Everything is now 30% off. The discount will automagically be deducted from your total. The literary posters that we have just put out are the only exception. These are marked on the back. Fixtures, office items and storage units will be put out gradually during the week.

If you have memories of Vertigo Books from Dupont Circle days or here in College Park, please stop in and share them by writing in our memory book at the front counter. We’d appreciate it.

Thanks to all who attended the Wake & Potluck on Saturday. It was great to see so many of you. If you have any photos, please send them to staffATvertigo-books.com.

If you are visting because of Marc Fisher’s Washington Post column, you can read more about our closing, the impact of local business and visit us online here.

must be true–the obits are accumulating. We expect Saturday, April 25 to be our last day with the doors open. Shop now or forever hold your peace.

• Washington Post’s Marc Fisher Getting Vertigo Over Lost Bookstores and Print Version
  
• Washington Post’s Prince George’s Extra At Vertigo Books, the End of the Story
• Washington City Paper’s City Desk This Sucks: Vertigo Books Is Closing
• Baltimore Sun’s Sunday edition
• Baltimore Sun’s Read Street College Park’s Vertigo Books to close
• WJLA
• Gazette article
• Diamondback article
• Diamondback column
• Mark Athitakis’s American Fiction Notes Links: Keeping It Classy
  (more…)

The Washington City Paper’s compilation of staff and readers’ pick provides a nice guide to metro DC. And, we are in it this year.

Number 1? Who cares about Number 1? The real strivers are those riding shotgun in the number 2 slot. Yeah, America loves a winner–but then they’re bored. We’re not bored.

I know, I know. . .literature should not be a competition. Philip Roth does not start a novel thinking, "I’m gonna take it to the hoop against Updike with this baby" (or maybe he does?). But awards do serve a purpose besides stroking the egos of certain authors, and on occasion fattening their wallets. They can alert readers to writers they may have never heard of, gaining little-known authors wider exposure. They can even alert booksellers (such as yours truly) to new authors.

The National Book Critics Circle Awards recently were awarded, and one of the fiction nominees was a book titled The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart, by first-time author M. Glenn Taylor and published by West Virginia University Press. I immediately ordered it for the store, and it certainly looks promising. It’s earned a place on my bedside table stack of books to be read, leaping past my living room table stack, dining room radiator stack, and back room at the bookstore stack(s).

In more author competition news, the nominees for the Man Booker International Prize were just announced, and it’s a pretty interesting group:
Peter Carey (Australia)
Evan S. Connell (USA)
Mahasweta Devi (India)
E.L. Doctorow (USA)
James Kelman (UK)
Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)
Arnošt Lustig (Czechoslovakia)
Alice Munro (Canada)
V.S. Naipaul (Trinidad/India)
Joyce Carol Oates (USA)
Antonio Tabucchi (Italy)
Ngugi Wa Thiong’O (Kenya)
Dubravka Ugresic (Croatia)
Ludmila Ulitskaya (Russia)

Tabucchi’s Pereira Declares, a novel concerning Salazar’s Portugal, is one of my favorite books ever. Peter Carey is one of those writers whose every book seems a wholesale departure from what he’s done before, and everything I’ve read has been excellent, particularly Jack Maggs and My Life as a Fake. And it’s nice to see Arnost Lustig on the list, who was a long-time professor at American University. And on a somewhat silly note during this month of March Madness, check out the Tournament of Books. Personally, I’d like to see what sparks fly if Matthiessen’s Shadow Country goes up against Bolano’s 2666.

About 13 and half years ago, Vertigo Books hosted Barack Obama at our old location near Dupont Circle for his memoir. We were the DC stop on a modest book tour. It was August of 1995, and you know, DC in August is not a stand-out month for events. You can find street parking near Dupont Circle the town is so empty. We tried to push the event date to September, but no go.

It was, shall we say, an intimate gathering. I’d read the book and liked it, thought it a strong debut and told folks so. We discussed community organizing (I’d moved to DC to work for ACORN) and books to fill the time while a small group of regulars filtered in. As we spoke, Barack Obama listened with his now famous detachment, listening and appraising. He read fairly well–for a debut author–there were a few questions, books were signed and he was out the door. No escort as I recall.

In the DC area, we sometimes take the great diversity of voices in our daily lives for granted. Our store has always hoped to engage all American voices, but like many we thought the real change would come with our children’s generation. That’s why Monday’s book event is a special pleasure: it is an opportunity for young children and their parents to participate in the Day of Service, albeit in a small way.

In February we’ll continue the conversation with journalists and authors Ta-Nehisi Coates and Gwen Ifill.

Postscript-Vertigo has also hosted the Inaugural Poet, professor and critic Elizabeth Alexander (as well as her mother, historian Adele Logan Alexander). Elizabeth has been active for years with Cave Canem and they will be hosting an event Monday night for other Cave Canem poets.

Barack Obama was recently spotted carrying a book by Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott. Walcott, a West Indian poet, is quoted in yesterday’s Washington Post and has written an Obama poem (listen to Walcott here).

