One great perk of being a bookseller is that you get to read books before they are published. Why? So we can recommend them to you! Here are several great books coming out in the next few months that we can’t wait to have on our shelves. Go ahead and pre-order now, and make sure you are the first of your friends to say “I read that.”
Our avid reader Doug, who has been writing book blurbs for the store, definitely reads ahead. Here’s what Doug has to say about a book he knows will show up in an upcoming collection of blurbs.
Alice Hoffman (October 6)
Hoffman's new book out in October is a surprising treat. Not Doug’s usual fare—but who can resist Hoffman? Could have been the cover image on the Advanced Reader Copy, or the memory of reading and enjoying two others, Museum of Extraordinary Things and Marriage of Opposites. And then there was Jodi Picoult’s cover note, and before I knew I was halfway through and wondering what had just happened. Hoffman has the storytelling spell. She helped me suspend my disbelief as I read along, and go with the story and its subtle references to our own time. Beautiful writing no matter how you might feel about the subject!
Webmistress Andrea tries to stay current on upcoming books so she is ready to feature them on our website and social media. Here's what she has to say about two reads she knows will be prominently displayed.
Rumaan Alam (October 6)
A dystopian novel involving privilege, race and maturity. An upper-middle class White family is vacationing in a lovely country AirBnB when the owners, a wealthy Black couple, surprisingly arrive after an unknown catastrophe hits New York City. There is no power in the city, but in the country house life has a semblance of normalcy, but just barely. Prescient and disturbing.
Jess Walter (October 27)
Jess Walter’s Beautiful Ruins is one of the store’s best selling staff picks, so I know The Cold Millions will be a hit. It's a work of historical fiction set in the hard-scrabble environment of Spokane, Washington in the early years of the 20th century. With a mix of historical figures and fictional characters, I learned a lot about the growth of labor unions in the West. A story of brotherhood, love, sacrifice and betrayal.
Assistant Manager Katia also reads ahead to be ready to recommend her favorite books for you. Here is one that particularly caught her eye.
Bryan Washington (October 27)
The conversations in this book may mirror some that you have had in your own life. The silences in this book might be familiar, too. Each character is brave and cowardly in the same way we are all brave and cowardly, and that is what makes this story so delicious, and yet difficult to swallow at times. In the end, after I had finished, Memorial sat with me in a very specific way: sweet, melancholy, with a little bit of a punch.
Nora, our book buyer, reads tons of ARCs (Advanced Reader Copies in bookstore lingo). Here are two she is excited about.
Jacqueline Winspear (November 10)
Jacqueline Winspear's fond memoir This Time Next Year We'll Be Laughing is about her highly non-conformist, back-to-nature parents and upbringing in Britain--both charming and at times alarming! Should be a must-read for her fans.
Katherine May (December 1)
The Power of Rest and Retreat is a beautiful memoir of, and argument for, healing through rest and solitude. Beautifully written, May, a secular mystic, weaves elements of nature, mythology, and literature into a meditation on life, the seasons, and coping with life's pain and sorrow.
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