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Halloween BOOks!

Halloween celebrations will be different this year, but you can still have a spooky good time with Halloween books. As someone who grew up in New England and had to choose between covering up costumes with warm coats or work long johns and other layers into every trick-or-treat outfit, I’m going to embrace the silver lining that at-home Halloween means costumes don’t need to be weather-appropriate. We’ve already mailed Halloween cards and Halloween books and toys to our family on …

Oct 27, 2020

what's new

Oct

26

2020

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The Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix

The Left-Handed Booksellers of London filled a void in me. Yes, I know that’s dramatic to say, but you know when you read a book and you feel like no other book can live up to it so you’re almost afraid to pick one up when you finish? That’s what I felt with this one. This …

Oct

23

2020

My Baby Loves Halloween

The Storefront

Stores Offer Safe Halloween Celebrations

Spokane’s Wishing Tree Books is hosting a literary character pumpkin contest on social media. Wishing Tree invites you to carve or decorate a pumpkin as your favorite character or author this Halloween for our first ever literary pumpkin contest! How it works: There are two categories: Carved and Decorated. Once you have your literary pumpkin …

Oct

22

2020

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The Lost Spells by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris

A few years ago, Robert Macfarlane, who’s something of a patron saint at Madison Books (see our review of 2019 book of the year Underland, now out in paperback) wrote The Lost Words, an ornate linguistic repository intended to preserve the lexicon of the natural world that’s literally being removed from dictionaries. Lavishly illustrated by Jackie Morris, it became …

Oct

21

2020

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The Body Double by Emily Beyda

Instead of a hare with a pocket watch, it’s an enigmatic man with a proposition who leads our unnamed narrator down the rabbit hole. His offer is unusual, but lucrative: if she is willing to relinquish her identity entirely to work as a stand-in for a reclusive young actress until she is well enough to …

Oct

20

2020

Borrowed Copy

Peggy Mullen, Owner of River City Books,
Inducted into Alaska Women’s Hall of Fame

Peggy Mullen, the owner of Alaskan gem River City Books, has been inducted into the Alaska Women’s Hall of Fame. Here are some excerpts from Peggy’s Hall of Fame biography: Not only is Mullen creative and a visionary, she is also a passionate conservationist and steward of the environment. She still lives on the homestead …

Oct

19

2020

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The Apocalypse Factory by Steve Olson

In the Don’t Eat the Dirt In Your Backyard Department, we have Steve Olson’s The Apocalypse Factory, which is about plutonium and Hanford and what’s still out there in Eastern Washington. Of course, this may be old news to long-time residents of this state, but if you’ve read Adam Higgingbotham’s Midnight in Chernobyl and Kate …

Oct

16

2020

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Read Up, Kids: Middle Grade Chapter Book Recommendations from Portland’s Annie Bloom’s Books

From the recommendations of bookseller and kids’ author Rosanne Parry, here are three middle grade novels perfect for 9- to 14-year-olds: The Artifact Hunters by Janet Fox is like Harry Potter set in a magical school in Scotland. But, unlike Harry Potter, the characters travel through time in an attempt to solve real historical problems and keep the dangers of the …

Oct

15

2020

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Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe

This delightfully illustrated graphic memoir is an emotional and straightforward account of self-discovery and acceptance. Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, explores coming to terms with eir genderqueer identity and asexuality in a way that is personal, thoughtful, and educational. Kobabe’s self-aware recollections range from uncomfortable and painful to awkward and joyful and liberating. The artwork …

Oct

14

2020

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My Autobiography of Carson McCullers by Jenn Shapland

In My Autobiography of Carson McCullers author (and former bookseller!) Jenn Shapland discovers love letters McCullers wrote to a woman named Annemarie. This discovery leads Shapland to look at a part of McCullers’s life never fully discussed publicly, and in part examine her own life. I love the way Shapland wove her life in with …

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