That our new President-Elect reads is a great source of encouragement to many (especially booksellers), as is his recent selection of Elizabeth Alexander as the Inaugural Poet. As you have no doubt read, Elizabeth is a DC native and Yale professor who grew up amidst our area’s vibrant poetry scene. The poem published by the Post, includes a hat-tip to this tradition with its reference to Sterling Brown, a seminal figure for Washington area poets. (more…)

At Vertigo we try to be as green as possible. We try to reduce our impact through recycling, donating galleys and books, reusing boxes and packing material through several small businesses and our customers. But bags…well, bags are a problem. We try to ask if people need bags and while many do not take one, we still are using plastic. With Chico Bags, we could cut down even more and you might cross a few things off your shopping list.

Virtues of the Chico Bag include:
*teensy size with clip
*very lightweight but carries 20 lbs.
*washable
*very affordable at 5.00
*the perfect size for stockings
*many colors
*recyclable when worn
Just return the bag to Chico Bags and it will be reused or perhaps woven into a rug. Give one and keep one in your purse or car.

has been operating for a month or two and we’ll continue to add inventory regularly. If you missed an event or have been pining for a favorite author’s signed first edition, click on over. We specialize in modern first editions, primarily signed. Our inventory is especially strong in contemporary and African American literature and African American studies. For years we squirreled away books signed by those authors who appeared at the store, jokingly referring to it as our kids’ college fund. Well, Child #1 is now in college.

Sometimes, you are too close to something to fully articulate your feelings. That may be the case with Vertigo Books. So let’s jump to Alex Beckstead, maker of Paperback Dreams, talking with SFist.

"Because faster and cheaper isn’t always better, and because diversity of thought and ownership are both critical to innovation and the vibrancy of local culture and an informed citizenry. One of Cody’s past employees once drew an analogy between the value of independent bookstores and the Slow Food Movement. As much as I love the internet, I think we’re overdue for a Slow Culture Movement. I mean, movies replaced books to some degree, and then TV replaced movies and now 3 minute You Tube clips are replacing TV. There’s a lot of value in the way culture is speeding up, connecting, and democratizing. But there’s also a richness and a value that can only come from the experience of being alone with 500 well written pages. Breadth is great, but so is depth. I believe in the value of a liberal education, and I admire people who aspire to informed generalism. That’s independent booksellers in a nutshell. (more…)

that we very much wish had not been necessary. Read Washington Post writer Bob Thompson on life at Vertigo Books and other stores and listen to Kojo Nnamdi (a serious book guy) discuss Paperback Dreams (the City Paper liked it).

Join us Wednesday, November 12 as Prof. Audrey Kerr discusses her book, The Paper Bag Principle. This should be of interest to Washingtonians and readers of sociology, American studies, history and African American studies/history. Thursday brings us a visit from director and producer Alex Beckstead. He’ll screen and discuss Paperback Dreams, a documentary about two important West Coast bookstores.

And it seems we have a Facebook group, the Vertigo Books Appreciation Society. This was started by our Jen, a greatly missed long-time employee. She’s pining for a bookstore in the wilds of CT.

“Books, inherently, require faith. Faith in an author that he or she will reward the many hours you’ll spend in those pages, faith that a good story will be told, a lesson will be learned, a light will be shone upon a dim corner of the world."—author Dave Eggers

And independent booksellers are an optimistic lot by nature. This time 17 years ago, we were working hard with a group of friends to create a new space for bookselling in Washington, DC. We planned to specialize in international politics, world literature and African American studies. We wanted anyone, no matter their heritage, to walk in off the street and see themselves reflected on the shelves of our store. We planned to host events, welcoming established and emerging authors.

A Little History
The DC area’s well educated population has long made it hospitable to booksellers. But the 1990s began to bring changes and closures as the big-box stores arrived, along with the home-grown Crown Books supersizing their stores. A shake-out followed.

But now the survivors of that shake-out are falling. Just in the past year the DC area lost:

• A Likely Story Bookstore, a beloved children’s bookshop
• Chapters Literary Bookstore suspended business, but hopes to make a comeback
• Karibu Books, offering books by and for people of African descent
• Candida’s World of Books
• Olsson’s has said good-bye most recently.

Local Ownership vs. Chains or Online Merchants
To those folks who consider yourselves committed to locally owned retail, yet find yourselves shopping at chains and online with greater frequency: we urge you to support your local independent businesses more regularly. Where you spend your money affects the world in which you live. For every $10 you spend at locally owned businesses, $4.50 stays in our community. The math is simple and compelling:
Vertigo Books         $4.50
Barnes & Noble/Borders/Costco     $1.30
Amazon             $0.00
The money you spend with us continues to circulate as we pay employees, buy supplies and pay taxes that are used to provide basic services to residents. Yes, the internet is essential and awfully easy, but if you value real communities, you’ve got to support local businesses regularly in order to keep them in business. (more…)