From Dan Wickett:

Shaman Drum is not doing well these days.  There have been articles in the Ann Arbor papers recently and owner, Karl Pohrt, just sent out an open letter trying to explain, to those questioning the articles, just how the store has fallen into financial difficulties.

Having had the pleasure of getting to know Karl a bit over the past year and a half, I can say that his open letter didn’t contain much surprising material – he’s known where things were headed and has been trying to combat it in various ways.  He, along with his lawyer, financial team, and others in the Ann Arbor area are pretty desperately trying to figure out the means to make the store still be a viable part of Ann Arbor’s just off-campus business district.

This is to take up Karl Pohrt’s and Dan Wickett’s call for help. If you’re thinking of buying a book soon, why not skip Amazon and order from Shaman Drum? You’ll have to do it special order and their email system appears to be currently disabled, so that means maybe a little bit of time on the telephone. But that can’t hurt, right?

This reminds me also of the 5$ Powell’s Gift Card giveaway that I posted the other week. I’d like to award that gift card to Michael, who posted a story in the comments about finding a draft of the foreword to Djuna Barnes Ladies Almanac tucked inside his Harper&Bros first edition of the book, complete with revision marks allegedly by Barnes. Michael, if you’re still reading, please email your mailing address to htmlgiant [at] gmail [dot] com so I can send you this card.

And finally, take a look at this bookstore finder from Indie Bound to see if you can find any stores near you worth checking out.