Spencer Ruchti
@spencerruchti
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bookseller! author events, co-founder of @cercadorprize , tectonics enthusiast
Seattle, WA
Joined July 2014
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Hold the phone. Previously unstranslated Elfriede Jelinek magnum opus, as translated by Gitta Honegger. The translation alone took 15 years. 500 pages. Called “the most important and definitive of her work” 👀
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Have you… seen… the paperback cover for ‘The Employees’
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Notable that even on the scale of "small" nonprofit publishers, Transit Books is *small*
Not just in terms of list, but in terms of total revenue (grants, sales), Coffee House and Deep Vellum reported ~6x the amount of revenue in 2022. Graywolf 18x. Publishing Jon Fosse...
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It’s not a Fitzcarraldo-blue dress at the National Book Awards but I did my best.
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Justin and I are launching a literary prize for translated literature, with inaugural committee members
@bookclubisdead
,
@thu_lit
,
@colonellovely
, and Javier Ramirez of
@BookvillExiles
.
The Cercador Prize is entirely (and will forever be) bookseller-led, bookseller-driver.
Introducing the Cercador Prize for Literature in Translation. Co-founded by Pacific Northwest book workers
@jaawlfins
and
@spencerruchti
, the Cercador is the first bookseller-led prize for literature in translation.
Five booksellers, ten finalists, one winner.
Coming fall '23.
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Tonight at the bookstore I watched Nell Zink perform a tribute to Daniel Johnston. A bookseller traveled miles out of her way to provide a guitar. No one tried to record. We all just listened. This is the kind of dumb human moment that will only happen at your local indie.
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Hi I’m Spencer, bookstore event manager and public health expert apparently (same thing in 2021)
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Look what Emmy did. A loosely associated display on memory, one of my favorite topics of loose association.
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No one else seems excited as I am, but Norton’s going to start distributing Harvard and Yale University Presses.
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The week of AWP, professionals from 11 indie publishers will be at
@ThirdPlaceBooks
to talk about publishing (independently) + their weird books (little & big). Think karaoke vibes w/o the singing. Drinks at a basement pub after. Open to all.
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Sometimes I wonder if I even like books or if I just enjoy hauling 20 boxes of them from apartment to apartment.
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Refreshing to see a bookstore owner come out with honest numbers about virtual events. 3,500 attendees; 17 copies sold. That's a .4% sell-through. Woof.
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Our holiday gift guide includes a section for literature in translation, including:
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All I do is tweet book covers because I live in a bookstore but this first edition of Woodcutters was face out in the store today.
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The book is scored (SCORED!!) by Hungarian jazz drummer Szilveszter Miklós. This is insanely cool.
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I'm terribly stoked to take on the event series at
@ThirdPlaceBooks
as
@GrimlyAmused
and Emma make their journey to Norwich. I am, as usual, also trying to keep my cool.
Seattle bookselling friends: I'll be seeing you soon.
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Krasznahoraki in ‘Spadework for a Palace,’ describing the librarian’s dream to give every patron not the book that they request, but the book they desire, “laying the foundation of a library in the true sense of the word”
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Every page of this so far is ruined by my underlines and marginalia. ‘Big Fiction’ is the in-depth history I hoped it would be. Dense and mind-altering framing from
@dan_sinykin
that takes on our “outsize attention to the author alone [as] a trick of history”
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...in the U.S. was a risk readily accepted, with enormous dividends. All hail Transit, and Dalkey Archive, who I won't tag again, because I'm trying to calm down here
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You know what, Hernan Diaz is what my dumb precious brain hopes every author would be. Stoked as hell about shelf talkers for old books, notices labor in the store, professes nothing but gratitude, can wolf down some chicken and waffles. Writes a masterpiece. What a good man.
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Highways are closed and I’m stuck in Wyoming, so this seems like a great time to mention I’m moving to Portland in January to intern for the fabulous folks at
@Tin_House
! Here’s a picture for the algorithm.
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One thing I'm quickly learning, after meeting so many beautiful and aspirational people from all walks of publishing, and who I admire greatly, is that it's easy to tell who has never spent an hour behind a bookstore cash register.
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Not me printing this tweet and setting up shrines in the store
But if you really want to know who will win the Nobel, a Swedish critic who has called the last few years (even Gluck!) says its Cartarescu. So get ready to read some long long novels folks.
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I’d like to say this microfiber cloth from
@NewDirections
is one of the most useful swag items I’ve ever received from a publisher. My glasses are smudgeless.
