You are here
Back to topStaff Picks
These are a few of the books we have recently read and would encourage you to check them out!
Louise Erdrich's latest novel, The Sentence, asks what we owe to the living, the dead, to the reader and to the book. A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store's most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls' Day, but she simply won't leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading with murderous attention, must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation, and furious reckoning.
In a series of essays, the beloved novelist opens the door and invites you into her world. As she herself is aware, Patchett has a gift for friendship--never clearer than in the magical and heartbreaking title essay, which made the rounds from friend to friend by way of texted links when originally published in Harper's during the pandemic. (If you haven't read it yet, get ready for Tom Hanks, Kundalini yoga, cancer treatment, and a profound yearning to be a guest in Patchett's Nashville home.) Like
As a panicked world goes into lockdown, Lucy Barton is uprooted from her life in Manhattan and bundled away to a small town in Maine by her ex-husband and longtime friend, William. For the next several months, it's just Lucy, William, and their complex past together in a little house nestled against the moody, swirling sea. They will not emerge unscathed"-
The teenage son of an Appalachian single mother who dies when he is eleven uses his good looks, wit, and instincts to survive foster care, child labor, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses.
In a peaceful retirement village, four unlikely friends meet weekly in the Jigsaw Room to discuss unsolved crimes; together they call themselves the Thursday Murder Club. When a local developer is found dead with a mysterious photograph left next to the body, the Thursday Murder Club suddenly find themselves in the middle of their first live case.
As the bodies begin to pile up, can our unorthodox but brilliant gang catch the killer, before it's too late?
Biloxi was known for its beaches, resorts, and seafood industry. But it had a darker side. It was also notorious for corruption and vice, everything from gambling, prostitution, bootleg liquor, and drugs to contract killings.
"The long-awaited conclusion to the beloved New York Times bestselling and "engrossing" (People) Beartown series--which inspired an HBO series of the same name--follows the small hockey town's residents as they grapple with change, pain, hope, and redemption."--
"Several years before he died in 2008, Paul Newman commissioned his best friend to interview actors and directors he worked with, his friends, his children, his first wife, his psychiatrist, and Joanne Woodward, to create an oral history of his life. After hearing and reading what others said about him, Newman then dictated his own version of his life. Now this long-lost memoir--90% Newman's own narrative, interspersed with wonderful stories and recollections by his family, friends, and such luminaries as Elia Kazan, Tom Cruise, George Roy Hill, Martin Ritt--will be published"--
Email or call for price
Four septuagenarian sleuths, an ex-KGB agent and a Swedish assassin combine for a rollicking good time in The Bullet that Missed by Richard Osman (The Man Who Died Twice; The Thursday Murder Club). The residents of Coopers Chase, a luxurious English retirement village, now have several solved crimes under their belts. But Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron have not yet sour septuagenarian sleuths, an ex-KGB agent and a Swedish assassin combine for a rollicking good time in The Bullet that Missed by Richard Osman (The Man Who Died Twice; The Thursday Murder Club). The residents of Coopers Chase, a luxurious English retirement village, now have several solved crimes under their belts. But Elizabeth, Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron have not yet sated their curiosity, so at a Thursday Murder Club meeting they decide that they're going to investigate a cold case: the death of journalist Bethany Waites.
"Lily hasn't always had it easy, but that's never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. She's come a long way from the small town in Maine where she grew up--she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business. So when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily's life suddenly seems almost too good to be true ... But Ryle's complete aversion to relationships is disturbing. Even as Lily finds herself becoming the exception to his 'no dating' rule, she can't help but wonder what made him that way in the first place"--
"When Cozy the musk ox has a clever idea for how to save a trapped friend, his brave efforts help win the heart of the one he admires most"--
"Wampanoag children listen as their grandmother tells them the story about how Weeãachumun (the wise Corn) asked local Native Americans to show the newcomers how to grow food to yield a good harvest--Keepunumuk--in 1621"--
"The Sour Grape holds grudges for every reason under the sun. Lime never returned a scarf they borrowed? Grudge! Orange never called back? Grudge! But when a friend holds a grudge against the Sour Grape without listening to an explanation, the Sour Grape realizes how unfair grudges can be. Could a bunch of forgiveness and compassion be enough to turn a sour grape sweet?"--
High fantasy, low stakes just about sums up this delightfully cozy read. All the wonder of a fantasy novel with none of the stress inducing suspense. The only adrenaline comes from the coffee served at Viv's new cafe Legends and Lattes.
Perfect for any fan of fantasy or coffe.
From a historian and senior writer and editor at Atlas Obscura, a fascinating account of the daring nineteenth-century women who moved to South Dakota to divorce their husbands and start living on their own terms
A retired pirate captain has to leave her home and family for one last adventure in order to keep both safe. Along the way she battles monsters both supernatural and human.
A riveting tale of a mother's determination to get back to her daughter,