The Bookshop of Dust and Dreams is at the top of my bucket list of great bookstores. In this magical shop people from different times walk in the door to find the book they need and be nourished by the magic of the shop. Flowers bloom, messages appear on the chalkboard, and everyone feels loved …
WWII holds so many stories, and I often feel that surely we have seen them all. But we haven’t. Paper Bullets draws you into the lives of Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe, artists, lesbians, and resistance fighters. Schwob and Malherbe, avant-garde artists, turn their creativity to antiwar propaganda on the Island of Jersey during the …
The Daughters of Yalta is a wonderful companion to Eric Larson’s The Splendid and the Vile, which topped two of our booksellers’ Best Of lists last year. Catherine Grace Katz’s debut book will satisfy the appetite of any reader who is hungry to know more about the unique connection between the Churchills and the Harrimans. Katz also …
Seattle author Daniel James Brown autographed copies of his latest book, Facing the Mountain, for Elliot Bay Book Company in Seattle in preparation for his launch event with the bookstore and nonprofit Denshō on May 11. No one puts heart into history quite like Brown. Fans of The Boys in the Boat will appreciate how he again …
There is just something about history that draws me in, and this novel was no different. I have read many books about World War II, but I especially loved this one as it focused on three women codebreakers at Bletchley Park. The Rose Code deals with two time periods, the first starting 1940 and the …
WOW! I just completed Cilka’s Journey by Heather Morris, her second book. It was as mindboggling as The Tattooist of Auschwitz, her first. The story is true but the author did not meet her subject. The story is based on interviews with Lale Sokolov, the subject of her first book, plus extensive research into the …
My Soul is Filled with Joy: A Holocaust Story by Seattle author Karen I. Treiger received the bronze medal award from The Independent Publishers Book Award (IPPY) in the category of World History. “Conducted annually, the Independent Publisher Book Awards honor the year’s best independently published titles from around the world. The awards are intended …
From my first encounter with Sharma Shields’ work, I was awed by her gifts with character, plot, mythology, and the most meaningful expressions of the human condition. From her Autumn House Award winning collection of stories, Favorite Monster, to the psychological devastation of the inner life revealed in The Sasquatch Hunter’s Almanac, and now to …
In a year full of weighty political tomes, each grimmer than the last, I find myself in need of inspiration more than information. The Faithful Spy is both a salve for the weary soul and a much needed encouragement to brave action in dark times. In this slim volume, John Hendrix chronicles Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s life, …
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 …
