Meet Mike
Mike is the newest arrival to our staff, but he's definitely not new to the world of books! He's hit the ground running—or rather, recommending—and is a pro at finding that perfect book you didn't even know you were looking for. He's also our resident expert in poetry, so keep an eye out for new and exciting things happening in that section!
Tell us a bit about yourself
I've always been into books and stories starting when my mom, sis, and I would visit the library when it was on 6th Street to ordering from the Scholastic book catalogue to Battle of the Books at East Bay Elementary (City Champs 1986!) to getting an English degree. As a writer I'm committed to poetry, flexing that muscle almost everyday, although I am pecking away at YA fiction story about bugs. When I'm not in Book World at home, Brilliant, or the TC Library, I can be found riding my bike out in Old Mission and Leelanau, running in the woods, learning Spanish, wrenching on bikes, and trying to convince my Siamese cat that he actually does have food in his bowl.
What are the five books you’ll never part with?
Just five?! That's impossible:
Complete Stories - Clarice Lispector
Her Body and Other Parties - Carmen Maria Machado
Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter - Cesar Aira
Dollmaker's Ghost - Larry Levis
Bright Dead Things - Ada Limon
Tell us about meeting a favorite author
During a literature festival in Denver I and a few other midnight owls got to drink wine and schmooze with the poet Ada Limon on the porch of a beautiful victorian mansion. She was delightful and engaging! (And her poetry is both grounded and moving).
Top five most interesting things about you
1) Worked 6 months at a Dude Ranch in southern Arizona. Best. Winter. Ever.
2) In 2019, I biked from Traverse City to Maine through Canada on a 1987 steel framed frankenbike. Only 3 hrs of rain the whole two weeks and no flats!
3) I'm a snowshoe racing All American though for some odd reason there's been no financial windfall because of it.
4) Although I can juggle, I can't ride a unicycle, so I'll never be a clown.
5) I once completed the NaNoWrMo challenge (writing 50k words in 30 days) and it made me slightly crackers during the process.
What makes for a good bookstore, in your opinion?
Really good bookstores commit themselves to fulfilling a specific need, accommodating all readers, carrying what’s in demand, but, more importantly, defining who they are by what else they offer. Does it have used literary fiction and comics + zines? Is it the heart and soul of a city? Was it a gathering spot for a counter culture revolution? Does it provide a highly curated selection of books picked by a knowledgeable staff with the intention of developing customers' literary lives? An engaged staff and owner who build intention within their work can make for an amazing bookstore experience.
If you weren’t a bookseller, what would you be doing instead?
If given complete freedom, I’d bike tour Northern California to Vancouver Island, taking my time, camping, reading, exploring, and being a general bike vagabond.