If you’ve ever wondered how to commit the perfect murder, this book will give you some clues. Much delightful mayhem occurs in these five short chapters, where we come to know the seemingly mild-mannered Maud, an elderly retiree in Göteborg, Sweden. Maud leads a rather comfortable but pedestrian life of solitude, which she will protect at …
This is a book about family secrets and a ghost. Not new ideas, certainly, but Stein’s story of a young boy returning to the family mansion with his dad during a trial separation from his mother is, at times, gut-wrenching in the discomfort that dredging up the past brings. And this family has a particularly …
It is rare and wonderful to find a book that takes me completely by surprise. This one did. Twice. –Kim R., Queen Anne Book Company, Seattle, WA Delve into this stunning, complex world— and relish the fact that you don’t have to wait to read the whole trilogy since the final volume is already out. …
Sometimes you just fall in love with a book and everything it represents. Rosie Revere is back in an all-new chapter book series that might just be the best early chapter book series ever engineered! –Jesica DeHart, Neill Public Library, Pullman, WA This is a fun, well-illustrated early chapter book that encompasses all the zany …
Vellitt Boe is no stranger to the Call To Adventure. Vellitt Boe might be scared, but she’ll venture forth without hesitation regardless. After all, Vellitt Boe has a world to save, and gods be damned, she’s going to do it. Kij Johnson’s newest novella, heavily influenced by H. P. Lovecraft (The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath …
Where? Oakland, mostly: the center of a dozen or so lives, all of them Native American by some calculation, though each is working to define that for themselves. They are, in Orange’s words, “Urban Indians,” knowing city streets better than any other landscape, but few of them feel at home anywhere. As in Colum McCann’s Let …
Now make room in the mouth for grassesgrassesgrasses What an exceptional debut! Long Soldier’s collection is a response to the 2009 official US apology to Native Americans, and it is a rare gem in its experimentation and use of language to confront injustice and racism. Long Soldier writes verses that don’t rest, that are restricted …
This is one of my favorite novels of the year–yes, I can already tell. Emezi explores fluidity and a fractured life from the perspective of Ibgo gods and goddesses that control our narrator’s body in turn. I already need to read it again. —Shawn, Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, WA Akwaeke Emezi has crafted a …
March is my birthday month, so I’m using that, and the fact that you are all basically my captive audience for an hour or so [at story time for grown-ups] to subject you to my new favorite book. I’m Fine, But You Appear to Be Sinking is a collection of short stories by local(ish) author Leyna …
[My] recommendation . . . is Amy Bloom’s new historical novel, White Houses. For fans of The Paris Wife, this love story was inspired by the intriguing and scandalous relationship between Eleanor Roosevelt and prominent reporter Lorena Hickok. –-Nancy, Island Books, Mercer Island, WA Lorena Hickok, the most prominent female reporter in America, meets Eleanor Roosevelt in …
