It was almost exactly a year ago that we decided we needed help around the shop and brought in a new contributor. No previous bookstore experience, but solid credentials, so we thought we’d take a chance. Best decision ever. We’re supported in ways we never anticipated, and we have the confidence to reach farther than …
Nicola Griffith returns with a queer recasting of Arthurian legend with Spear, the story of a young woman, a Grail quest, and love. Many know Griffith from her fabulous Hild, the story of the seventh-century saint, and while Spear travels some of that same landscape, it is definitely flush with magic and dragons. Marvelous stuff! —A Good …
One of the hazards in the fast-growing American cities of the late 1800s was fire, and the Northwest was no exception. Most of us are familiar with the 1889 blaze that reshaped Seattle’s streets, but Spokane fell victim to flame in the same year. Unlike the Seattle fire, Spokane’s conflagration remains unexplained, which enables Leyna …
The Angel of Rome by Jess Walter One of the most popular authors at Madison Books, and one of my own favorites, Jess Walter is an infallibly engaging storyteller, equaled by few in that regard. More than that, he has a quality that even fewer writers share, that of continual reinvention—every book is different in …
New Paperback of the Week from Madison Books Among the booksellers of my acquaintance, this was by far the most-anticipated book of the year. Author Mikel Jollett was once a young fiction writer of growing reputation who made an unexpected career turn and became the front-man for indie band Airborne Toxic Event. His literary talent …
“These unbroken stretches of consciousness, days sometimes blurring into one another, seems just a feature of modern life, not worth complaining about,” an insomniac remarks to herself. Kim Fu’s Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century is a collection of short stories that captures the modern sense of malaise that is now more pronounced, more intense, as …
Adolf Hitler has been chancellor of Germany for only four weeks, when on February 27, 1933, the Reichstag—home of the parliament in Berlin—suddenly bursts into flames. The Nazis promptly blame unruly communists, and in response suspend civil liberties throughout the country. Caught up in the ensuing escalation of lies, divisiveness, and bigotry is John Russell, …
The last novel from Italian writer Camilleri (1925-2019), who produced more than two dozen wonderful Inspector Montalbano mysteries over the past four decades, this was written years ago as a final installment and locked away until after the author’s death. In it, an early morning murder outside a bar becomes immediately complicated. As always with …
As someone who loves Louise Penny’s Three Pines books, I couldn’t NOT read her new book, co-authored by Hillary Clinton. More of a political thriller than Penny’s standard mystery fare, State of Terror is an action-packed book that takes place over a period of just a few days. Spoiler—the main character is a female Secretary …
For want of a nail, the shoe was lost, then the horse, then the battle, then the war, or so it has often been said. Laurent Binet’s new novel plays intriguingly with this conceit, postulating what kind of world we’d be living in today if a few tiny things had been different. In his counterfactual …
