“These unbroken stretches of consciousness, days sometimes blurring into one another, seems just a feature of modern life, not worth complaining about,” an insomniac remarks to herself. Kim Fu’s Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century is a collection of short stories that captures the modern sense of malaise that is now more pronounced, more intense, as …
On a … whimsical note, here is Sosuke Natsukawa’s The Cat Who Saved Books, which is about a young bookseller and a talking cat. The cat has a mission, you see—a mission to rescue books from mistreatment, misappropriation, and general misuse. Naturally, the bookseller agrees to help the cat. Mysteries ensue. –A Good Book, Sumner, …
I absolutely loved this book; I read it in maybe 2 days! It’s like a hybrid of Percy Jackson and the Red Queen series, all brought together in a more modern take. The book begins with a mystery right away, then the romance, battles, and secrets pulled my interest immediately. What I really loved was …
The gorgeous writing, vivid setting, compelling characters, and engrossing story aren’t even the best parts of this novel. Instead, I just keep marveling at how Jess Walter takes events from history to illuminate our present while keeping them rooted in their own time, from the labor movement to class, race, and gender equality and civil …
Karl Marlantes once again brings us an epic that can’t be put down, this time set in the forests and on the rivers of southwest Washington, all soon to be engulfed by logging and fishing. Deep River combines the story of immigrant siblings (from Finland) and a larger Scandinavian community, the desires of families escaping …
If Miguel de Cervantes & Lewis Carroll collaborated, this would be the book. A beautifully written 16th-century fantasy that, at its core, seems all too reminiscent of today’s current atmosphere. It’s as enchanting as it is hilarious. —Stacy, King’s Books, Tacoma, WA. . . This is a tough one to describe, because as soon as …
