The new Georgetown location is going to have a “hyperlocal” emphasis. Washingtonian magazine explained that the new strategy of the store is “to make each existing and forthcoming location feel like a hyperlocal indie bookshop…the fresh B&N model leans into creative, locally focused curation of books as its main moneymaker. A team of mostly DC-area locals has been hired to run the Georgetown store, and management has artistic liberty to ‘add the local flavor’ and curate content ‘based on what they think is important for the community,’ says B&N spokesperson Janine Flanigan.”    

    So why won’t the new Barnes & Noble sell my book? The Devil’s Triangle: Mark Judge vs the New American Stasi is the 2022 book I wrote about the 2018 nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. I had gone to high school with Kavanaugh, and the political left tried to destroy him, using my rambunctious 1980s youth as the weapon. As Jonathan Turley put it on Fox, I was supposed to be “roadkill” in the process.

    I’m not some obscure writer hawking a self-published tome about the sex life of squirrels. My story is a historically important one. My longtime editor Adam Bellow is a known figure in publishing, having produced many bestsellers. His father was Saul Bellow, the most honored writer of the 20th Century. I was the subject of a Fox Nation documentary.

    As far as the “hyperlocal” angle, I think I’ve got that covered. I’m a Washingtonian who was born at Georgetown University Hospital. My grandfather, a professional baseball player, was a coach for 20 years at Georgetown University and is in the school’s Hall of Fame. As an adult I taught journalism at Georgetown University for three summers. I love Georgetown and I love book stores.

    Emails I sent to Barnes & Noble went unanswered, as did attempts to contact them through social media. I don’t want the store to deal with harassment or rudeness, I just have a simple request: you’re a local store. I’m a local writer with a great story. Let’s sell some books. 

    Like so many bookstores, Barnes & Noble has a liberal bias. They would rather lose sales and turn away locals author than violate the ideology of the DNC.

    It’s s shame, Georgetown is where me and my friends hung out in the 1980s as high schoolers and then when coming home from college. Garrett’s, our favorite bar, was across the street from the Barnes & Noble. In one key scene in my book, I am literally driving down M Street past the spot of where the new Barnes & Noble talking to my lawyer on the phone. The British Spectator once referred to me as “the city incarnate.”

    Yet Barnes & Noble won’t touch me - and for that matter neither will the New York Times or Washington Post. In a review of a leftist book about Kavanaugh Times reviewer Alexandra Jacobs wrote that she “longs for more about Mark Judge.” That’s easy - read the book I wrote. In his recent book The Washington Book: How to Read Politics and Politicians, Post veteran Carlos Lozada reads all the books and other documents about Washington. These are political memoirs, government documents, Supreme Court decisions: “I read histories and manifestos,” Lozada writes. “I peruse centuries-old essays and decades-old commission reports. I scour Supreme Court decisions and the text of the latest congressional investigations. I read many books about American politics l, and, I must confess, I also read books by politicians and government officials.” Lozada reads campaign biographies, “revisionist memoirs,” the “tell-all books by mid-level administration staffers,” and books by “presidents, vice presidents, senators, chiefs of staff and FBI directors.” 

    If it has anything to do with D.C., Lozada reads it. Except The Devil’s Triangle, a book about one of the most dramatic political events in the history of D.C., written by a native.

    I still have a UPS box near Georgetown University from when I taught there. I tried to encourage my students to read widely and take on facts and ideas they may not agree with. Sadly Barnes & Noble won’t do the same.