#fridayreads – Friday 5 Questions with Literati Bookstore Co-owner Mike Gustafson

As a former Borders employee for eight years, I have very strong opinions about bookstores and their place in today’s world. So much so, that I even blogged about the Borders liquidation process here and here. My love for books and the sense of loss I felt when Borders went under are two reasons why I became so excited when I found out about the new bookstore, Literati, opening in downtown Ann Arbor this year. In case you haven’t walked by the new location, it’s opening in the former Rick Snyder campaign office on Washington.

Until last week, I’ve been taking a more passive, and silent, approach to following what they were up to as they prepared to open their doors to the public, but after this article on Concentrate Media was posted, I knew it was time to be passive no longer. Since I can’t support Literati in the form of buying books in their store right now, including them in my Friday Five series seemed to be the next best thing.

Literati co-owners Hilary Lowe and Mike Gustafson

Thankfully, Literati Bookstore co-owner Mike Gustafson had a bit of time to step away from it all and sit down to participate in this week’s Friday Five. After reading my little mini interview, make sure that you follow the further adventures of the Literati Bookstore by reading their blog, liking them on Facebook, and interacting with them directly on twitter.

Welcome to the neighborhood Mike and Literati! Also, thanks for already providing lots of great book recommendations to us!

1)  Taking a cue from Bill Gilmore of Dawn Treader, are you doomed?

We are doomed. There’s no way around it. The minute we open our doors, fire and brimstone will hail down from the heavens onto anyone who dares enter our store and buys a book. RIP Literati, 2013-2013.

We understand the financial risks involved with opening a bookstore. We’re still going for it. We believe in our business plan, and we believe in the book culture that exists here in Ann Arbor, and we believe we know how to market ourselves in the digital age. Are we going to make millions of dollars and swim in piles of gold like Scrooge McDuck? No. Are we going to find our niche in the downtown area? We believe we will. The market is changing, but there are many, many people who absolutely demand to read real books – ourselves included.

And these physical book readers aren’t Luddites terrified of technology. They make active choices to buy real books from real bookstores. So many people of different ages and backgrounds have approached us and said, “I love to read physical books. Thank you for opening a bookstore downtown.” Their reasons to prefer real books are vast and different, ranging from the way books feel to how they can search for new books in bookstores the way you can’t with Amazon to how it allows escape from the screens and emails and bells and whistles of tablet devices. We believe downtown Ann Arborites want a place to peruse books, ideas, biographies, memoirs, literary fiction, journals, magazines, children’s books, etc, etc.  We believe people downtown will visit our store, and we believe we add just one more aspect to what is the best downtown district in the Midwest.

But it’s funny. After we read that doom quote, we said to ourselves, “Shoot, we should have named the store ‘Doomsday Books’ or ‘R.I.P. Books.’” We still like Literati, though.

2)  In all seriousness though, you’re moving into a city that is still mourning the loss of Borders.  What kind of support have you seen from the community?

The community support has been overwhelming. When we uploaded a blog post stating that we (finally) signed the lease, that post alone had a few thousand Facebook shares. It went locally viral. Then we told people about how we repurposed the Borders bookshelves the day before the Liberty store went into demolition, and many Borders lovers and workers reached out to us with positive messages. We were quickly overwhelmed in a very good way. So many times throughout this opening process we’ve have mental anxiety attacks like, “Are we really doing this? Are we really opening a bookstore?” We’ve been boosted by all the Facebook, Twitter, blog, and email messages of encouragement we’ve received from the Ann Arbor community. We’re excited to open our doors so we can meet these digital supporters face-to-face and smile-to-smile. The support from the community has been just wonderful, and we haven’t even opened our doors yet. We just ask the community to be patient and not to compare us to other wonderful institutions like Borders or Shaman Drum because we could never fill those very large shoes. Please be patient if we have some unsmoothed ruffles when we first open. We can never replace Borders or Shaman Drum. We are just trying to be Literati, and I think we’ll have our own unique and cozy store to offer to the community.

3)  I’ve always found that every book lover has that one book or one experience that starts them off on a path to being passionate about reading.  What’s yours?

