Celebrating Martin Luther King Jr.’s Legacy
What books would you recommend to contemplate and celebrate the life and works of Martin Luther King, Jr.?
Things You Don’t Know … All of It Lies Inside of Books: An Essay by 2021 PNBA Award Winner E. J. Koh
When I was fifteen, my parents returned to South Korea and left me behind with my brother in America. My mother started writing me letters in Korean, a language I could not fully understand at the time. Over a decade after she wrote me, I translated her letters into English. In one letter, she writes: …
Congratulations to the Winners of the 2021 Pacific Northwest Book Awards
The winners for the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association 2021 Pacific Northwest Book Awards have been announced. The Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association (PNBA) is a non-profit association of independent bookstores from five Northwest states, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Alaska. Since 1965, the annual Book Awards have recognized such luminary figures in Northwest literature as Ivan Doig, …
In Memory of William Kittredge, Author and PNW Legend
“One of the great figures in Western literature has passed on to the last best place. He will be sorely missed.” –Pamela Lehman Meyer From the obituary in the Missoulian by Cory Walsh December 5: “What we find in these stories, over and over again, is talk of home, lost or sought after, or in …
2021 Pacific Northwest Book Awards Shortlist Announced
The Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association is happy to announce the 2021 Book Awards Shortlist, selected by a committee of independent booksellers from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Alaska. This year’s committee chose the following 12 finalists, crafted by Northwest authors and illustrators, from a list of nearly 400 nominated titles published during 2020. The six …
The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist by Adrian Tomine
I hope it doesn’t trivialize [the previous] week’s … Book of the Week, Erica C. Barnett’s memoir of alcoholic blackouts and self-destruction, to say that the humiliating confessions in this book are nearly as relentless and excruciating. Because the humiliations, in the case of this graphic memoir, are tiny: failed bookstore events, comicon party snubs, parenting meltdowns, …
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 …
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 …
Happy Latinx Heritage Month
From the blog of Third Place Books (Lake Forest Park, Ravenna, Seward Park), WA. By Allie. We are so excited to celebrate Latinx authors and the contributions they make to the literary world! In fraught times, it is important to celebrate the diversity that truly makes this country great. And I may be biased as …
Show me the Honey: Adventures of an Accidental Apiarist by David Doroghy
The light went off as I watched a proud grandson selling honey from his sidewalk stand that he had collected from his dad’s hive. Figuring that creating my own hive might ramp me up in his eyes, I turned to this book. If a guy living on a houseboat in the Fraser River just south of …
