The Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association is happy to announce the 2021 Book Awards Shortlist, selected by a committee of independent booksellers from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Alaska. This year’s committee chose the following 12 finalists, crafted by Northwest authors and illustrators, from a list of nearly 400 nominated titles published during 2020. The six …
A few years ago, Robert Macfarlane, who’s something of a patron saint at Madison Books (see our review of 2019 book of the year Underland, now out in paperback) wrote The Lost Words, an ornate linguistic repository intended to preserve the lexicon of the natural world that’s literally being removed from dictionaries. Lavishly illustrated by Jackie Morris, it became …
Gibbs Smith continues their charming wilderness writing series with Ernest Thompson Seton’s Wild Animals I Have Known. Look, we’re suckers for pretty books, and Gibbs Smith is doing a marvelous job with the design and layout of this series (we’ve thrown a couple more of them on this Newsletter List on bookshop.org). Seton’s Wild Animals I Have …
This gorgeous picture book features affirming, uplifting, nurturing text and stunning artwork representing 22 national parks. (Don’t miss the backmatter that gives more details about the parks shown.) When I read this book at storytime and invited the audience to join in the refrain of “you are home,” the inclusion, warmth, and pride brought tears …
Here’s a cool book. Donald R. Prothero is going to tell us how the world came to be with The Story of the Earth in 25 Rocks. Each of the chapters in this book talk about an important discovery or realization in the history of geology, highlighting both a specific geological puzzle and the people who …
Wordless book often have the most to say, and Hike in particular exemplifies in particular what I look for in a memorable picture book: nature, diversity, and grit alongside illustrations that you want to step into. This is one of my favorite new spring picture books. –Jesica Sweedler DeHart, Neill Public Library, Pullman, Washington If …
In 1986, 20-year-old Christopher Knight left his home in Massachusetts, drove to Maine and disappeared into the woods. He would not have another conversation with another person for the next 27 years. Christopher Knight had no real plan for living in the woods, he just wanted to be alone. But he found a secluded area …
By Paul Constant Special to The Seattle Times Neighborhood Reads If you want to learn about a Seattle neighborhood, browse the shelves of its independent bookstores. Local bookstores succeed when they place the interests and aspirations of their neighbors over the fads and excesses of national bestseller lists. And every time we buy books from …
To say this is the perfect gift for the fish fan in your life is both an understatement and an assumption that you have $150 to throw around. Over two decades in preparation, this three-volume wonder from the University of Washington stands where no book has stood before, as an authoritative—and exquisitely beautiful—guide to the …
Bryce Andrews chronicles the life of a grizzly bear named Willie and her three cubs in Down From The Mountain: the Life and Death of a Grizzly Bear. Andrews, who works a ranch in Montana’s Mission Valley, reports first-hand about the encroachment of both man and bear on each other’s environments. Both a conservation polemic and …
