Jenny Odell’s thinking has infected my brain. After I read her book How to Do Nothing – a critique of productivity and our relationship to technology – I looked at my phone slightly differently. Now with this book, Odell is asking me to change how I see my watch. Saving Time is both a historical look at how …
Following Walter Isaacson’s seminal book charting the Steve Jobs’ era, NYT reporter Tripp Mickle does that splendid effort proud with this fascinating book about Apple, After Steve. That Tim Cook, an Alabama native who obsessed over expenses and the supply chain was chosen by Jobs—the unsparing visionary—to lead Apple somehow worked brilliantly, as Cook led …
Following her award-winning collections Famous and Plume, former Washington State Poet Laureate Kathleen Flenniken returns with another stunning book. These poems navigate loss, fear, and growing older, and also examine white America’s romanticized view of the past. When it comes to difficult subjects, Flenniken doesn’t flinch. –Erin, Eagle Harbor Book Company, Bainbridge Island, WA Explore …
Once I started this book, I couldn’t put it down. Claire Dederer aptly asks questions and ruminates on separating the art from the artist (or monster) from many different angles. I especially loved the exploration of what it means to be a fan and caught up in parasocial relationships. Between clever analysis and examination, there …
This book is haunting and elegiac, not least because Death herself is one of the narrators. Our other main narrator, Wolf, is a liminal entity, as befits someone who has survived Death more than once and now serves as her chronicler (and possibly more). Godden challenges readers both structurally and stylistically, equally confronting and easing …
If you’re a poetry fan, you’ve likely already heard about Judas Goat, Seattle poet Gabrielle Bates’s debut collection. Bates is one of the voices on the Poet Salon podcast, and these last few years her poems have been appearing in some of the nation’s most celebrated literary journals. Judas Goat is thoughtful and foreboding, using …
A fun, fictional bio of a country superstar, like Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton, making her last tour due to health issues. A moving portrait of a woman trying to break through a patriarchal industry and the pratfalls she endured. — Gerard Villegas, Auntie’s Bookstore, Spokane, WA In March, novelist Stephanie Clifford came back to …
Two women from different generations and cultures bond over a shared restaurant space. One side is a trendy new barbeque spot and the other an iconic neighborhood bakery. Each has a hidden secret from her past that required her to recreate herself. When love appears in their carefully-controlled lives, can they open to romance again? …
Okorafor is a master of brevity who portrays rich, immersive worlds and characters with spare, head-spinning strokes. In a future Nigeria populated by tribes – many bearing animosities, suspicions, and resentments, as well as advanced technical and digital technologies – lives a woman named AO (for Artificial Organism) who is physically half cyborg. Forced to …
This love story is an endearing mix of a daydream and a fever dream. Written in the 1970s, it takes place in New York and centers around two best friends (and third cousins!) and the two incredible women they fall in love with. It’s smart, funny, satisfying, and often completely silly. One of our most …
