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Happy Holidays from
Broadway Books! |
 Holiday Gift Ideas
Nothing says Happy Holidays like a big yummy new novel to sink your teeth into. Here are some of our favorites this season -- to give as gifts or to add to your own wishlist.
Besides the novels and poetry collections listed below -- and believe us, it was a challenge to narrow it down to just the ones listed -- just about every major mystery author has a new book out for the season. And we have plenty of great reads in paperback as well. Just come tell us who you're shopping for, and we'll do our best to play matchmaker with the best reads in the store.
Don't forget our extended holiday hours this month: Monday through Saturday we're open from 10 am to 9 pm, and Sundays we're open from 10 am to 7 pm. We'll close at 5 pm on Christmas Eve.
Roberta Dyer and Sally McPherson
Broadway Books
1714 NE Broadway
Portland, OR 97232
503-284-1726
bookbroads@qwestoffice.net
www.broadwaybooks.net Novels
 The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt ($30, Little Brown). Rave reviews are in for this modern Dickensian novel by the author of The Secret History and The Little Friend -- after a wait of a decade! This is a haunting odyssey through present-day America by a master writer. It has been described as "a beautiful, stay-up-all-night-and-tell-all-your-friends triumph, an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention, and the ruthless machinations of fate." Those of us at the store who have read it would concur with the stay-up-all-night-and-tell-all-your-friends part -- and we have the baggy eyes to prove it!
Sea of Hooks by Lindsay Hill ($25, McPherson & Co.) This debut novel by a Portland author was picked by Publishers Weekly as one of the Ten Best Books of 2013 and as the #1 Northwest Book of the Year by The Oregonian. We concur! A man rebuilds his understanding of himself and a childhood shattered by trauma and loss. Poetically written, contemplative and moving, as it surges through the real and imagined.
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton ($27, Little, Brown) won the 2013 Man Booker Prize. Set in the mid-19th Century gold rush town of Hokitika (New Zealand), this is a brilliantly constructed and fiendishly clever ghost story -- an 800-page feat of superb storytelling. We can't wait to see what comes next from this already accomplished young writer.  The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert ($28.95, Viking). The author of Eat, Pray, Love returns to fiction in this sweeping tale of the passions -- scientific and personal -- of early botanists. Spanning the globe and a couple of centuries, the book explores the marriage of the meticulous and scientific with the spiritual and magical. Gilbert put three years of research into this book, yet it remains a galloping page-turner. (And the cover and endpapers are beautiful!) The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan ($29.99, Harper) is the latest from the author of the well-loved novel The Joy Luck Club. She returns to the theme of mother-daughter entanglements, this time set in Shanghai bordellos, where men behave badly and it's just one Tan thing after another. Mothers, don't let your daughters grow up to be courtesans. The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri (27.95, Knopf) returns the Pulitzer-Prize-winning author to her favorite themes of family and culture. Lahiri writes evocative descriptions -- fall foliage looking like freshly ground spices -- and she is always an adept explorer of the human heart.
 The Good Lord Bird, by James McBride ($27.95, Riverhead), won the 2013 National Book Award for Fiction. Written as a reminiscence in which an old man relates the story of John Brown and Harpers Ferry as he experienced it. With meticulous detail -- history made riveting -- McBride creates a rousing adventure and exploration of identity and survival.
Carried Away: A Personal Selection of Stories by Alice Munro ($26, Everyman's Library) is a collection of stories chosen by the author, the winner of this year's Nobel Prize for Literature. Margaret Atwood says,"In Munro's work, grace abounds, but it is strangely disguised: nothing can be predicted." A wonderful collection and beautifully produced, it would make a great gift for the lover of fine fiction.
We Are Water by Wally Lamb ($29.99, Harper) is a Christmas treat for the many fans of She's Come Undone. Crazy families, sibling rivalries, changing sexual identities, casting couches, and bridal gown fun and games -- this novel has it all!
Longbourn by Jo Baker ($25.95, Knopf) is built around Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, but it's no mere homage. The fully realized characters are servants -- their loves, mysteries, and drudgery played out against the Bennet family's daily drama. "What praise is more valuable than the praise of an intelligent servant?" indeed!
Poetry
We were over-the-moon thrilled when Portland poet Mary Szybist's second collection of  poems, Incarnadine, won the National Book Award last month. Her poetry is delicate, intense, urgent, and spiritual. In a world where we are so often asked to choose sides, to believe or not believe, to embrace or reject, Incarnadine offers lyrical and brilliantly inventive alternatives.
Ask Me: 100 Essential Poems by William Stafford, edited by Kim Stafford ($16, Graywolf). Kim Stafford has edited his father's essential 100 poems to commemorate the 100th anniversary of his birth. Although the book won't be officially released until January, Broadway Books has been given special permission to sell it this month. William Stafford is one of Oregon's treasures, and this centennial is an event to celebrate!
 Dog Songs by Mary Oliver (26.95, Penguin) is a celebration of the special bond between dog and human. The poems begin in the small everyday moments that become higher meditations. An obvious choice for lovers of canines and verse, but it might be a wonderful bridge for a dog-lover who is afraid of poetry, too.
Aimless Love by Billy Collins ($26, Random House) is a collection from the poet laureate that "begins in Kansas and ends in Oz." By turns playful, ironic, and serious, Collins captures the nuances of the everyday while leading into zones of inspired wonder.
O, What a Luxury by Garrison Keillor ($20, Grove Press) is a collection of "verses lyrical, vulgar, pathetic and profound," but always witty. Keillor is the heir to Ogdon Nash. "Prairie Home" addicts will chortle all the way through this charmer.
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Help Build a Library!
Through our book drive, you can
continue to build the Roosevelt High School Library -
one book at a time
Broadway Books will give you 20% off the price of any book
you purchase for Roosevelt and/or we will add 20% to any
gift certificate you purchase for the book drive.
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