|
|
|
|
| October 9, 2014 |
Happy National Reading Group Month, Grass Roots Readers! We've got a nice display in our fiction section that features the books the Women's National Book Association (WNBA) is celebrating this year, many of which are written by women authors. Find out details on the books and the month-long reading event here.
Also, this week our shipment of the Best American Series have arrived. As you might or might not know, these are anthologies put out by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt each year featuring the best writing from writers within specific genres and forms including short stories (ed. Jennifer Egan), essays (ed. John Jeremiah Sullivan), science and nature writing (ed. Deborah Blum), and mystery (ed. Laura Lippman).
Beyond all this in bookstore developments? There's the new Marilynne Robinson, The Monsterator, and Jackson Browne to perhaps pick up copies of. . . just to name a few.
Have a great weekend,
Jenny
|
New Hardcovers
|
|
|
[Fiction]
 "We catch glimpses of the Reverend John Ames' much younger second wife, Lila, in Robinson's Pulitzer Prizewinning novel, Gilead (2004). . . We now learn Lila's astonishing story, which begins with a thunderbolt opening scene, in which an abused little girl is swept up by a strange young woman called Doll. The two roam the countryside as itinerant workers, settling down just long enough for Lila to learn to read and write. As life grows even more harrowing during the Great Depression, and Doll's dangerous secrets catch up to her, capable and strong Lila fends for herself. . . The wanderer and the minister embark on a wondrously unlikely and fitful courtship as Lila asks confounding questions about existence, belief, trust, and justice. . ." -Booklist, Starred Review
Hardcover; $26.00
Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux; ISBN: 9780374187613
|
by Diogo Mainardi, Trans. Margaret Jull Costa
[Non-Fiction]
 "A father finds his life transformed when his son is born with cerebral palsy, as illuminated through this masterfully written memoir. . . He connects everything to Tito's destiny-from the architecture that drew him to the hospital to 'Hitler's 'euthanasia' program [that] offered 'mercy killings' to those whose lives were 'worthless' or 'not worth living' ' to Neil Young's experience with two sons born with cerebral palsy and the music that resulted. . . Tito emerges as collaborator in the book--not as a cause or a type or a symbol but as a happy, well-adjusted, well-loved individual with a life well worth living. A singularly compelling memoir." -Kirkus Reviews
Hardcover; $20.00
Publisher: Other Press; ISBN: 9781590517000
|
by Paolo Giordano, Trans. Anne Milano Appel
[Fiction]
 "Giordano's fine novel tells of a group of Italian soldiers posted at the Forward Operating Base in Afghanistan. Life at FOB is nasty and brutish, a combination of bad food, boredom, and unpleasant chores. And often bad company--there's a bully, a victim, an egghead, a bright-eyed innocent, an incompetent superior, and others battling their own private wars with family, girlfriends, and just plain loneliness. When it becomes necessary to escort their Afghani truck drivers to a region 30 miles north, the company pulls together for the long and dangerous trek. . . The Human Body is a memorable entry in the literature of the Afghan war, the characters crisply drawn and the writing full of telling details." -Booklist
Hardcover; $27.95
Publisher: Pamela Dorman Books; ISBN: 9780670015641
|
"In 1843, Ada Lovelace, the daughter of Lord Byron, wrote in a letter to Charles Babbage that mathematical calculating machines would one day become general-purpose devices that link the operations of matter and the abstract mental processes, correctly predicting the rise of modern computers. Thus begins a remarkable overview of the history of computers from the man who brought us biographies of Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, and Henry Kissinger. The story is above all one of collaboration and incremental progress, which lies in contrast to our fascination with the lone inventor. Here we find that in a world dominated by men with their propensity for hardware, the first contributions to software were made by women. . ." -Booklist, Starred Review
Hardcover; $35.00
Publisher: Simon & Schuster; ISBN: 9781476708690
|
"Toibin's 10th novel offers a compelling portrait of an Irish woman for whom fate has prescribed loneliness. Widowed at 40, with four children and shaky finances, Nora rejects condolences and pity. She is so intent on making her children's lives normal that she ignores their need to mourn as well. In the wake of her husband's terminal illness, she instills fear and bewilderment in her two younger boys; they have nightmares, and one begins to stutter. The two girls, away at school, are resentful as well. Nora is sometimes obtuse about the choices she makes. She is short-tempered and sharp-tongued, and she makes significant mistakes but her frailties make her an appealing character. . ." -Publishers Weekly
Hardcover; $27.00
Publisher: Scribner Book Company; ISBN: 9781439138335
|
New Paperbacks
|
|
|
[Fiction]
 In 1866 Walter Moody comes to strike big in the New Zealand gold rush. When he stumbles upon a group of local men meeting secretly to discuss some alarming events that include a vanishing, a suicide attempt, and a mysterious stock of gold found in a luckless drunk's house, life and the gold rush quickly become complicated for Moody. Bill Roorbach of the New York Times Book Review says, "The Luminaries is a true achievement. Catton has built a lively parody of a 19th-century novel, and in so doing created a novel for the 21st, something utterly new."
