What I’ve Been Writing, Reading, and Watching: January, 2021

I’ve Been Writing For the Seattle Times, I wrote about all the weird things your subconscious brain does when you walk into a bookstore for the first time, and why Seattle’s newest bookstore, Oh Hello Again, is designed to throw your subconscious brain for a loop: The philosophy for Oh Hello Again’s unique categorization was inspired, […]

The Seattle Independent Bookstore Gift Basket

Independent booksellers put a trusted human filter between you and the overwhelming flood of books that are published every week. After just a brief conversation, they can help you find the perfect novel to suit your mood, track down the perfect gift for that hard-to-buy-for relative, and introduce you to a writer who will literally […]

“Every couple months there would be another round of layoffs.”

When the coronavirus pandemic started spreading across the country in the spring, nearly a quarter of all young workers — defined as ages 16 to 24 — lost their jobs, according to the Economic Policy Institute. One in four young people just starting out in the workforce had their futures put on hold indefinitely. And they’re […]

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore searches Seattle for human connection

“One problem with gentrification is that it always gets worse,” writes Seattle author Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore in her new memoir, “The Freezer Door,” available Nov. 24. It’s a terse thesis statement for such an expansive, witty, perambulating book. In “The Freezer Door,” Sycamore wanders the streets of Seattle, searching for signs of humanity that have […]

This Children’s Book Author Bought Liberty Bay Book Company. Then Came the Pandemic.

Suzanne Selfors dedicated herself seriously to her writing in 2002. Three years later, her first book was published. For the next 15 years, Selfors wrote and published over 30 titles for young readers across a wide array of publishers. “I’m very happy to say it’s been a very successful children’s author career,” Selfors says over […]

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy Explains Why He Passed a Millionaire’s Tax

Coronavirus infection levels are climbing all around the country again. As more and more Americans stay home to avoid infection, those rising infection rates will likely bring with them another serious economic downturn, just like they did in the spring. The drop in consumer spending will harm the bottom line of small businesses, which will […]

Robert Reich explains “the dangers of an economy that is too out of whack.”

We talk a lot in this space about the three central tenets of trickle-down economics: wage suppression for workers, tax cuts for the wealthy, and deregulation for the powerful. We usually refer to these three tactics in terms of policy, like campaigns against minimum-wage laws and regulations lifted by presidential executive order. But the truth […]

Maximizing Shareholder Value Is Killing the Planet

Back when Harvard Business School professor Rebecca Henderson was pitching her latest book to publishers, she recalls, the conversation didn’t get much further than the book title before cynicism kicked in on the other side of the desk. In the latest episode of Pitchfork Economics, Henderson recalls sitting in a big New York City editor’s […]

The Economy Is the American Middle Class. It’s That Simple.

If words are used too often, they start to lose their meaning. Try saying the phrase “deep discount” to yourself sixty times in a minute, for example, and it turns into a disjointed collection of consonants and syllables with no connection to any existing concept or experience. The technical term for this psychological experience is […]

This Recession Is Worse for Women Than It Is for Men

A recent episode of Pitchfork Economics features listener questions from around the world about a broad array of topics, from the motivation of trickle-downers to the effectiveness of divestment as a strategy. Hosts Nick Hanauer and David Goldstein recommend books to convert economic skeptics away from neoliberal economics, and they discuss the core fundamentals of […]