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I still think frequently about Bernard Schwartz, the event organizer at 92NY who moved an event with Viet Thanh Nguyen to McNally Jackson with under 24 hour notice after Nguyen signed an open letter against Israel. That kind of decision required immediate action 1/
Solidarity with every one of the national book award honorees planning to use their platform to speak out against a US funded humanitarian disaster. Solidarity with the organizers for standing against censorship in the face of sponsor pressure.
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It's been the privilege of a lifetime to lift this award off the ground with
@jaawlfins
,
@bookclubisdead
,
@colonellovely
,
@thu_lit
, and Javier.
Long live the translator. Congratulations to
@ZAPTranslations
, Ana Paula Maia, and
@CharcoPress
!
Announcing the winner of the 2023 Cercador Prize: Zoë Perry's translation of Ana Paula Maia's OF CATTLE AND MEN (
@CharcoPress
).
The Cercador committee says OF CATTLE AND MEN "lays bare the brutal labor of the slaughterhouse trade," hailing the novel as a "new breed of western."
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Not to get sappy or anything but we are freaking out at
@ThirdPlaceBooks
, could not be more dead chuffed to see
@rhernandez416
receive this honor.
2023 PW Star Watch Finalist!!!
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Some news! I’ve been promoted to Assistant Events Manager at
@HarvardBooks
. I’m so thrilled to curate the store’s event series alongside my gracious and well-read friends.
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I, a person who hears writers talk almost daily, have been thinking a lot this week about Becca Rothfeld’s insights in this discussion titled “Should Writers Talk?”
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I just about swallowed my fork when I saw this.
(best of all, the cover is Herzog in his volcano traversing uniform)
translated by Michael Hofmann. Incredible title. 0 notes.
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Today I learned that some German authors, in lieu of making money through teaching writing, give ~150 readings a year to make income. Not Q&As or interviews *about* the book, but theatrical, hour-long readings from the book. And people pay attention!
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THIS DESCRIPTION OF NEWLY TRANSLATE FOSSE
November
A SHINING by Jon Fosse, translated by Damion Searls.
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I like some bookstores, but I feel an obsessive kind of love for Shakespeare & Co in Missoula (not related). Whole bookcases dedicated to translated lit. Unruly backlist selections. Staff picks on bookmarks. Right across from the Clark Fork River. You could spend a life here.
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Ok, two things I love upon receiving
@jenniferlcroft
’s debut novel—
1) The “by the same author” front matter includes her *translated work*
2) A Suzanne Simard epigraph!!!
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Every week another book comes in that I’m supposed to drop everything for, but this is just ridiculous. Please, let me sleep
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Have you ever seen 2,496 copies of a Tom Hanks novel because now I have and you should too
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"I'd like to schedule an event at your store next week. My book was published two years ago and was an Amazon bestseller in a sub-category you won't believe is real. It was also finalist for a prize you've never heard of, definitely not invented by my vanity publisher."
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I’m doing some year in review spreadsheeting. This year
@ThirdPlaceBooks
had on the calendar:
📚236 author events
📚432 authors (inc. moderators)
📚127 Washington authors
📚117 feat. titles from small or academic presses (or self-pubbed)
📚17 events for translated literature
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Some news: Today I begin my first freelance endeavors as a pro Relaxed Reader. I have a few beers, put on a record, and pick a book to read. I read that book. Then tons of money appears in my bank account. Not sure where it comes from. Pls send leads if you have them.
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A bookseller friend at WI gave me a mix CD of his favorite songs of 2022. I pulled it out today to listen while on the road and damn… there’s one of Dubravka’s endlessly quotable lines on the back of the CD. What a loss. 😞
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This morning I thought while cleaning my glasses, “I could sure use a new microfiber cloth.” Lo and behold,
@NewDirections
delivers. Happy 85 years.
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Good morning! The inaugural
@CercadorPrize
finalist selection is live.
📢 Announcing the 2023 Cercador Prize Finalists, featuring ten works of literature in translation as selected by a committee of independent booksellers based across the United States.
Congratulations to all of the nominated translators, as well as their authors and publishers.
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I also don't have an MBA, but the framing of this opening paragraph is a bit funny. Bookstores charge $28 for a hardcover because that's... the price of the book as determined by the publisher.
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The narrator of ‘Still Born’ reading ‘Solenoid’ while drinking mint tea.
So far, blown away by this book. Immediately sunk into it.