Paperback; $18.00
Publisher: Back Bay Books; ISBN: 9780316074292
|
|
[Non-Fiction]
 Blending literature and memoir, Ann Patchett, author of State of Wonder, Run, and Bel Canto, examines her deepest commitments--to writing, family, friends, dogs, books, and her husband-- creating a resonant portrait of a life in This is the Story of a Happy Marriage. This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage takes us into the very real world of Ann Patchett's life. Stretching from her childhood to the present day, from a disastrous early marriage to a later happy one, it covers a multitude of topics, including relationships with family and friends, and charts the hard work and joy of writing, and the unexpected thrill of opening a bookstore.
Paperback; $15.99
Publisher: Harper Perennial; ISBN: 9780062236685
|
|
[Fiction]
 "We first meet Marie at age seven, when she's sitting on the stoop in her tight-knit, Irish-Catholic Brooklyn neighborhood, waiting for her father to come home from work. Down the street, boys play stickball, consulting with dapper Billy, their blind umpire, an injured WWI vet. Tragedies and scandals surge through the enclave, providing rough initiations into sex and death. Gabe becomes a priest. Marie works at a funeral home as a consoling angel, acquiring cryptic clues to the mysteries of life via teatime gossip sessions with the director's wise mother and a circle of wryly knowing nuns. Eventually Marie finds joy as a wife and mother, while Gabe struggles with his faith and sexuality. . ." -Booklist, Starred Review
Paperback; $15.00
Publisher: Picador USA; ISBN: 9781250055361
|
|
[Non-Fiction]
 "Lower undertook extensive archival research in European, U.S., and Israeli archives to address the 'puzzling omission' of German women in Holocaust history. In introducing readers to SS wives, Red Cross nurses, clerical workers, etc., who volunteered to head east to newly Nazi-occupied territories, she illustrates the significant role of women in perpetrating the Holocaust. . . Lower shows that the Nazi killing fields were not merely the isolated concentration camps but the occupied territories as well and that women played a large role, one that was neither punished nor subsequently studied. Perhaps that will now change." -Library Journal
Paperback; $14.95
Publisher: Mariner Books; ISBN: 9780544334496
|
|
[Non-Fiction]
 "Alexander recounted his near-death experience in his best-selling Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife, which has been optioned by Universal Pictures for an upcoming film. However, his account also unleashed quite a bit of skepticism and questioning within some scientific and rationalist communities. . . this book is the author's response to those who claim that his experience was a sham and his scientific reasoning was flawed. This time he invokes the theories of philosophers from various eras (Plato, William James, Blaise Pascal, and Lao Tzu) to make his case that consciousness is the last realm of discovery, and one that holds the key to the unification of body, mind, and spirit. . ." -Library Journal
Paperback; $16.99
Publisher: Simon & Schuster; ISBN: 9781476766409
|
New For Young Readers
|
|
 "A been-there-done-that just-try-to-impress-me boy gets his wish to 'be something screamingly scary. / Something fanged and foul and terribly hairy!' 'Master Edgar Dreadbury found Halloween a bore.' He's not interested in costumes--he seeks transformation. A mysterious machine called the MONSTERATOR-a cross between a sideshow amusement and a steampunk invention-beckons. After much rumbling, clanging and hissing, the machine disgorges Edgar, now a fearsome roaring monster. With horns, grimacing purple face, orange brows and green reptilian hands, feet and tail, he is a frightening sight-and he loves it. . ." -Kirkus Reviews
Hardcover; $17.99
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press; ISBN: 9781596438552
|
 The crew members of the Argo II are still trying to figure out what to do about the earth mother, Gaea. She IS planning a grand sacrifice in Athens, after all. With foreboding visions of battles to come at Camp Half-Blood, the demigods consider using the Athena Parthenos as a secret weapon, and so the statue will go west, while the Argo II will go east. They must arrange their plan of attack before Gaea awakens!
