Neuroscientist Daniel Levitin, who has written accessibly about music and organization and attention and multitasking, now turns his focus on how we can interpret both visual and linguistic information. The first third of the book helps us appreciate that we are pattern seekers, which paradoxically makes us suckers for a deceptive graph or chart. Levitin …
I am not the most pop-culture literate of folks, seeing as we don’t have a television with actual reception in my house. So I was quite confused when I started hearing about a new movie starring Tina Fey called “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.” I had heard rave reviews from colleagues, customers, and Mary at Amy Bloom’s Books about Whiskey Tango …
Though the poems may be short, this is a deep collection with a vast scope. If you have avoided contemporary poetry due to its seeming impenetrability and difficulty, this is a fantastic choice to reconnect. There’s no tricky language; just readable poems that make you focus on the possibility of a pre-linguistic consciousness. It is …
“Meet Harriet Chance. She is seventy-eight and embarking on a journey of discovery. Her husband Bernard has recently passed away and she is surprised to find out that before he died he purchased tickets for an Alaskan cruise. Despite her children’s protests, she is determined to take the trip. But she gets a little more …
Comics fans and middle grade novel fans alike will find something to love in this fresh and engaging graphic novel by Oregon author and illustrator Victoria Jamieson. It’s got tons of roller derby action, a few tips on dying your hair an outrageous (but roller derby appropriate) shade, and a sweet but not too sweet …
Sadly, Haruf passed away shortly after completing this exquisite final novel. Seventy-something widow Addie Moore walks down the block of her small town to make a proposal to Louis Waters, also in his seventies and windowed: namely, if he would consider coming to her house sometimes to sleep with her. She assures him it is …
A grizzly bear, Glacier National Park, and a special agent for the Dept. of the Interior–what else would one need for an exciting suspense story? Ted Systead is sent to investigate a crime that recalls his own horrific experience with a grizzly at age fourteen. Now, a man has been bound to a tree and …
This book is all about great characters and the things (and people) that have gone astray in their lives: their fingers, their sense of direction, their job, their ability not to become a tree. We all know the lesson– when things are lost we find other things, sometimes the things other people have lost. Knowing …
It’s getting down to the wire, folks! Here are some gift guides from local bookstores to give you ideas for those last-minute gifts. (*Please note– Not everything listed is still available on the shelves at all stores. If you’re really pressed for time, you might want to call ahead to your local shop and ask …
I have long been recommending this fine novel to readers of all ages and persuasions. Ms. Tsukiyama is half Japanese and half Chinese and brings a unique perspective to this tale of a young Chinese man who is sent to a small village in Japan on the eve of WWII to recover from TB. The …
