From the author of The Highest Tide (Vintage Books, $15.00) comes another wonderful tale about our corner of the world. Border Songs’ protagonist, Brandon Vanderkool, lives in the rather sleepy hinterlands just south of the Canadian border, a quiet country populated by dairy farms and retirees. Brandon has always had a hard time fitting in, due to his unusual size and his shy-almost-autistic demeanor, and his new job working for the Border Patrol is not helping any. Much to everyone’s surprise, Brandon is actually quite good at ferreting out illegal activity on the border—a knack that quickly puts him at odds with a number of his neighbors. Jim Lynch, who lives in Olympia and won a PNBA Award for The Highest Tide in 2006, manages to weave together bird watching, drug running and the struggles of the modern dairy farmer into one tender and funny novel. —Kristine Kaufman, Snow Goose Bookstore, Stanwood, WA
(If you live near Seattle, check out Lynch’s aquatic tour of bookstores in the San Juan Islands in late July.)