Hardcover; $19.99
Publisher: Disney Press; ISBN: 9781423146735
|
 "Adelina Amouteru is a walking wound. A deadly fever has ravaged her country, killing many and leaving others marked in strange and dangerous ways. Adelina is a survivor who carries two marks: once-black hair has turned silver, and her left eye is gone. Known as malfettos, those scarred by the disease are considered bad luck, even dangerous. There are rumors that some survivors have magical abilities, and after a dark confrontation with her power-hungry father, Adelina discovers that the fever may have left her with more than scars after all. Thrust into a group of rebel malfettos, the Young Elites, Adelina realizes the extent of her latent powers. . ." -Booklist, Starred Review
Hardcover; $18.99
Publisher: Putnam Publishing Group; ISBN: 9780399167836
|
New Music
|
|
Genre: Pop/Folk
Fronted by Barr brothers Andrew and Brad, this Montreal quartet adds new textures to its sophomore release. Barr Brothers' 2011 debut won accolades for their exquisite indie folk compositions, augmented here with African percussion and electric guitar.
($11.95) |
Genre: Pop/Folk
The folk rock legend's first new studio record in 6 years and his 14th album. Always politically engaging in his lyrics, his new tunes take a more personal route.
($13.95) |
Genre: Pop/Folk
Field Report is Chris Porterfield and friends. Once a bandmate with Justin Vernon and members of Megafaun, Porterfield's second record offers resonant indie folk, with lush arrangements and smart lyrics.
($12.95) |
Genre: Pop/Folk
There are few problems in the world that two banjos can't fix. Fleck and Washburn, married since 2009, are two of the most accomplished players of their generation. Their first duets record explores folk, bluegrass, jazz, and more.
($15.95) |
Genre: Pop/Folk
Shakey Graves is Texas artist Alejandro Rose-Garcia. After tireless touring and two lo-fi releases, this marks the first official Shakey Graves studio record, featuring indie Americana with contributions from Paper Bird's Esme Patterson.
($13.95) |
Genre: Pop/Folk
Trigger Hippy is a supergroup that plays bluesy Southern rock. Members include vocalists Joan Osborne and Jackie Greene, as well as instrumentalists from Black Crowes, Phil Lesh, and others.
($15.95) |
Events at Grass Roots
|
|
Saturday, October 11, at 3:00 p.m.
Grass Roots Books and Music
227 SW 2nd St.
Corvallis, OR 97333
Field Study is a window into Travis Mossotti's fieldwork over the last decade, working with his wife (a carnivore biologist), US government, university, and nonprofit organizations on data collection, animal captures/releases, and lab work for various endangered species recovery efforts all across North America--from processing kill sites with the Yellowstone Wolf Project to tracking red wolves on the eastern edge of the Outer Banks. The book engages the tradition of American naturalist writers and offers a rare in situ examination of the relationship between humans and the environments humans occupy, manipulate, destroy, and share, to greater or lesser extents.
