The Book Catapult

This Friday, Saturday, & Sunday is the annual South Park Sidewalk Sale!! All sidewalk hardcovers at the Catapult will be $5, paperbacks $3 unless otherwise marked. (Sale is limited to the sidewalk only, not in-store.) Since this has been a pretty rough year for a lot of people, we will be donating 100% of our sidewalk sales to @sdfoodbank. Sale starts at TBC at 10am Friday!

That "our business has managed to weather the storm" is 1000% because of you, dear reader. Thank you.

We're pretty psyched for an amazing virtual poetry event on Tuesday: three magnificent poets from Milkweed Editions will be reading & discussing with the illustrious Kazim Ali at 5pm via Zoom! Benjamin Garcia (Thrown in the Throat), Allison Adair (The Clearing), and Adam Clay (To Make Room for the Sea.) Join us! https://www.thebookcatapult.com//virtual-event-milkweed-po

Presenting the 2020 Catapult Notables, aka our favorite reads from this bizarre, mostly terrible, sometimes halfway decent year. Happy Holidays everyone! Thank you for your amazing love and support! Right back at ya.

What time do you guys open?? 9:00am! Inside! For the first time since March 15th!! And it’s Black Friday! Which means we tempt you with $25 off your purchase of $100 or more! (Other SP retailers doin’ the same are @badmadge @goldleafsouthpark @threadandseed @communalcoffee) And we have a new beautiful front counter to show you! (Made by @north_park_addison) And lots of new bookcases & display shelves by @inkredibledesign! -6 book browsers at a time... -masks 1000% required -hand sanitizer required at the door -maintain 6’ social distance -30 min limit if others are waiting -Front Door pickup still available -have an awesome time See more

Come hang out (virtually!) tonight as we host acclaimed poet Kazim Ali, in conversation with Blas Falconer at 7:00pm! On the Zoom! Among other things, they will be discussing Kazim's new collection, The Voice of Sheila Chandra - available at The Book Catapult, naturally!

Didn’t think our 3rd anniversary would look quite like this! No customers in the store, piles of books everywhere, and online kindergarten in the back. BUT WE’RE STILL HERE! And thanks to all of you, we’re not going anywhere anytime soon. Thank you for all of your amazing support! Love ya.

We have two EXCELLENT selections for your Co-Catapult Books of the Week: Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor (vertiginous & bewitching) and A Silent Fury by Yuri Herrera (searing, painful, poetic, simple, extraordinary.) 20% off at TBC this week! #nationalhispanicheritagemonth

So Jen & I are serious OG @99percentinvisible fans - to the point that we ordered a copy of their new book coming next week from the bookstore that we OWN and humbly requested this INCREDIBLE challenge coin that those maniacs had made and it just showed up and NOW WE HAVE TO SHARE IT WITH EACH OTHER!! Preorder your copy of The 99% Invisible City by @theromanmars & Kurt Kohlstedt on sale next Tuesday 10/6! Even better, we still have some SIGNED copies headed our way if you’d like to get yer paws on one. thebookcatapult.com, naturally. #coincheck #alwaysreadtheplaque

Take a break with the Catapult Book o’ the Week: the magnificent VESPER FLIGHTS by Helen Macdonald. (20% off this week at TBC.) All my clearest summer memories are of storms. The afternoon in the early 1980s on the Kennet and Avon canal when I heard my first nightingale singing into charged grey air, accompanied by distant thunder that swung closer and seemed a voice answering the bird. Or that hot week in Gloucestershire in the 1990s when thunderstorms came every evening so the air turned sepia at six and before the first drops of storm rain sent pollen-dust up in puffs from the skylight I'd open the windows and wait for thunder while little owls called through the thick air, and in the morning tiny white dots of storm-blown blossom covered the house with wet French lace. I've measured all my summers by their storms.

Tough week in a sea of tough weeks. It’s good to remember all the good that #RBG did for all of us during her many years serving on the Supreme Court - so the Catapult Book of the Week is this handy, pocket-sized edition of her decisions & dissents. When you wonder what’s at stake, pull this l’il gem out and read a few. 20% off at TBC all week.

We’ve been hyping @aimeenezhukumatathil’s WORLD OF WONDERS as the current Catapult Book of the Week and we KNOW you want to read it because it’s amazing AND Seth is telling you that you really have to but have you LOOKED INSIDE IT??!! @its__not_safe_here’s artwork is absolutely perfection. Well done @milkweed_books. Well done.

So Independent Bookstore Day might feel a little weird this year, because COVID and all... but we’re still here and it’s still happening!!! Saturday!!! We’ve got a mess of IBD exclusives for sale - like a Debbie Harry audio LP and a signed @amortowles short story. PLUS when you spend $30 you get this sweet @boygirlparty sparkly owl pin!! (Available all 12 @sdbookcrawl shops.) AND when you drop $50 at TBC you get the pin plus an IBD tote bag AND a hand-painted broadsheet print of this year’s Bad Citizen stencil featuring an amazing Toni Morrison quote! First come first served on all of it! We’re open Sat 8/29 at the front door from 10am - 5pm. Online orders as well: thebookcatapult.com @ The Book Catapult

Okay, so maybe I forgot we had a few of these rad @robgmacfarlane UNDERLAND posters left (with incredible artwork by @stanleydonwood) to give away, but hey, it’s STILL the Catapult Book of the Week! 20% off until Sunday 8/30 at TBC. And if you already picked up a copy of the book this week and would like one of these magnificent posters for your bedroom wall, let us know - we’ve got you.

...but I’m fashionable!

Back in stock! Now I can FINALLY take one home to read. #caste

Today from the Oh yeah, I forgot we had that great book! section: VIRGA & BONE: Essays from Dry Places by Craig Childs A most excellent series of essays about the deserts of the West - good in a pinch if you’re waiting for Desert Notebooks (Book of the Week) to come back in stock! Childs hikes his way into Burning Man across the hard pan, climbs among improbably balanced rocks that are thousands of years in the making, camps atop a mesa in the middle of a thunderstorm, flies in a small plane through evaporating rain ("virga") over the deserts of the Four Corners. Stick this in your back pocket on your next hike out into the wilderness. - seth

The next Catapult Book Club selection is... DRIVE YOUR PLOW OVER THE BONES OF THE DEAD by Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk. A marvelously weird & fable-like mystery sez @nytimes. 20% off at TBC until the next meeting on 9/10!