On the evening of Thursday, October 14, join us for extended shopping hours and, at 7:00 pm, help us welcome John Vaillant, author of a non-fiction account of a Siberian tiger and the team that is tracking him.

In December 1997, in a remote Russian village, trackers realize that seemingly random killings by the tiger are, in fact, being methodically carried out by this highly intelligent super-predator.  They must find the tiger before he strikes again.

In his book, Vaillant explores the relationships between this now-endangered animal and the historic native tribes, Russian settlers, and present-day poachers who hunt it.  In retelling the narrative events of December 1997, Vaillant creates main characters - a poacher, the lead tracker, and the tiger itself.

A resident of Vancouver, Vaillant is also the author of The Golden Spruce. He has written for The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Outside, National Geographic Adventure, and Men's Journal, among others.

Join us as John Vaillant reads from The Tiger, takes questions, and signs.

"When she decides to auction her remarkable jewelry collection, Nina Revskaya, once a great star of the Bolshoi Ballet, believes she has finally drawn a curtain on her past. Instead, the former ballerina finds herself overwhelmed by memories of her homeland and of the events, both glorious and heartbreaking, that changed the course of her life half a century ago."

 

Moving between Stalinist Russian and present-day Boston, Kalotay takes the reader seamlessly from one storyline to the other, doling out pieces of Nina's history in a captivating narrative that captures the emotions of the time - fear of doing or saying something that might be misinterpreted, pride in performing and boosting morale, and moments of pure happiness, free of political implications.

 

Alternating with the story of Nina's life in Russia is the present-day story of the jewelry auction and all the excitement and intrigue that surround it.  A particular suite of amber jewels has raised interest with Drew, the auction house associate who is overseeing Nina's project; the interest is is heightened when an anonymous donor adds another piece he believes may be part of the same collection.

 

In an effort to create a personal background story that will "wow" bidders, Drew meets with the donor, a professor of the Russian language.  Kalotay injects them with backgrounds and anecdotes, making even supposed minor players a cast of interesting characters.

 

The people, the settings, the history, and the clever layered plot make Russian Winter an enjoyable and discussable novel.  I didn't want it to end, turning the pages as I learned about daily life under Stalin, the arts in Russia, and an inside look at a contemporary auction house. 

We have signed first editions in the Bookshop - call to reserve a copy of Russian Winter, or to have one shipped.  (978) 369-2405

 

This just in ... The Finkler Question has been named the winner of the 2010 Man Booker Prize for Fiction!  We have The Finkler Question in a nice paperback edition - perfect to tuck in your tote bag.

 

Julian Treslove, a professionally unspectacular and disappointed BBC worker, and Sam Finkler, a popular Jewish philosopher, writer and television personality, are old school friends. Despite a prickly relationship and very different lives, they've never quite lost touch with each other - or with their former teacher, Libor Sevick, a Czechoslovakian always more concerned with the wider world than with exam results.

 

Now, both Libor and Finkler are recently widowed, and with Treslove, his chequered and unsuccessful record with women rendering him an honorary third widower, they dine at Libor's grand, central London apartment.

 

It's a sweetly painful evening of reminiscence in which all three remove themselves to a time before they had loved and lost; a time before they had fathered children, before the devastation of separations, before they had prized anything greatly enough to fear the loss of it. Better, perhaps, to go through life without knowing happiness at all because that way you had less to mourn? Treslove finds he has tears enough for the unbearable sadness of both his friends' losses.

 

And it's that very evening, at exactly 11:30pm, as Treslove hesitates a moment outside the window of the oldest violin dealer in the country as he walks home, that he is attacked. After this, his whole sense of who and what he is will slowly and ineluctably change.

 

The Finkler Question is a scorching story of exclusion and belonging, justice and love, aging, wisdom and humanity. Funny, furious, unflinching, this extraordinary novel shows one of our finest writers at his brilliant best.

 

Author Howard Jacobson lives in London.  His previous novels include The Act of Love,  Kalooki Nights (longlisted for the Man Booker Prize), and The Mighty Walzer (winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize).  

" ... a fascinating excursion into the history behind the place we call home."

 
How did Bill Bryson's At Home come to be?  The simplest answer is that one day, he began to consider how very little he knew about the ordinary things of life as he found it in the comfortable home he shares with his family.

 

To remedy this, he formed the idea of journeying about his house from room to room to "write a history of the world without leaving home." The bathroom provides the occasion for a history of hygiene; the bedroom, sex, death, and sleep; the kitchen, nutrition and the spice trade; and so on, as Bryson shows how each has fig­ured in the evolution of private life. Whatever happens in the world, he demonstrates, ends up in our house, in the paint and the pipes and the pillows and every item of furniture.

 

Bill Bryson has one of the liveliest, most inquisitive minds on the planet, and he is a master at turning the seemingly isolated or mundane fact into an occasion for the most diverting exposi­tion imaginable. His wit and sheer prose fluency make At Home one of the most entertaining books ever written about private life.

In Travels in Siberia, Ian Frazier trains his eye for unforgettable detail on Siberia, that vast expanse of Asiatic Russia. He explores many aspects of this storied, often grim region, which takes up one-seventh of the land on earth. He writes about the geography, the resources, the native peoples, the history, the forty-below midwinter afternoons, the bugs.

 

More than just a historical travelogue, Travels in Siberia is also an account of Russia since the end of the Soviet Union and a personal reflection on the all-around amazingness of Russia, a country that still somehow manages to be funny. Siberian travel books have been popular since the thirteenth century, when monks sent by the pope went east to find the Great Khan and wrote about their journeys. Travels in Siberia will take its place as the twenty-first century's indispensable contribution to the genre.

 

Ian Frazier, a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, lives in New Jersey. He is the author of Great Plains, The Fish's Eye, On the Rez, Family, Coyote v. Acme and Dating Your Mom.