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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
