When I heard an interview with Jonathan Auxier talking about how many years of historical research he did when writing Sweep, I couldn’t wait to dive into his authentic world of Victorian chimney sweeps. As perfectly as he has constructed this world it is, after all, the story of a girl and her monster, so there is plenty of …
From Shelf Awareness April 11, 2019 by Alex Mutter Seattle’s Madison Books Plans IBD Opening When Madison Books opens in Seattle, Wash., on April 27, Independent Bookstore Day, it will be the first new, general-interest, independent bookstore in the city’s Madison Park neighborhood since 2005. The roughly 400-square-foot bookstore is a sister store to Phinney Books, …
Phinney Books in Seattle shared excitement about some spring titles in a recent newsletter. February 26 The Border by Don Winslow The arrival of this final volume is making it clear that Winslow’s epic trilogy about the drug wars on the US-Mexico border is one of the central fictional dramas of our time, closing in a storm …
An enthusiastic customer tipped us off to this graphic novel, nearly a year after it came out. All we needed to hear, really, was “two cats in a robotic dog suit,” but “narrated by a sentient litter box”? That sealed the deal. And the book itself lived up to every hope raised by those oddball …
Madison Books, the new bookstore in the Madison Park neighborhood in Seattle owned by Phinney Books’ Tom Nissley and managed by James Crossley, is open for two weeks of holiday pop-up shopping before renovations are finished. Here’s the update on the Phinney Books website: Yes, as you may have read in our newsletter or other places, …
Those of you who know Jane Mount only from her colorful illustrations of shelved and stacked book spines might be surprised—as I was—that her new book of literary “miscellany” is as miscellaneous as it is, full not only of her trademark spines but of profiles of bookstores and libraries, lists of recommended reading, and general …
What is Seattle? Anyone who has lived here more than a year has watched the city transform under our feet, as it has many times before. The three creators of Seattleness use their expertise in design, architecture, and geography to turn our ideas of Seattle inside-out again and again on the page. See our familiar …
It’s a big day for our country. Alaska voters: Find your polling place and its hours online here. Absentee ballots must be postmarked by today. Idaho voters: Get to the polls before they close tonight at 8:00 pm. Find voting locations here. Bring a photo ID if you have one (Idaho driver’s license or Idaho …
The Prix Goncourt is France’s highest award for fiction, and the most recent recipient was Éric Vuillard for The Order of the Day. It’s an interesting choice for at least three reasons. First, it’s really good, like prize-winning good, written in crystalline sentences ably translated by Mark Polizzotti. Second, it’s not a bog-standard war story about generals and …
What happens when you put people with contempt for government in charge of the government? Lewis takes his eye for the untold story into the unglamorous—but, as he demonstrates, desperately necessary—reaches of the federal Energy, Agriculture, and Commerce departments to show just how indifferent the Trump administration has been to the everyday tasks of governing: …