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Salma Hayek young booksellers
🤝
lying about books they’ve read
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St. Sebastian’s Abyss where it belongs: atop a disheveled stack of New Directions galleys.
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Our 10 finalists will be announced Oct 16th. It’s been a meaningful year of reading with
@colonellovely
,
@thu_lit
,
@bookclubisdead
, and Javier; conceiving of the prize with
@jaawlfins
. Many more years of Cercador to come, and doing more for booksellers and translators.
Introducing the Cercador Prize for Literature in Translation. Co-founded by Pacific Northwest book workers
@jaawlfins
and
@spencerruchti
, the Cercador is the first bookseller-led prize for literature in translation.
Five booksellers, ten finalists, one winner.
Coming fall '23.
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Now I'm also weeping!
This year's Pulitzer winners, including a brief recounting by Hernan Diaz of where he was when he found out.
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These acts of dissent require dozens of silent actors performing labor in the background who don’t have a public “brand” like authors or translators do, or can’t associate themselves with their particular institution.
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Read Álvaro Enrigue’s new novel translated by Natasha Wimmer in a day and ran to my local bookstore (where I work, yes) to pick up ‘FIFTH SUN: A New History of the Aztecs’ by Camilla Townsend. Color me *intrigued*
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Gotta love job postings for basic bookselling positions.
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Well this hits different.
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My Winter Institute service: I drop you, a bookseller, at the nearest coastal park, with only a compass/whistle and a Rainier beer, and you either meander back for another panel event OR find a nice slab of driftwood upon which to contemplate the biodiversity of the Puget Lowland
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In my hometown our resident millionaire writes “poems” for the local paper. His latest is absolutely unhinged! Please enjoy!!
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Do I want QR codes in all of my books? Nah. But here it seems to work as a one-off mixed media piece by a writer I love. Also did I mention Hungarian jazz drumming
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All my good pics are on my other camera, but I just want to thank everyone who came out to our Night of Indie Pubs. We had a variety of seltzer, deep cut backlist, and some of the most brilliant people in publishing in front of a mic. Truly surreal to see this in real life.
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imo it's horrendous for Owens to use the phrase "weaponization of the National Book Awards" when Israel has dropped 18k tons of bombs on the Gaza strip.
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While I have five minutes to breathe, I would like to tweet about the new Joy Williams.
“Williams doesn’t write precocious child narrators so much as she writes all-seeing child gods”
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As soon as these stacks on my desk reach the portraits, I quit bookselling. That’s a threat.
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Eyes bulging out of head
Breakfast contraband. Coming to a bookstore near you on Halloween 2023.
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If Jonathan Safran Foer’s ‘Eating Animals’ was an A24 horror production a la Cormac McCarthy.
(This book frightens and thrills. What it is, to read and feel emotion again!)
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Can’t wait for people to inform me that Seattle is cold and unfriendly because they spent a few days within eight blocks of a convention center
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This $90 edition of The Cheap-Eaters that I found, by accident, in my own gd store while showing Kate a totally different Bernhard novel, doesn’t care about your supply chain problems
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“Love, now what do I mean by a word like that, because if there’s any word in the world that doesn’t mean anything it’s that one.”
Jon Fosse, tr. Damion Searls
‘A Shining’
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A new favorite.
“For thirty-five years I’ve been compacting old paper and books... living in a onetime kingdom where it was and still is custom to compact thoughts and images patiently in the heads of the population, thereby bringing them ineffable joy and even greater woe.”
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Today was my last shift at Broadway Books. Hands down the best indie in Portland. A cabal of customers like you’d never believe. We knew their names; they knew ours. I don’t romanticize bookstores as magical entities, but these are people who love their community.
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While I have two minutes to breathe, I'm here to remind you to buy LINEA NIGRA, and that there's no publisher that will love you like
@TwoLinesPress
. Last night's reading with
@Jaztronomia
and
@lydiakiesling
was a true rarity and every person who attended a blessing.
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This summer I will read no forthcoming books, I will only read César Aira.
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Today... by a pool... on a brief vacation... I finished the new César Aira, my mother was reading Miriam Toews, my brother reading Gary Shteyngart. All three of us in a row, sitting by the sun. A nice moment of levity.
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My mom got tenure this week and I am crazy proud of her.
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120 people registered for this and, unfortunately, we’re cuttin off reg’s for the sake of our wee little store. Had no idea we’d see so much interest! See ya’ll at AWP next week (or not—I could be hiding). Let me know where karaoke is happening.
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For the record, this is one of those so-good-you-forget-your-own-name kind of books.
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