Let The Great World Spin was the kind of book you finish and set down, and stare at the ceiling or wall for hours in deep meditation and contemplation. It was so powerful and so moving, it still sticks with me today. Ultimately I love books that are metaphorically sticky — those books you just can’t get that particular protagonist out of your head. But that was more recent. Probably the first book that set me down the path of passionate reading was Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle. In college, I wasn’t a passionate reader.  Reading seemed like a chore and a bore. Then someone gave me this book and said, “Read this.” It opened my eyes to what reading enjoyable fiction can be. Not all “meaningful” fiction has to be James Joyce or Faulkner. Cat’s Cradle is so accessible, but simultaneously so powerfully moving, I think I read it at the perfect point of my life, and I’ve been hooked on reading ever since.

For Hilary, her book was, Too Loud A Solitude. It’s a wonderful little book about a man and his obsessive, beautiful love for books. Every sentence is a beautifully constructed string of words in that book. Every book lover should read this book.

4)  What book are you looking forward to selling the most?

Every reader is different, so every book recommendation is different. We can’t recommend the exact same book to everyone. So here are a few: For nature lovers, I can’t wait to recommend, A Sand County Almanac. This book changed how I see my Midwestern backyard. For sports lovers, The Art of Fielding or Zen in the Martial Arts are both equally great, for different reasons. For people who want to learn a new activity, it’s Drawing from the Right Side of your Brain. (I was a horrible drawer. Then I read this book, and now I’m only just a very bad drawer.) For kids, it’s Marcel the Shell (with a strong message for them to YouTube the wonderful animated videos) and A Sick Day For Amos McGee. And my all-time favorite book to recommend is probably The Polar Express. Everyone over the age of 10 has already read that book, but when new parents come to our store and buy it for their newborns, I don’t know. The first time a new parent walks into our store and purchases The Polar Express, I might get misty eyed.

5)  Do you have any special grand opening festivities planned?

We want to have a very soft opening, and then a more announced opening a few weeks later. Probably a big party. We will make more announcements in the coming weeks. If anyone reading this wants to support us further, please go to and support our Facebook and Twitter pages. We’ll continue to make announcements there as we solidify details. All I know is that when we open, when it actually happens, after all these months of 3am work-nights and complications and anxiety attacks and waves of euphoric enthusiasm, that in itself, for us, will be a huge accomplishment. This isn’t just a bookstore for us. Like any small business owner, this is now our livelihood and lifestyle. We’re getting married in June. 2013 is a great big year of scary and exciting and wonderful new things for us, and we’re so fortunate to do it in this supportive community and this great state we both grew up in.

Bookshelves are going in – Fans of Borders Store 01 on Liberty may recognize them (copyright – Gustafson)

#fridayreads – 5 Questions with Author Jeff Mariotte

Jeff Mariotte has had an amazing career in the book industry thus far, and lucky for us, he’s showing no sign of stopping.  My first introduction to his work was a D&D novel called City Under the Sand.  With that novel, I booked him to post on Babel Clash with a handful of other D&D authors.  From there, the two of us kept in contact and I’ve been working on catching up with his backlist ever since.

Aside from all of the work he’s doing on numerous writing projects, Jeff also co-owns one of the coolest genre bookstores around…Mysterious Galaxy.  Click the image below to direct link to their website…lots of great stuff going on there.

As you’ll read from our interview below, Jeff has a very exciting year ahead of him.  If you want to get caught up with one of the hardest working guys in the industry, keep reading.  Trust me…it’s worth it!

Without further delay, see my Friday Five with genre author Jeff Mariotte below.

1) You’ve really had a career that is pretty drool-worthy to this point: publishing, author, comic writer, book store owner. When looking at what you’ve done so far, what are you the most proud of?

That’s a hard question, because any writer who’s been lucky enough to keep working as long as I have has a lot of proud moments. The first time a comic book came out with my name on the cover, then the first novel, were big ones. Getting blurbs from some of the folks I’ve admired for so long, like David Morrell, Don Winslow, T. Jefferson Parker and Michael Connelly (nobody has seen those two yet, but soon…), being nominated for Stoker and International Horror Guild Awards, and winning the first two Scribe Awards ever presented for original fiction. All great moments. And one of the best is when I meet a reader who has liked the work, and that momentary thrill when you learn that they’re a fan–whether it’s Joss Whedon, Harlan Ellison, or a random stranger in a bookstore or comic shop or airport.

