Horrible News
From today’s PW Daily: Karl Pohrt, founder of Shaman Drum Bookshop in Ann Arbor, Mich., died on Wednesday. He was 65. Pohrt was diagnosed with anaplastic thyroid cancer in October 2012 and wrote about his illness on his blog, thereisnogap.com. In 2009, plunging textbook sales and the economy forced Pohrt to ...
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The Good News, The Horrible News
This is already old news, but last week Jessica Stockton Bagnulo announced she had signed the lease and Greenlight Bookstore now has an official address: 86 Fulton Street in Fort Greene. If all goes according to plan, the store will officially open in September. It’s great to see this finally happen . . . For as long ...
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"Bookishness Goes Marginal": A Report from the Bookishness Symposium
A few weeks back we mentioned the then upcoming symposium at the University of Michigan on the “future of reading.” Well, the amazing Karl Pohrt was able to attend and wrote this comprehensive piece on the somewhat bleak gathering. Bookishness: The New Fate of Reading in the Digital Age is the title of a ...
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For Everyone in Ann Arbor . . .
The “Bookishness: The New Fate of Reading in the Digital Age” conference taking place at the University of Michigan on Friday, May 15th looks pretty amazing. There are two main panels: one on “New Reading Practices and Literacies in a Digital Age” and one on “New Institutions for the Digital ...
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April's Indie Bookstore: Shaman Drum
As you can see on the right side of the page, our featured indie bookstore for the month of April is Shaman Drum Bookshop in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Karl Pohrt and I are good friends (he’s actually on the advisory committee for Open Letter as well), and worked together to help launch the Reading the World program. ...
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Save Shaman Drum
We posted Karl Pohrt’s letter about the state of Shaman Drum last month, and it looks like his call for help is being answered. According to PW: In response to two open letters from bookseller Karl Pohrt to the Ann Arbor community, a loose coalition of booklovers is coming together to save Shaman Drum bookstore ...
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Bookseller Interviews: Karl Pohrt of Shaman Drum
Weeks ago, I mentioned the idea of interviewing a number of booksellers on the state and future of independent bookselling and book culture in general. My goal is to talk from a wide range of booksellers, managers, owners, and buyers, to get as many different viewpoints as possible from the people who are at the “front ...
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