You can always tell if you’re at a book party when you can’t get
away from the passionate, nerdy discussion. One woman threatens to stop
talking to another partyer because of a humbly admitted distaste for
Jane Austen. Exasperated, she digs further into the Austen-hater’s
tastes: “She says she likes the Brontës, but she hates Jane
Eyre!” When someone shits all over Middlemarch a few minutes later, we all half-expect her head to explode.
Someone keeps chastising Party Crasher for a negative review of
The Merchant of Venice that was published in The Stranger exactly two years ago tonight. As people drink more beer and wine, the
brainy conversation gets earthier. One woman defends Twilight,
and someone else tells a story about the time her long hair
accidentally fused with Fabio’s product-besotted mane during a
romance-novel-promoting photo op.
We’re here to celebrate the fourth anniversary of Shelf Awareness, a
free daily e-mail newsletter that reports on industry news and opinion.
Movers and shakers from several local bookstores mingle with a couple
of charming Amazon employees, and book reviewers for national
publications chatter over flank-steak sliders and crab cakes. But this
isn’t just a business party: Some time ago, Shelf cofounder Jenn’s
house burned down, and a sizable collection of books perished in
the flames. She has rebuilt in the same spot, and guests are all
bringing copies of their favorite books—Lolita, The Cat
in the Hat, White Noise, The Namesake—to
jump-start Jenn’s new library. It feels hopeful and supportive, like a
bookish barn raising. 
Want to tell The Stranger that we have “a problem with the
subjunctive” in our column at your house party? Send the date,
place, and party details to partycrasher@thestranger.com.