But I’m going to have to go with a more personal memory. My father passed away several years ago, after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s disease. One of the last times I saw him, he couldn’t remember who I was, but his natural friendliness still shone through, and he showed me around his room, showed me some books on his shelf–books I had written–and told me how proud he was of his son, the writer. I don’t think anything will ever match that.

2) Speaking of the book store, as an indie store owner, what do you anticipate the landscape of the book world being in the next few years? What are the particular challenges you face?

Bookselling is a challenging business on so many levels. There’s the world-domination plan that Amazon has, like a supervillain bent on taking over without giving any thought to the unintended consequences of that act. There’s the ongoing issue of how publishers can effectively monetize e-books, and how independent booksellers can sell them (our bookstore, Mysterious Galaxy is selling KOBO e-readers and Kobo e-books, and so far, so good). There are the struggles that have always existed in bookselling, which you know as well as anyone–relatively small profit margins, dealing with returns, trying to get those initial orders right, and so on. We’re lucky in that Mysterious Galaxy is blessed with amazing staffs at both locations (San Diego and Redondo Beach, CA), we have a great reputation with authors and publishers, and we continue to exhibit at some of the best book events in the country, including the Los Angeles Times and Tucson Festivals of Books, Comic-Con International: San Diego, the Phoenix Comicon, the relatively new Long Beach Comic and Horror Con, and others, so we’re constantly finding new readers and friends.

3) You’ve got a pretty busy schedule of book releases for 2013 with Season of the Wolf kind of kicking things off. What can fans expect from this one?

Season of the Wolf is a supernatural thriller that, I believe, will keep you up far into the night. I like to write books that build up a head of steam and then don’t let up, so you’ve got to flip the pages until the end. This one’s about a coal-company heir who’s trying to do something positive with his fortune, to make up for what he sees as the environmental devastation caused by the family business. He’s also got some personal secrets weighing on him. He winds up in Silver Gap, Colorado, a little mountain town, at just about the same moment that a pack of incredibly powerful, cunning, and tenacious wolves begin preying on the townsfolk. It’s not a werewolf novel, but these are not quite like any other wolves you’ve encountered, either. And there’s more going on in the little town than just wolf problems. The book’s scary and intense and, I think, maybe a little enlightening at the same time.

Click the image for a chance to win an advanced copy via Goodreads (through Jan. 17th).

4) How does your writing approach change when you’re writing something like Season of the Wolf as opposed to your work with tie-in novels or comic books?

A tie-in novel is necessarily different in that the underlying universe isn’t something that I created, so I have to treat it with a certain amount of respect, and give it back in more or less the same condition it was in when I got it. If I want to kill any characters, I have to either make them up and fit them into the world, or I have to figure out a way to bring them back to life by the end (easier in some fictional universes than others). But beyond that–and the fact that they can be research-intensive, especially if it’s something like Star Trek, with 40-some years of history behind it–the craft is the same. I need to create a compelling plot, populate it with interesting characters, and tell a good story. That doesn’t change, regardless of who the owner of the underlying property is.

With comics, the primary differences are that the individual issues are much shorter than even most short stories, and there’s a collaborative element, because I’m not doing the art. So I have to figure out how much of the story to let the artist tell (as much as possible) and slice my prose down to the barest minimum so I don’t cover up those pictures with word balloons.

5) Any last words?

I’m about to go off and do something a little strange, for me–I’ve been invited to speak at a symposium called “Inside the Mind of a Mass Murderer.”  I was invited thanks to my nonfiction book Criminal Minds: Sociopaths, Serial Killers and Other Deviants, and I’ve been spending the last couple of months doing nonstop research on mass murder. It’s a sad topic, one I wish we never had to talk about, but the research has been fascinating, and I think I’ve come up with some relatively original theories. There may or may not be a book about it down the line. Coincidentally, it’s in Colorado (Vail, not Silver Gap–which doesn’t actually exist), so I get to visit Season of the Wolf country a month before the book comes out.

Other than that, I’ll be busy writing, and I appreciate everybody who buys and reads my stuff!

Get the new horror novel from Joseph Willams, The Hunt, free until Sunday!

