Beginning with the ambitious literary efforts of James Franklin and his indentured brother Ben, this is a charming, deeply researched, and surprisingly exciting history of the understated but vital role that booksellers have played in forging the American identity. Often paired with publishing houses and printers, bookstores were an essential source of information from the …
Sparks fly in a steamy encounter between Meg and a mystery man on the ferry– but finds out later that that man is Ethan Fine, an environmentalist with plans to convert her community’s decrepit pickleball court into wetlands. As it happens, he’s also a fan of the sport… The ever-growing pickleball has made its way …
Independent journalist Naomi Klein found herself repeatedly confused with another Naomi, whose public profile and name were just similar enough that she found herself again and again attributed with the other’s paranoid crackpot conspiracies and her damaging and abhorrent claims. Obsessively, Klein witnessed the other Naomi’s rise to far-right Q-Anon fame, which led her to …
Jo Jones – autistic, hyperlexic, and kind of exhausted – is having a rough time. When her semi-estranged mother dies and leaves her a decrepit estate in Yorkshire, Jo leaps at the opportunity to leave the US and start fresh across the pond. But why is the estate’s handyman so shifty? What happened to the …
This novel is about marriage, motherhood, and how fear and insecurity affect a person and the people they love. The characters are thoroughly and convincingly drawn; I felt every bit of Julia’s struggles and growth. I raced through this story. I can’t remember the last time a novel made me cry, but this one did—have …
When the beloved father of an interracial Korean family goes missing, the only witness is his nonverbal, severely-disabled teenage son, Eugene– who also quickly becomes the prime suspect. Mia and her brother John are home from college during the pandemic and join forces to find their father, while protecting Eugene at all costs. As clues …
QUEEN ANNE BOOK COMPANY STAFF FAVORITE / LOCAL POET Site of Disappearance by Erin Malone “Everything I’m afraid of, / I’m about to name,” cautions the speaker of this haunting lyric in the sophomore collection from Washington poet, Erin Malone. Here, buried childhood memories of a brother’s death and a small-town murder return just as …
I discovered this novel years ago in a small bookstore in Mendocino. Written in 1944, it is the story of a young woman entering adulthood on her family’s Montana wheat farm at the cusp of WWII. Ellen struggles to understand the relationship between her father, who faces lingering health issues as a result of combat …
In the early ’80s I lived near the Frog Rock on Bainbridge Island. It was cheaper to live on the island and ride the ferry than to live in Seattle. On rare days, when I had a little money, I would treat myself to bookstore visits to Eagle Harbor Book Co. in Winslow and Elliott …
For the many Ian McEwan fans, Lessons will not disappoint. McEwan’s acute introspection forces his readers to pay close attention to a life few of us would want to live. A childhood spent in Libya while his stepfather serves in the British military, a troubling experience with his piano teacher during his boarding school years, a seemingly good …
