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Browse: Home / 2015 PNBA Award shortlist

2015 PNBA Award shortlist

Dec

31

2014

The Free by Willy Vlautin

The Free
by Willy Vlautin

Pauline works long and exhausting shifts as a nurse, then spends her off time and remaining energy trying to get her ailing and mentally unstable father to get out of bed and eat a can of soup. Debt and divorce have Freddie constantly on the run, working around the clock to stay not even a …

Dec

30

2014

Sex Criminals Volume One

Sex Criminals Volume One: One Weird Trick
by Matt Fraction & Chip Zdarsky

This book. This [bleep]ing book. Each of us has one: that one book that you’ll fight to get into the hands of readers who are so sure it’s not for them because of the genre or the title or whatever. For me, this year, this is that book. I’ve read a lot of big, important …

Dec

29

2014

Loitering

Loitering
by Charles D’Ambrosio

These essays are to be savored, one at a time, rolling each around in the head, maybe for days, before ducking into the next door of D’Ambrosio’s world—cautious, alert, eager for the next revelation or discovery. The pieces in this collection are often pained but always thoughtful, lovely and brilliant. —NWBL contributing editor Brian Juenemann Michael …

Dec

26

2014

1

remark

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender
by Leslye Walton

I am delighted to be serving on the PNBA awards committee when Leslye Walton’s debut novel was nominated. Reading The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender feels like dreaming or being under a spell. A heartbroken woman turns into a canary, a kiss on the neck leaves a permanent mark that only slowly fades through …

Dec

19

2014

A Man Came Out of a Door in the Mountain by Adrianne Harun

A Man Came Out of a Door in the Mountain
by Adrianne Harun

Be warned: To read Adrianne Harun’s A Man Came Out of a Door in the Mountain is to subject yourself to a constant sense of subdued terror and simultaneous wide-eyed wonder. Harun is a master storyteller and Mountain reads like folklore. She delivers blaringly real characters and setting mixed with carefully metered out magical realism and …

Dec

12

2014

Jackaby

Jackaby
by William Ritter

Abigail Rook has always wanted to pave her own way, going against her parents’ wishes of a college education and instead going on an archaeological dig. When her dreams don’t pan out, she cannot return home and face her parents so she instead embarks on a journey across the Atlantic to New Fiddleham in New …

Dec

8

2014

My Fluorescent God by Joe Guppy

My Fluorescent God
by Joe Guppy

This is a fascinating non-fiction story of paranoid psychosis brought on by prescription drugs. It explores the realms of philosophy, theology, and psychology in a voice that is both factual and humorous. Guppy is a practicing psychotherapist now, but he once lived and walked the halls of the mental ward in Seattle’s Providence Hospital.  My …

Dec

4

2014

All the Light We Cannot See

All the Light We Cannot See
by Anthony Doerr

Choosing just a few winning books out of a pool of nominees numbering in the hundreds sounds like an impossible task, but apparently, the PNBA awards committee manages to do it year after year. This year was my first time, and early on in the process, I was feeling overwhelmed. Then All the Light We …

Nov

28

2014

The Sound of Letting Go

The Sound of Letting Go
by Stasia Ward Kehoe

I cannot say enough about Stasia Ward Kehoe’s The Sound of Letting Go. This book captured me from page one and did not let go. While looking through the hundreds of nominations we receive for the PNBA Awards, it is always a breath of fresh air to get to a book that is so different …

Nov

20

2014

Carol Spurling of Book People of Moscow

Picking the Books: A Committee Member’s View of the PNBA Awards

One of the greatest privileges I’ve had as a bookseller is serving on the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Book Awards Committee. The Shortlist of finalists was announced November 18. I didn’t know what to expect when I volunteered, but when the hundreds of nominated books began arriving at my house by the boxful I quickly …

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