Indies First: Small Business Saturday

Small Business Saturday—the Saturday after Thanksgiving—is a day to rally people to shop at local businesses. And this year local authors are joining the celebration with the Indies First movement.

Join us at Harvard Book Store on Saturday, November 30, when local authors join the Harvard Book Store staff to recommend books to our customers—and perhaps sign a few copies of their own books! We'll be hosting novelists, scholars, kids/YA authors, and more. 

The origin of "Indies First"

"Hello, hello, you gorgeous book nerds." So began acclaimed author Sherman Alexie's letter to fellow authors this fall, encouraging them to join a movement called Indies First. On Small Business Saturday local authors will become superheroes for their independent bookstores.  

"Here's the plan: We book nerds will become booksellers. We will make recommendations. We will practice nepotism and urge readers to buy multiple copies of our friends' books. Maybe you'll sign and sell books of your own in the process. I think the collective results could be mind-boggling (maybe even world-changing)."  

Read Alexie's complete letter here.  

Many of our favorite local authors heard the call! Join us, and thanks for shopping at Harvard Book Store.

UPDATE: Check out photos from Indies First at Harvard Book Store, and read on for some of what the authors were recommending on Small Business Saturday.

Look for our "Indies First" authors wearing "Ask Me for Recommendations" nametags on Small Business Saturday!

Clea Simon recommends...

• Dare Me
• The Minor Adjustment Beauty Salon
• The Goldfinch
• Jeff in Venice/Death in Varanasi

E.J. Graff recommends...

• The Last Time I Wore a Dress
• Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America
• Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
• Wolf Hall
• Bring Up the Bodies
• The Yiddish Policeman's Union
• See Under: Love

Gail Mazur recommends...

• Black Stars: Poems
• Maus I
• Maus II
• Music in and on the Air
• Singing School
• The Woman Upstairs
• The Professor's House
• The Age of Wonder
• Holding on Upside Down: The Life and Work of Marianne Moore

Gwen Jensen recommends...

• Absalom, Absalom
• The Perfect Spy
• The Nine Tailors
• The Leopard

John Burt recommends...

• Absalom, Absalom
• Roll, Jordon, Roll
• Life and Fate
• Lib. of America Abraham Lincoln
• All the King’s Men

Katherine Powers recommends...

• Ride a Cock Horse
• Midnight Choir
• The Rage
• At Swim-Two-Birds
• The Poor Mouth
• The Third Policeman
• The Dog of the South
• Gringos
• Masters of Atlantis
• Norwood
• True Grit
• Escape Velocity
• Collected Stories (J. F. Powers)
• Morte D'Urban
• Wheat that Springeth Green
• Excellent Women
• Life After Life
• Someone
• For the Republic (Politics)
• Modern Predicament (Essays)
• What Are Intellectuals Good For (Essays)
• Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America

Kelly Link recommends...

• I Capture the Castle
• Duplex
• Mr. Fox
• The Black Path
• Venetia
• Shaman
• Coldest Girl in Coldtown
• The Perilous Gard
• The Man Who Ate Everything

Kim McLarin recommends...

• The Fire Next Time
• Another Country
• The Quiet American
• All About Love
• Purple Hibiscus
• Gathering of Waters

Margot Livesey recommends...

• Archangel
• Lookaway, Lookaway
• The Virgins
• The Realm of Lost Chances
• Bobcat
• Life after Life (Atkinson)
• Life after Life (McCorkle)
• Isle of Youth: Stories

Maria Tatar recommends...

• The Ocean at the End of the Lane
• The Lowland
• The Collaboration
• Book of Ages
• The Metaphysical Dog
• Far Far Away

Megan Marshall recommends...

• The Dickinsons of Amherst
• The Piano Shop on the Left Bank
• Out of Sheer Rage
• At Large and At Small
• Ex Libris
• The Mind-Body Problem
• Julia Child: A Life
• Mr. Clemens and Mark Twain
• The Long Winter
• Carry Me Home

Priscilla Johnson McMillan recommends...

• Fellow Travelers
• Watergate
• The Wings of the Dove
• The Moviegoer
• Embracing Defeat
• Cultures of War
• Racing the Enemy
• Lessons of Disaster
• The Color of Truth
• The Killing of Crazy Horse

Randall Kennedy recommends...

• Anywhere But Here
• My Hollywood

Steve Yarbrough recommends...

• Embers
• Days of Abandonment
• Lost Daughter
• My Brilliant Friend
• Story of a New Name

Susan Goodman recommends...

• In the Wild
• Finn Throws a Fit
• Dreaming Up
• Me...Jane
• Ball
• The Book of Lost Things

Sven Birkerts recommends...

• The Infatuations
• The Flamethrowers
• Life after Life (McCorkle)
  
• The Woman Who Lost Her Soul
• The Sea
• Out Stealing Horses
• Austerlitz
• Vertigo
• By Night in Chile
• Stoner
• Disgrace
• The Moviegoer
• The Loser
• Concrete
• The Mezzanine
• My Struggle
• Selected Poems, 1954-1986 (Transtromer)
• Great Enigma
• Deleted World
• Collected Poems (Cavafy)
• Collected Poems, 1956-1998 (Herbert)
• Eternal Enemies
• Unseen Hand
• The Broken Estate
• Pulphead
• Blue Arabesque
• Camera Lucida
• Mythologies
• Otherwise Known as the Human Condition
• Alibis: Essays
• Unfathomeable City
• Faraway Nearby
• Field Guide to Getting Lost
• Pilgrim Hawk (Remainder)

Tui Sutherland recommends...

• Journey
• Flotsam
• When Dinosaurs Came with Everything
• Jeremy Draws a Monster
• Dragon Dancing, illustrated by Pierr Morgan
• Walk Two Moons
• When You Reach Me
• Howl's Moving Castle
• Dealing with Dragons
• The Thief
• The Queen of Attolia
• The King of Attolia
• Conspiracy of Kings
• Storm: Dogs of the Drowned City, Book 1
• Eleanor and Park

Ursula deYoung recommends..

• Death Comes for the Archbishop
• Parade’s End
• Glastonbury Romance
• Fountain Overflows
• The King Must Die

Walter Johnson recommends...

• The Known World
• Kindred
• Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, vol 1
• Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, vol 2
• The Black Jacobins