Des souvenirs tellement chers…
Merci, Notre Dame. Find sanctuary in independent bookstores, where you can honor the past and imagine the future.
2019 Pacific Northwest Book Awards Shortlist: “The Whiz Mob and the Grenadine Kid” by Colin Meloy
An adventure story for the ages. It’s 1961, Charlie Fisher, the son of a foreign diplomat, finds himself adrift in the city of Marseilles. After witnessing a pickpocket in the busy city center, his intrigue draws him into an underground world of adolescent pickpockets, filled with a spirited, colorful cast of characters–ranging from identical Senegalese …
Citadel by Kate Mosse
After nearly 40 years as a book professional, I retired in 2011 and began traveling for pleasure. Many of the trips my wife and I have taken have a close relationship to books I have read. In 2011 we traveled to Carcassonne in southwestern France. I had read several books in which that part of …
Use of Force by Brad Thor
As a reader, I have lists of authors that are favorite writers. Sometimes I like to discover authors that are “new” to me. Brad Thor is an old favorite. The last time I read a book by Mr. Thor was 5 years ago (my bad!). I returned to the world of Scot Harvath with Use …
Fields of Glory by Michael Jecks
Michael Jecks has written many medieval mysteries featuring a defrocked Templar set in the early 14th Century. I have read about a dozen of those mysteries, the last one about five years ago. So many books, so little time! A few years ago, Mr. Jecks branched out to write novels about other historical events but …
Study the Executioner
I averaged three art classes a day during my last year of high school. It was the only thing that elevated my GPA above what could generously be called alarming. I spent the majority of those twelve semesters failing a lot of classes, or nearly failing them. A multitude of reasons were at play, but …
Bruno, Chief of Police by Martin Walker
Okay, my only complaint about this series is that Martin Walker does such an amazing job transporting you to the Dordogne region of France that I want to be there drinking wine and sampling the food (cooked by Bruno of course) and not here typing this. Setting that aside, I love these mysteries, you catch Martin Walker’s …
The Tin Snail by Cameron McAllister
Giving a lesser-known historical event— the development of the Citroën C2V, the brilliantly simple French “people’s car”— a fictional, kid-friendly spin by putting 13-year-old Angelo Fabrizzi at its center, McAllister has constructed a fast-moving plot packed not just with action and humor but with family drama, spy skullduggery, tween romance, and, in a mild form, …