I’ve been friends with Joseph Williams for a little over a year now.  I met him when I found out about his short story collection, Detroit Macabre.  I tried to bring it into the local stores, but I couldn’t because I could only get it non-returnable through Ingram (luckily, Joe was able to get some at his store without us).  We kept in contact after Borders shut down, and I even picked up his book before the Novi store closed down.

In September of last year, I did a “5 Questions with…” feature with him for Curiosity Killed the Bookworm.  Then, Joe came back to my blog in October to contribute to my 31 Days of Halloween Hijinks blog challenge with a blog about the best Horror films.

We also have plans to start a writing group and a horror blog one of these days.

As it just so happens, Joe released his latest novel, The Hunt, and it’s a free Kindle ebook download until tomorrow.  If you want a great read in the horror genre, consider giving The Hunt a chance.  I’ve read lots of Joe’s short stories, but this is his first novel.  Support independent authors.

Download The Hunt for free today!

Unless of course you want to take Grumpy Cat’s advice.

On Liquidation – the Fall of Borders Books

I’ve been listening to Wesley Willis this evening, and when the song “The Vultures Ate My Dead Ass Up” came on, I immediately thought about the liquidation of Borders.  Borders is a carcass, and the folks shopping in the stores (and the liquidators and the consultants and the lawyers and all the other scumbags who make out like bandits while the brand I love goes down in flames) are the vultures picking everything they can off the bones of Borders.  In one of our meetings pre-liquidations when we were still moving forward with the business (so this was probably March and April), our CEO said something along the lines of the only people who make money on a liquidation are lawyers and consultants.  He was right for the most part.  Anyways, I’m starting to go off the rails a bit.  Time to get back on.  So, Wesley Willis made me think of the liquidation which made me think about my experiences.

There are several blogs and posts and Facebook posts out there highlighting the store experience through this whole thing, but no one has really spoken out about the home office experience.  In a word or two, the experience was absolutely soul-sucking.  While I was honored to be chosen as part of the team to help wind down the merch operations for Borders, I can’t deny each day I went in after the major layoff of July 29th was a complete blow to my psyche and spirit.  After I got the allocations done for the day, we were given other “wind down” projects, which essentially were tasks to pack up and close up shop on a 40-year-old franchise that I cared for dearly.

Before I get going though, let me backtrack.  I wasn’t actually in the office when Najafi withdrew his offer to buy Borders.  All I know is that happened on a Thursday, and for the rest of the week, I was glued to my phone hoping to get any positive news nugget about Borders.  Nothing positive came, and the day after my birthday, I learned Borders was going out of business.  Happy Birthday to me, right?  Sure, there was a Hail Mary pass to Books-A-Million, but it was broken up in the end zone (can you tell I’ve been watching football today?).

My first major “wind down” task was cleaning out offices and cubes of our fallen comrades.  I honestly went from cube to cube, office to office making sure they were all cleaned out and all saleable (sp?) items (paper clips, pens, etc.) were collected for the liquidators.  I shit you not, they even sold our used office supplies.  Some of the cubes were cleaned already, and some had rotting food in them (that was a gross day), and no matter what, I busted my ass because I was still a Borders employee and because I wanted to make sure Borders was treated with the proper respect in its last days…even when I was cleaning out blueprints of all the old stores.  I think it was that moment when everything hit me the most.  Until that point, I was in denial and okay with being in denial.  But, when you’re cleaning out and organizing old blue prints, it’s kind of hard to hide from it any longer.  Thankfully, that was my last task as a Borders employee.  If that was first, my last four weeks at the home office would have been harder.

Not all my last four weeks were bad though.  It’s still Borders and the people are still top-notch.  We all rose above the circumstances and displayed the traits that made Borders employees so awesome.  Hell, I even found a Clifford the Big Red Dog costume while cleaning.  I bet they didn’t find that in Circuit City when they were packing up shop there.  The one weird thing about my last four weeks though had to be how open everyone was about looking for a new job.  It almost seemed wrong, but hey, after our time was up at home office, it was time to pound the pavement.  I had a few decent leads in those four weeks.  Unfortunately none of those leads came through (I’m okay with that with the exception of one of those jobs – that rejection was a bitter pill).  Luckily, I have some more leads, so here’s to hoping I’m employed sooner rather than later.  To add to the weirdness of looking for a job while working, it is even weirder to be going up against my friends and colleagues on several jobs.  It’s just natural that happens considering 400 ish folks lost their jobs in the same month or so, especially when it wasn’t by choice.  Add to that, most of us have similar experience and skill sets.  It’s great for potential employers.  They really do have the pick of the litter, but it’s hard knowing I’m competing with friends.  I just have to keep my big boy pants on and keep on trucking.