Travis Mossotti won the 2011 May Swenson Poetry Award for his first book, About the Dead (USU Press, 2011), and Field Study won the 2013 Melissa Lanitis Gregory Poetry Prize (Bona Fide Books, 2014). Mossotti is Poet-in-Residence at the Endangered Wolf Center and a professor at Lindenwood University Belleville.
|
Drawing upon Kerry James Evans's experience in the military, Bangalore speaks from the position of a natural class warrior who came of age desperately poor in some of the most hardscrabble parts of our country. Whether highlighting a barracks argument about gays in the military or contemplating pent-up eros, the poems are experientially political in the best sense.
Kerry James Evans is the author of Bangalore (Copper Canyon Press, 2013). He earned a Ph.D. in English from Florida State University and an MFA in creative writing from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale. His poems have appeared in Agni, Narrative, New England Review, Ploughshares, and many other journals.
|
|
Jake Kaida (author) and Matthew Tavis Johnson (pianist/composer)
 Tuesday, Oct 14 at 7:00 p.m.Grass Roots Books and Music
Jake Kaida sponsors his way across the land as a farmhand, cook, organic gardener, landscape artist, writing instructor, mentor to at-risk youth and his favorite tasks-picking apples and gleaning grapes in the autumn. Blue Collar Nomad is a selected compendium of his North American travel and place-based pieces, which he composed between 23-35 years of age. These atmospheric poems, travel stories, and spiritual vignettes blend genuine working class ethics with jazzy intuitive language in order to rouse hidden emotions and knead spiritual nerves within the reader's psyche. Blue Collar Nomad explores gritty urban areas and isolated pastoral landscapes; and often presents meaningful dialogues between the author and those citizens who have been misplaced or forgotten by mainstream society.
Matthew Tavis Johnson's musical pieces evoke the emotional fluidity and changing ambiences that a nomad encounters in various locations. Matthew deftly captures the unencumbered rhythm and transitory openness that occurs during the transitional phases of traveling from place to place. This CD is the atmospheric audio accompaniment to the written work.
|
|
Pete Fromm
Sunday, October 19, at 3:00 p.m.
Grass Roots Books and Music
In If Not For This, after meeting at a boatman's bash on the Snake River, river runners Maddy and Dalt embark on a lifelong love affair. They marry on the banks of the Buffalo Fork, sure they'll live there the rest of their days. Forced by the economics of tourism to leave Wyoming, they start a new adventure, opening their own river business in Ashland, Oregon: Halfmoon Whitewater. They prosper there, leading rafting trips and guiding fishermen into the wilds of Mongolia and Russia. But when Maddy, laid low by dizzy spells, with a mono that isn't quite mono, both discovers she is pregnant and is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, they realize their adventure is just beginning.
Pete Fromm is a four-time winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Literary Award for the novels As Cool As I Am and How All This Started, a story collection, Dry Rain, and a memoir, Indian Creek Chronicles. A core faculty member at Pacific University's Low Residency MFA Program, he has a degree in wildlife biology from the University of Montana and worked for years as a river ranger in Grand Teton National Park.
|
|
Please Don't Paint Our Planet Pink
Gregg Kleiner (author), Laurel Thompson (illustrator)
 Saturday, October 25 at 3:00 p.m. Grass Roots Books and Music
In this engaging, funny, and highly timely book, a young boy whose parents named him Wilbur "in honor of that pig in Charlotte's Web" discovers the power of the human imagination and how he can tap that power to see a shade of pink he has never imagined - a pink so astonishing it just might save the Planet. With help from his "geeky dorkasaurus" Dad and a pair of bright green goggles, young Will learns all about carbon and caring, carpooling and climate change, and how learning to see "this particular pink" will help all of us keep our Planet cool.
As a visual thinker, it's no wonder that Laurel Thompson became an artist. She grew up in Oregon, exploring her fascination with art, dance, and nature. This is Laurel's first fully illustrated book, and she feels honored to be helping bring such an important story to life.
|
Tuesday, Oct 28 at 7:00 p.m.
