The perfect entry point for people new to Murata, this is my favorite of her works translated to English so far. A master of mixing the macabre with the sweet, her short stories will leave you asking questions like, is it weird to a make a table out of human femurs? Should you leave your …
Karen Maeda Allman, event coordinator and bookseller at Seattle’s Elliott Bay Book Company, was interviewed by Elaine Ikoma Ko and featured on The North American Post and Discover Nikkei. Below is an excerpt. Let’s talk about your literary life. Did you always have a keen appreciation for books growing up? I actually started out as …
For want of a nail, the shoe was lost, then the horse, then the battle, then the war, or so it has often been said. Laurent Binet’s new novel plays intriguingly with this conceit, postulating what kind of world we’d be living in today if a few tiny things had been different. In his counterfactual …
I loved this! The oddball narrator might have been irritating if I didn’t find her so relatable–her musings/fixations/insights felt like gentle personal attacks, and they often left me snorting out loud. Read, cringe, and carefully consider whether you’re a moderate or radical rice cracker company worker. It’s important, probably. –Ellen, Queen Anne Book Company, Seattle, …
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. Maybe it’s the pent-up wanderlust after a year and a half at home, but we think some of the titles of the bestsellers point to happy journeys… So, …
This tiny book embodies curiosity and quirk! This is the kind of story that makes you lean in, do a double take, and then reread the chapter. The Factory is very Kafkaesque, with reality slipping sideways before you even begin to notice. –Christina, King’s Books, Tacoma, WA Short and not at all sweet, Oyamada delves …
A bestseller in Europe, this elegant, thoughtful novel will restore your faith in humanity. In her small French village, Violette is the cemetery keeper who soothes the mourners and keeps their secrets. Abandoned by a missing husband, she builds a loyal surrogate family from others who work in the cemetery. When a stranger disturbs her …
…we’ve also got Haboo, a collection of tales from the Lushootseed-speaking peoples of the Puget Sound. Drawn from a period of oral traditions, Haboo highlights the Myth Age, a time before the world transformed. These fables feature talking animals, anthropomorphic trees, and wise old rocks, who manage to speak of the human condition without being, you know, human. …
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 …
by Cila Warncke for frugalportland.com In an era where you can read yourself blind online without spending a penny, buying books is an act of enlightened frugality. Magazines and newspapers get tossed; websites morph. Books stick around. What’s more, books slow us down. There are no hyperlinks or banner ads, nothing to whisk our mind into the …
