Once you read Ben Goldfarb’s Eager you will forever look at landscapes differently. Goldfarb explains the history and impact of beavers, from their role in indigenous cultures to their near-extinction from excess trapping for the fur trade to their remarkable recovery across much of North America. Eager shows us the beaver as not only “Nature’s …
Every Wednesday, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association publishes the regional bestseller list. On Thursdays, we celebrate Thursday Themes to shine a spotlight on some of the books from the list and give our brains a different way of thinking about books. This week, we’re imaging a customer asking a bookseller about a book they’re interested in. The customer …
Well, let’s start with Isabel Klee’s Dogs, Boys, and Other Things I’ve Cried About: A Memoir. Klee is @SimonSits on the socials, where she regularly tells stories about rescuing dogs. Dogs, Boys, and Other Things I’ve Cried About takes us through the last decade or so of her life in New York City, dealing with—wait for it—rescue dogs, heartbreaking …
Every Wednesday, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association publishes the regional bestseller list. On Thursdays, we celebrate Thursday Themes to shine a spotlight on some of the books from the list and give our brains a different way of thinking about books. Yesterday, Seattle had dramatic lightning, thunder, hail, and downpours. Some of last week’s bestsellers sounded a little …
I am not a huge reader of nonfiction, but Patrick Radden Keefe writes his narrative nonfiction so compellingly that it reads a bit like fiction. I was completely drawn in by Say Nothing about the troubles in Ireland and Empire of Pain about the Sackler family and the opioid epidemic. In London Falling, Radden Keefe chronicles the search for answers by …
On Wednesdays, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Bestseller List is published. Every week, we love to see what books have been most popular in independent bookstores around our region. As we peruse the list, we look for something special to showcase. Then we present this weekly feature: Thursday Themes. This week, it’s all fun and games until… the …
Cornejo Villavicencio talks to day laborers, a man seeking sanctuary, as well as some of the Ground Zero cleanup crew made up mostly of immigrants about their declining health after helping a country that doesn’t want to help them. She ties the informative with the personal without being dry or sentimental. (Read this then read …
Every Wednesday, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association publishes the regional bestseller list. On Thursdays, we celebrate Thursday Themes to shine a spotlight on some of the books from the list and give our brains a different way of thinking about books. I’m grateful for everything that’s green. –Audrey Hepburn (1929–1993) Something from Nothing: A Cookbook Alison Roman (#14 …
If you have never experienced Joe Sacco’s incredible comics journalism, his newest book is a great place to start. Follow Joe as he travels to Northern India to investigate the roots of a 2013 riot between Muslims and Hindus and discovers the political fictions that both sides told themselves to justify their violent actions. The …
I love reading. I love language. I love reading about language and there are few people whose thoughts on language I’d rather read than Yoko Tawada’s. She writes in both Japanese and German and I’ve long been a fan of her fiction, which uses language creatively and often explores it thematically. To me, these essays …
