberto Bolaño's The Savage Detectives. If you want to share something you read with us (and other listeners' like you), send us a voice memo. We'd love to hear about what you're reading.

Open Stacks is hosted by Alena Jones, the director of buying and content. Bryce Lucas, the Co-op's manager, is our Front Table correspondent. Jackson Roach is the producer. This episode features music by Loyalty Freak Music, Gallery Six, and Keshco.

Find a list of every book mentioned in this episode here.

On this episode of Open Stacks: a prismatic exploration of new releases at the Front Table, an editorial dialogue with Elizabeth Branch Dyson and Eve Ewing, and Ann Kjellberg on a life in publishing, Joseph Brodsky, and how serious books connect us to one another and the world.

Elizabeth Branch Dyson is Assistant Editorial Director and Executive Editor at The University of Chicago Press. She also appears on the first episode of this season of Open Stacks. Eve Ewing is a sociologist, activist writer, assistant professor at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration, and dear friend of the Seminary Co-op.

Ann Kjellberg is an editor, publisher, writer and translator, the literary executor of the estate of Joseph Brodsky, and the creator of the book culture newsletter Book Post.

Run into some great writing lately? Read it to us! We want to know what draws you in as a reader, and we're always excited to feature listeners' voices on the show. Find everything you need to send us a passage right here.

Open Stacks is hosted by Alena Jones and produced by Jackson Roach. This episode features music by Keshco, Los Amparito, Lee Rosevere, Andrei Pohorelsky, and Loyalty Freak Music, as well as excerpts from a talk given by Kurt Vonnegut at Case Western Reserve University in 2004.

Find a list of every book mentioned in this episode here.