In El Cucuy Is Scared, Too! by Donna Barba Higuera, Ramón is too nervous for his first day of school to go to bed. His monster, El Cucuy (el ku-koo-ee), who lives in the cactus pot, can’t get to sleep either. Together, they work through their anxieties about living in a new home in a …
I first read Brian Doyle’s The Grail (Oregon State University Press, $18.95) while serving on the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Awards Committee years ago. I fell in love with his abundant affection for people and place and his exquisite prose. Over the years, I had the pleasure of meeting him several times. I was just discovering his poetry/poetic essays and …
From the blog of Inklings Bookshop in Yakima, WA: June marks the beginning of Pride Month for the LGBTQ+ community, and what better way to celebrate Pride than to read! Raymond and I (Samwise) wanted to share some LGBTQ+ books that we are in love with. Juliet Takes a Breath: The Graphic Novel by Gabby …
from OregonLive.com by Amy Wang Here in Oregon, we have plenty of independent bookstores to celebrate. In our nod to Independent Bookstore Day this year, we’re highlighting bookstores in the Portland suburbs. We visited bookstores in Clackamas, Multnomah, Washington and Yamhill counties that are currently open to the public, though in some cases with limited …
How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one’s culture but within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the …
Set in Alaska in the 1920s, a husband and wife are drifting apart. Unable to have their own child, they create one out of snow one night, and it changes their whole lives. This novel is full of rich imagery and wonderful characters. Eowyn Ivey has written a beautiful fairy tale that really reaches out …
“One of the great figures in Western literature has passed on to the last best place. He will be sorely missed.” –Pamela Lehman Meyer From the obituary in the Missoulian by Cory Walsh December 5: “What we find in these stories, over and over again, is talk of home, lost or sought after, or in …
Despite my natural pessimism, this book broke down my defenses and set me up to root for a well-earned, conventional kind of happy ending. But then it took a turn and became an altogether different story, leaving me to sputter along with the characters, “Unfair—this is not what I was expecting.” I was crushed. And …
Sunday night marked the debut of “Lovecraft Country,” an HBO series based on Seattle author Matt Ruff‘s novel of the same title. The series is produced by a stellar team that includes Misha Green (who wrote the first episode) and Jordan Peele. Here’s the summary of the show: Based on Matt Ruff’s novel of the …
Portland author and artist Joe Sacco won a 2014 PNBA Book Award for his 244-page illustrated panorama, The Great War. This month on Lithub, he has a stunning piece about our current crisis and how it might be seen in the future. It is titled Will We One Day Honor the Veterans of the Great …
