Xiran Jay Zhao’s Young Adult novel, Iron Widow, won a 2022 PNBA Award. Now their first middle grade novel is on bookshelves, and it’s an action- and history-filled romp! Enjoy this introduction video from the author.
It’s time for a Thursday Theme, where we shine a spotlight on some of the titles featured in this week’s Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association regional bestseller list. March is Women’s History Month, so we thought we’d start the month by pointing out books with women or girls in their titles. Violeta by Isabel Allende (Hardcover Fiction #4) …
From Secret Garden Books in Seattle: Suzanne’s Author Spot: Anthony Doerr It was nearly ten years ago now, but my memory of reading for the first time ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE (Scribner, $18) is still clear. At the time, it was the pinnacle in a WWII reading binge I’d been on since LIFE …
Tupac Shakur’s poetry collection, The Rose that Grew from Concrete, and the safety of a diary were my entries into becoming a writer. For the entirety of middle school and the first half of high school, I was the kid who came into class late while cracking jokes or quips and sat in the back …
The cathartic power of righteous anger is usually overlooked, but not this book! This book is all about righteous anger. One young woman is born with a coveted power, and with that power she works to avenge not only her sister, but also all young women who are being sacrificed in the dystopia she lives …
Iron Widow is a book born from female rage. I often pitch it as “Pacific Rim” meets The Handmaid’s Tale because those are two properties familiar to Western audiences, but in truth, I was more inspired by Japanese mecha anime and Chinese harem dramas. The gilded palaces of Imperial China, where thousands of women must …
By the time he was twenty-nine, Charles Darwin had puzzled his way toward two-thirds of his theory of natural selection. He understood that plants and animals passed traits (hair color, say, or beak shape, or flower scent) down to their offspring. And he understood that those traits were not passed down perfectly. We resemble our …
Unfollow Me: Essays on Complicity is a memoir in essays about identity, hierarchy, and the illusion of being right. It is a book about a hard fall from a high horse, the trouble with attempting to hear yourself in an echo chamber, and the pursuit of honesty over agreement. It is a book intended to …
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 …