Grass Roots Books and Music
Since 1894, the Ducks and the Beavers have squared off on the gridiron to do battle for football bragging rights in Oregon. It's a rivalry that pits family members against one another, splitting the allegiance of an entire state. Award-winning sports journalist Kerry Eggers tells the complete story of one of the most historic rivalries in college football. Through firsthand interviews with the key performers in the rivalry and extensive research in both schools' archives, Eggers offers a comprehensive account of the players, coaches and fans who have made the Civil War the state's most anticipated football game. Whether a Beaver or a Duck, this is a book no fan can do without.
Yvenson Bernard played four years in the Canadian Football League after a terrific career at Oregon State. The Boca Raton, Fla., native put together three 1,000-yard seasons as a starting tailback for the Beavers from 2005-07, becoming the No. 2 rusher in OSU history and No. 6 on the Pac-10 career list. He was a first-team All-Pac-10 selection as a junior in 2006.
|
Community Events
|
|
Darkside Show Times for 10/10-10/16
-I Am Eleven-NR The lives and thoughts of children from all around the world. It weaves together deeply personal and at times hilarious portraits of what it means to stand on the cusp between childhood and adolescence.
-Boyhood -PG-13 The life of a young man, Mason, from age 5 to age 18.
-One Chance-PG-13 The true story of Paul Potts, a shy, bullied shop assistant by day and an amateur opera singer by night who became a phenomenon after being chosen for - and ultimately winning - Britain's Got Talent.
Literary Events
-Brown Bag Art Talk and Concert: Sat, October 11, 12 p.m. - 1 p.m. Free and Open to the Public at The Arts Center located at 700 SW Madison Avenue in Corvallis, Oregon. A special Brown Bag event with classical music on string instruments by young people. Chia Hui Shen, a mother and artist living in Corvallis, draws and paints her children and their peers over and over while the kids practice their violin and cello. At this brown bag you will get a chance to see and hear some of what inspires Chia Hui Shen's art. Full info here.
-Jon Lewis film talk Monday, October 13, 2014 4:00 PM OSU Center for the Humanities 811 SW Jefferson Avenue Corvallis, OR Free; Contact: Jennifer Eaton, Contact Email: jennifer.eaton at oregonstate.edu
-MFA Reading Series New Morning Bakery, Covallis, 7:30 p.m. TONIGHT October, 9; Featuring Joy Henry, Jesse Johnson, and Kelsi Villarreal.
Opportunities
-
Plot Planning Party (NaNoWriMo) Corvallis Public Library Main Meeting Room, Saturday, October 18th, 2 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. Learn what NaNoWriMo is (and how to say it), create an outline or storyboard for your novel, name your characters, build your world, and bounce ideas off of other local writers. This is the first in a series of events celebrating National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).
-National Novel Writing Month Kick Off Party Corvallis-Benton County Public Library, Saturday, October 25, 2:00 - 3:30 p.m. A party to start National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) off right! Take this opportunity to meet other NaNoWriMo goers, get revved up about the challenge ahead, and enjoy an event with your compatriots that does not involve writing frantically for as long as you can. Writers of all ages are welcome to this event.
-Fourth Annual Fiction Contest Deadline: October 31, 2014 StoryQuarterly is accepting submissions for our Fourth Annual Fiction Contest through October 31. The winner will receive $1000, the first runner-up $500, and the third $250. All three winners will be published in StoryQuarterly 48 (January 2015). The contest will be judged by Elizabeth McCracken, author of Thunderstruck and Other Stories, An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, Niagara Falls All Over Again, The Giant's House, and Here's Your Hat What's Your Hurry. Please visit our website for full guidelines and to submit your work.
