The DC punk scene meets Little Free Libraries.
Hilarious, vibrant, magically drawing cohesion between divergent themes, brimming with endorsements of the best music and books you haven’t heard or read yet. J. Hunter Bennett, author of The Prodigal Rogerson and Upside-Down Punks, started a little free punk rock bookstore during the pandemic outside his house on a well-trafficked corner of Chevy Chase, D.C., and published a companion newsletter. It began as a way to offload his excess music books and noir novels, but swiftly grew into a neighborhood fixture and underground punk zine for the modern era.
Here you’ll find book reviews, band interviews, neighborhood gossip, and praise from at least two members of Fugazi. A touching testament to the DIY spirit, a treasure trove of literary and punk rock recommendations, and a low-key how-to guide for building something unique with your own network of like-minded weirdos. C’mon, where else you gonna find Millions of Dead Cops and James Salter in the same place?
This riot of a book is graced with an introduction by Jim Spellman of Velocity Girl and a foreword by Anton Bogomazov of the neighborhood’s more official bookstore, Politics and Prose.
J. Hunter Bennett writes for the music magazine Ugly Things and plays bass guitar in the band Dot Dash. Because neither of these jobs pays very well–okay, at all–he also practices government contracts law at a large law firm in Washington, DC. He previously served as a Trial Attorney for the United States Department of Justice, and an Assistant District Attorney in Philadelphia. He considers himself a connoisseur of orange soda.
Bennett will be in conversation with Kim Coletta, who plays bass in the local band Jawbox and runs the independent record label DeSoto Records, pursuits that keep her closely tied to the creative side of music. She is also a long-time humanities teacher at a local private school, where she brings the same curiosity and passion to the classroom. Kim doesn’t enjoy orange soda at all, yet somehow she and Hunter are friends.