Kristen Millares Young has written a cymbal clash of a debut. Claudia—a Mexican anthropologist fleeing her life in Seattle after her husband and sister announce their affair— collides with Peter—a prodigal son returning to the Makah reservation for the first time since his dad’s murder to help his mother, Maggie, whose memory is failing. The …
Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Nickel Boys, is out in paperback. . . The Nickel Boys follows Elwood Curtis as he is unfairly sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy. Curtis falls in with a fellow “delinquent” named Turner, and the novel explores the very different reactions to the terrible system that …
Don’t forget to pick up some books for the holiday weekend! Your local independent bookstore may be taking a much-needed day off on July 4th, so check in with them online or over the phone to know their hours for the holiday weekend, and while you’re at it, you can purchase some great reads. What …
by Jhoti Roy for Literary Arts During a special broadcast on OPB Radio on Monday, June 22, 2020, the winners of the 33rd Annual Oregon Book Awards, selected by panels of out-of-state judges, were announced. ELOISE JARVIS MCGRAW AWARD FOR CHILDREN’S LITERATURE Cathy Camper of Portland Lowriders Blast from the Past LESLIE BRADSHAW AWARD FOR YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE …
While still a teenager, abolitionist Harriet Tubman received a head injury that left her with pain, dizziness, and visions. Coates reimagines her visions as something more. This tale of Hiram Walker, and enslaved half-white, half-black child of a slave and a plantation owner in the Antebellum South, weaves subtle magical realism into life as he …
BY ALEX BEHR May 18th, 2020 on The Rumpus.net That Little Bit of Magic: A Conversation with Ramiza Shamoun Koya The Royal Abduls, Ramiza Shamoun Koya’s debut novel (Forest Avenue Press, December 2019), drops us into a Muslim American family twisted by generational expectations and self-doubt. It’s told in shifting views by Amina Abdul, an …
Marc-Uwe Kling’s Qualityland is about Peter Jobless (everyone in Qualityland gets their last name from their father’s occupation at the time of their birth) and his efforts to return a product he didn’t order. Since TheShop—the world’s most popular (and ubiquitous) online retailer—has the best (sorry, bestest) algorithm, it can’t possibly be wrong. This confusion …
The slim volumes in the Zoey & Sassafras series have much more in them than you’d expect—mystery, fantasy, and actual science. In each book, Zoey and her feline sidekick come to the rescue of a new magical creature by using a combination of gumption and smarts, modeling the research and study practices scientists use in …
If Jane Austen and Octavia Butler got trapped in a decrepit mansion in México at the edge of a hurricane with a savvy 1950s Mazatec socialite and they all wrote a book by candle light as the mansion creaked and moaned, this would be that novel. Instantly hooking, this horror-thriller kept me up way after …
I just read Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara and could hardly put it down! The premise is gruesome (but not graphic). It took me from my boring house and immersed me into a world I’ve never seen. It’s about a 9-year-old boy in India who decides to solve the mystery of a …