- Rose Metal Press Ninth Annual Short Short Chapbook Contest Online submission deadline: December 1, 2014 Rose Metal Press, an independent nonprofit publisher of works in hybrid genres, seeks submissions to its Ninth Annual Short Short Chapbook Contest. Please submit your 25-40 page, double-spaced manuscript of flash fiction or flash nonfiction (each story under 1,000 words) from November 1 to December 1. The winner will have his/her chapbook published in Summer 2015, with an introduction by the contest judge. $10 fee. Judge: Pamela Painter. More details here.- Hamlin Garland Award for the Short Story Online/Postmark Deadline: December 1, 2014 $2,000 and publication will be awarded to the top unpublished story on any theme Novelist David Rhodes, author of Driftless, will judge the contest. One story per entry/multiple entries OK. Maximum 7,000 words. All entrants will be considered for publication. The award may be split at the judge's discretion. Deadline Dec. 1, 2014. Visit the Beloit Fiction Journal here.
|
|
Community Events with Grass Roots
|
|
Inara Verzemnieks and Nick Dybek
Friday, October 10, 7:30 p.m.
OSU Valley Library Rotunda
Inara Verzemnieks's essays and journalism have appeared in such publications as The New York Times Magazine, Tin House, The Atlantic, and Creative Nonfiction. The recipient of a Rona Jaffe Writer's Award and the Richard J. Margolis Award of the Blue Mountain Center, she holds an MFA from the University of Iowa's Nonfiction Writing Program. Before receiving her MFA, she spent 13 years as a newspaper reporter, and was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in feature writing. Her first book, a memoir, retraces the steps of her grandmother and great-aunt in the wake of World War II, and recounts her own journey back to the remote Latvian village where her family broke apart. The memoir is forthcoming from Norton.
Nick Dybek is a graduate of the University of Michigan and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He is the author of the novel When Captain Flint Was Still a Good Man, winner of the 2013 Society of Midland Authors Award. He is also a recipient of a Granta New Voices selection, a Michener-Copernicus Society of America Award, and a Maytag Fellowship. Grass Roots will be selling books at this event.
|
Alison Hawthorne Deming (Zoologies: On Animals and the Human Spirit) and Robert Michael Pyle (Evolution of the Genus Iris)
Thursday, October 16 at 7:30 p.m.  
Corvallis Arts Center
As part of the Spring Creek Project's year-long series on "Humans and Other Wild Animals," Alison Hawthorne Deming and Robert Michael Pyle debut their new books.
Alison Deming is the author of Science and Other Poems, Temporary Homelands, The Edges of the Civilized World, finalist for the PEN Center West Award, and Writing the Sacred Into the Real. She edited Poetry of the American West: A Columbia Anthology and coedited with Lauret E. Savoy The Colors of Nature: Essays on Culture, Identity, and the Natural World.
Bob Pyle is the author of Wintergreen, The Thunder Tree, Where Bigfoot Walks, Chasing Monarchs, Walking the High Ridge, Sky Time in Gray's River, and Mariposa Road: The First Butterfly Big Year; as well as The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Butterflies, The Butterflies of Cascadia. Grass Roots will be selling books at this event. |
DJ Spooky
The Imaginary App
Friday, October 17 3:00 p.m.
Reser Stadium
660 SW 26th St. Corvallis, Oregon
Corvallis DJ Spooky shares his new book and plays his latest music. Features Noah Jenkins, violin and Mike Gamble, guitar.
Grass Roots will be selling books at this event.
|
Willamette Writers on the River
"An Evening with Brian Doyle"
Monday, October 20th 6:30-8:30 p.m.
First Presbyterian Church
114 SW 8th Street, (enter Dennis Hall at 9th & Monroe), Corvallis, Oregon
FREE to members of Willamette Writers and full-time students. Guests of Willamette Writers members pay $5. Non-members pay $10 to attend.
The event will consist of "partly a reading of my work and partly some time spent just on starts and ideas and seeds and sourdough starters and notes toward what might be pieces hatched later by members who come home and putter with their fingers in an admirably maniacal way." Please bring something to take notes on.