This may be my last post specifically about the liquidation or Borders.  Sure Borders will always be a part of me, but I’m not sure how many of these posts I have in me.  We’ll see.  I will be writing some more blogs on here in the future, especially when I get back to writing and losing weight.  Plus, one of my co-workers and I still have plans of starting up a new blog.

As a parting shot, I took a few snaps of Borders HQ in my last few days (some good, some bad).  Since this is my final official post on the subject, I’m going to include them here after the jump

When the music’s over, turn out the lights… (thoughts on the Borders bankruptcy & liquidation)

I haven’t been very public about my thoughts on the end of Borders.  I think most of that stems from the inability to accept that the Borders I know and love will cease to exist by the end of the year.  In the back of my head, I feel like if I ignore it, things will be just fine.  Well, as someone who works at the home office for the next two weeks (4 weeks more than most of my department), it’s hard to ignore it any longer.  The halls are empty; the cubes and furniture have (over)price tags on them, and I’ve moved to the third floor to finish up my time as a Borders employee.  The joy and energy that once filled the halls of the big white building are nothing more than memories. I worked at Borders for seven years, so the folks I worked with became a second family.  It’s a bit harder than I expected to say goodbye.

One of the things I promised myself was that I wasn’t going to go into one of the stores now that the liquidation is going on.  I just didn’t want to see the store I know and love defamed like that.  I was downtown Ann Arbor today interviewing for another job and it just so happens the place I was interviewing at is close to Store 01.  There was a book I’ve been wanting that I knew was in stock (and I refused to buy it from Amazon), so I went back on what I decided once Borders filed for Chapter 7.  I walked into Store 01, ignored every single liquidation sign (which wasn’t an easy feat), and said goodbye to an old friend.  Luckily, the book I wanted was tucked in the horror section on the first floor, so I didn’t need to go upstairs and see the cafe roped off or to see what was left of a once great music and video selection that was decimated by years and years of inventory reduction initiatives.  I don’t think I could have gone upstairs anyway.  I had to draw the line somewhere.  It was weird enough walking into the store I love after a job interview.  Here I was dressed from head to toe in black for the interview (which was fitting since walking into Store 01 today was almost like a memorial service or a viewing.  Thoughts of how packed the store was when Dog the Bounty Hunter or Billy Corgan or Bruce Campbell visited went through my head.  Thoughts of John Hodgman’s book signings (which were way more than half full – my guess is he was going for comedic effect….) and the awkward cocktails beforehand went through my head.  All the authors I’ve had the pleasure to meet these past seven years who may now never have a reason to come to Ann Arbor ever again….it’s just tragic.

Borders was my first….bookstore.  It almost felt like I was cheating on her by walking into the store in my interview attire.  But, upon further thought, I think Borders would want me to move on with my life.  Regardless, it felt almost wrong walking in there today.  But, Borders did today what it always did for me – offered me a great book.  The book I bought today was from a small press that wouldn’t probably get placement in a B&N or an indie bookstore, so another thing I worry about as I move on to a life without Borders is how will I find these diamonds in the rough?  I’ll find a way because Borders would want me to.  So, I’m going to put my big boy pants on and prepare myself to move on.  I have a week and a half left as a Borders employee and I’m going to make the most of it, even if I spend my last days cleaning up and prepping the building for winding down operations.  I’m going to be strong because Borders would want it that way.

I had a lot more I wanted to say for this blog post, but when writing it, I had trouble composing my thoughts into a cohesive narrative.  I may write more about Borders, I may not.  I think you kind of get the jist of what I wanted to say, right?  Just know that I will find a new bookstore to shop at because I refuse to buy books from Amazon.  I may not like it, but I will find a new bookstore to try to fill the Borders-sized hole in my heart.