Mercer Island’s Island Books did this three-staff write-up of one of summer’s hottest reads: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart, a psychologically suspenseful teen book that adults can’t get enough of. There were a number of us on staff that read advance copies of We Were Liars by E. Lockhart, and the result was plenty of behind-the-counter …
No, this is not a picture of Island Books (thank goodness). This, my friends, is what happens when you tackle some home reorganization. Far too many of your possessions get shoved into the home office. Don’t be misled by the bookshelves. That’s only a fraction of the books in my house. The rest are in …
December is a time of list making, be it goals for the upcoming year, holiday gift recipients, or to-dos-before-the-kids-come-home. At Island Books, a good portion of our time is spent assisting others who need to check off their lists. “I need the perfect book for my sports-obsessed father-in-law, my three-year-old niece, and my hairdresser,” are …
I’ve been spending many nights with unreliable narrators this past year, be it Amy and Nick Dunne from Gone Girl or Nora Eldridge from The Woman Upstairs. Books like those keep me up at night, plagued by increasing anxiety about the reality outside the character’s head. One of the best unreliable narrators is Humbert Humbert …
Summers at Island Books can be on the quiet side. Our owners and staff members take vacation, as do many of the locals (although the smart ones know there are twelve weeks of spectacular weather around here and it pays to stick around). The rhythm of kid traffic is the one thing that picks up, …
Here at Island Books, we host a monthly story time that’s usually targeted towards kids three and up. It’s magic to watch the faces of pajama-clad kiddos light up as local storytellers and musicians take over our children’s section. These are the kinds of events that lodge themselves into children’s memories, and a good reason …
In a recent post, my esteemed Island Books colleague James Crossley confessed to a disproportionate number of male authors in his home library. He concluded with “You (which is to say, I) have to actively redress it by seeking to add women’s voices to the chorus.” Admirable goal? Yes. Sustainable goal? I doubt it. While …
“The New England witch hunts endure as a fascinating piece of history, and before I graduated to The Crucible, The Witch of Blackbird Pond whet my appetite for fiction about the era. Set in the late 1800s, this coming-of-age story follows the orphan Kit from her home in Barbados to a Puritan community in Connecticut. The death of …
Congratulations to Island Books webmonkey and NWBL columnist Miriam Landis and her husband, Daniel! Twins Stephen Marc and Lynne Dena were born September 21, weighing 5lbs 3 oz and 4 lbs 13 oz respectively. Everything went well and the babies and “a very happy mom” are recovering nicely. Miriam says she hasn’t read them their …
We’re spoiled by today’s expectations that an author should publish a book once a year, and I blame overachievers like Nora Roberts, James Patterson, and Lee Child for setting us up to anticipate such a rapid rate of productivity. On the other end of the spectrum, there’s a certain breed of writer who doesn’t seem …