Doyle is the author of 14 books of essays, poems, stories, nonfiction (The Grail, about a year in an Oregon vineyard, and The Wet Engine, about the "muddles & musics of the heart"), and the sprawling novels Mink River and The Plover (April 2014). His books have seven times been finalists for the Oregon Book Award, and his essays have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, Orion, The American Scholar, The Sun, The New York Times, The Times of London, and The Age (in Australia), among other periodicals.
Honors include three Pushcart Prizes, the John Burroughs Award for Nature Essays, and the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2008.
Grass Roots will be selling books at this event.
|
Brian Doyle Reading 
October 21 at 7:30
Valley Library Tuesday
Grass Roots will be selling books at this event. |
Magic Barrel
Whiteside Theater
Friday, October 24 6:30 p.m.
$9 at the door, or what you can give
This is a literary fundraiser featuring local and regional authors and poets reading from their works to raise money for the Linn-Benton Food Share. Join them to hear stellar writers present tastes of their best work to benefit the community food bank. Readers will include Amanda Coplin, Barbara Drake, Nick Dybek, Peter Sears, and more! Complete information can he found here. Grass Roots will be selling books at this event.
|
Store News
|
|
Awards
And the Nobel Literature Prize goes to... 
French novelist Patrick Modiano. Dealing often in the currency of memory, Modiano's literature tends to explore Nazi occupied Germany and issues of identity. Read a close profile of Modiano here.
|
Cool Book!
With an introduction by Cheryl Strayed, the book allows all kinds of people to tell the story behind their tattoos, and provides lovely drawn visuals for each one. We learn about famous authors, rock musicians, and everyday people through their inked emblems. The whole concept is fascinating, making for a unique read.
Interesting Side Note: We were turned onto it by a regular customer at Grass Roots, Kriste York, who is featured within the pages!
|
Jigsaw
|
|
Reading Group Selection
|
|
|
by Deborah E. Harkness
 Join Kendall as she leads the November Book Group with A Discovery of Witches by Deborah E. Harkness.
"Diana Bishop is the last of the Bishops, a powerful family of witches, but she has refused her magic ever since her parents died and, instead, has turned to academia. When a new project takes her to Oxford, she is looking forward to several months in the Bodleian, investigating alchemical manuscripts. Her peace is soon interrupted when one of the books she finds in the library turns out to have been lost for 150 years and is wanted desperately by the witch, daemon, and vampire communitiesso desperately that many are willing to kill for it. But the very first creature to approach her after her discovery is Matthew, a very old vampire and fellow scholar, who seems only to want to protect her. . ." -Booklist, Starred Review
Regular Price: $17.00
On sale for:$14.45
Until Tuesday, November 4
Publisher: Penguin Books
ISBN: 9780143119685
|
Night Stands
|
|
Claire
Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened (Original)
by Allie Brosh
[Non-Fiction]
 The genius of Allie Brosh's comic book Hyperbole and a Half comes from her ability to make depression funny, while not at the expense of people who are depressed. Her depiction is a new way to explain difficult subjects in a relatable way. Each comic is relatable, and the visual format adds its own form of humor, as often her drawings are of herself. Her self-deprecating humor combined with stories of her dogs, her childhood, and her own mental health allow for an astonishingly funny and nuanced description of her, and others beyond her.
Paperback; $19.99
Publisher: Touchstone Books; ISBN: 9781451666175
|
Kendall
The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates
by Frans de Waal
[Non-Fiction]
 Frans de Waal has sparked my consideration of human nature more than any other writer, first with his book Our Inner Ape, and now with The Bonobo and the Athiest. De Waal uses his brilliance to thoughtfully analyze the role of morality in our society - whether it comes to us naturally, or only through religion. Through examples involving his extensive research with primates, de Waal argues that morality is innate, and not just for humans, but many society-driven animals. This book is both funny and touching at times, and consistently thought-provoking.
Paperback; $16.95
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; ISBN: 9780393347791
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
