Booknotes - Summer 2018
Booknotes, the literary review of The Elliott Bay Book Company, is written entirely by bookstore staff. It represents a sampling of recently published and forthcoming books that we're excited to share with you.
Calling All Minds
How To Think and Create Like an Inventor
By Temple Grandin
Narrated by Ann Richardson & Temple Grandin / 4 hours 25 minutes
From world-renowned autism spokesperson, scientist, and inventor Temple Grandin -- a book of personal stories, inventions, and facts that will blow young inventors' minds and make them soar.
Have you ever wondered what makes a kite fly or a boat float? Have you ever thought about why snowflakes are symmetrical, or why golf balls have dimples?... Read More »
Bob
By Wendy Mass & Rebecca Stead
Narrated by Nora Hunter & Rob Dircks / 3 hours 2 minutes
New York Times bestselling authors Wendy Mass and Rebecca Stead, masterminds of classic middle-grade fiction, come together to craft a magical story about the enduring power of friendship.
It's been five years since Livy and her family have visited Livy's grandmother in Australia. Now that she's back, Livy has the feeling she's forgotten... Read More »
That Kind of Mother
A Novel
By Rumaan Alam
Narrated by Vanessa Johansson / 8 hours 12 minutes
NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2018 BY Buzzfeed • The Boston Globe • The Millions • InStyle • Southern Living
“With his unerring eye for nuance and unsparing sense of irony, Rumaan Alam’s second novel is both heartfelt and thought-provoking.”
— Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere
From the celebrated author of Rich and Pretty, a... Read More »
How to Love a Jamaican
Stories
By Alexia Arthurs
Narrated by Janina Edwards, Adenrele Ojo, Dominic Hoffman & James Fouhey / 7 hours 3 minutes
“In these kaleidoscopic stories of Jamaica and its diaspora we hear many voices at once: some cultivated, some simple, some wickedly funny, some deeply melancholic. All of them shine.”—Zadie Smith
“This dazzling debut marks the emergence of a knockout new voice.”—O: The Oprah Magazine
Tenderness and cruelty, loyalty and betrayal, ambition and... Read More »
Lost Empress
A Novel
By Sergio De La Pava
Narrated by Edoardo Ballerini & Full Cast / 19 hours 7 minutes
From the acclaimed PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize-winning author of A Naked Singularity, a shockingly hilarious novel that tackles, with equal aplomb, both America’s most popular sport and its criminal justice system
From Paterson, New Jersey, to Rikers Island to the streets of New York City, Sergio de la Pava’s Lost Empress introduces readers to a... Read More »
So Lucky
A Novel
By Nicola Griffith
Narrated by Nicola Griffith / 4 hours 51 minutes
From the author of Hild, a fierce and urgent autobiographical audiobook about a woman facing down a formidable foe
So Lucky is the sharp, surprising new audiobook by Nicola Griffith—the profoundly personal and emphatically political story of a confident woman forced to confront an unnerving new reality when in the space of a single week her wife... Read More »
Florida
By Lauren Groff
Narrated by Lauren Groff / 7 hours 59 minutes
Florida
“After wowing readers (former President Barack Obama included) with 2015’s Fates and Furies, Lauren Groff returns with a collection of stories just as wise and meticulously constructed. Within the sun-kissed, palmetto-strewn swampland of Groff’s Florida, we encounter a pair of abandoned sisters, anxious mothers, and a woman being pushed to the edge. Looking inward and out, Groff examines the lives of her characters with a surveyor’s eye, capturing the sense of dread and desire that pervades their existence. Floridais an exploration of time and place, both sensual and terrifying, and seems to me both timely and timeless.”
Uriel Perez, BookPeople
The Map of Salt and Stars
By Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar
Narrated by Lara Sawalha / 12 hours 17 minutes
The Map of Salt and Stars
“The two intertwining stories--one an ancient folk tale, one a story set in modern day Syria, and both featuring a young girl not yet come of age as the protagonist and hero of her own adventure--is brilliantly performed by Lara Sawalha. I was captivated from the first but both the rich stories and the gorgeous telling of them.”
Kris, Left Bank Books
The Incendiaries
A Novel
By R. O. Kwon
Narrated by Keong Sim / 5 hours 11 minutes
The Incendiaries
“R.O. Kwon’s debut knocked me sideways. The Incendiaries is a serious reckoning with the problem of fanaticism and the violence of blind devotion. The story of Will and Phoebe is told with an extraordinarily smart and soulful style. I was amazed at how perfectly Kwon’s spare language fit her novel’s expansive scope. A stunning portrait of what faith can do and undo, The Incendiaries will delight and disturb. But, most of all, it will impress.”
John Francisconi, Bank Square Books
The Great Believers
By Rebecca Makkai
Narrated by Michael Crouch / 18 hours 16 minutes
The Great Believers
“This flawlessly written and lovingly told story weaves the immediate toll AIDS took on the Chicago gay community in the 80's with the longterm impact on survivors and their families. Makkai threads it all compellingly together with art world intrigue and institutional drama. I don't want to diminish it in any way with comparisons, but The Great Believers brought to my mind several of my favorite contemporary novels: A Little Life, Three Junes, and The Goldfinch. Rebecca Makkai, in my opinion, has launched herself into a whole new category of literary achievement with this, her third novel.”
Becky Dayton, The Vermont Book Shop
My Year of Rest and Relaxation
By Ottessa Moshfegh
Narrated by Julia Whelan / 7 hours 14 minutes
My Year of Rest and Relaxation
“At first, My Year of Rest and Relaxation feels like the end of something, like a novel about the end of someone’s life. But Moshfegh has a way of affirming life unlike any other author. Repercussions of grief, emotional exhaustion, and the general anchors of life hurl a young woman into the warm embrace of the idea of hibernating for a year. Of course, this cannot be so simply done. In true Moshfegh fashion, this journey is brimming with laconic humor, her brand of ne’er-do-wells, and ample substance intake, which all lead to one of the most existentially satisfying reads in recent memory. ”
Convenience Store Woman
By Sayaka Murata & Ginny Tapley Takemori
Narrated by Nancy Wu / 3 hours 21 minutes
Keiko Furukura had always been considered a strange child, and her parents always worried how she would get on in the real world. So when she takes a job in a convenience store while at the university, they are delighted. For her part, she finds a predictable world in the convenience store, mandated by the store manual, which dictates how the... Read More »
Welcome to Lagos
A Novel
By Chibundu Onuzo
Narrated by Robin Miles / 9 hours 23 minutes
When army officer Chike Ameobi is ordered to kill innocent civilians, he knows it is time to desert his post. As he travels toward Lagos with Yemi, his junior officer, and into the heart of a political scandal involving Nigeria's education minister, Chike becomes the leader of a new platoon, a band of runaways who share his desire for a... Read More »
There There
A novel
By Tommy Orange
Narrated by Darrell Dennis, Shaun Taylor-Corbett, Alma Cuervo & Kyla Garcia / 7 hours 59 minutes
There There
“There There is the kind of book that grabs you from the start and doesn’t let go, even after you’ve turned the last page. It is a work of fiction, but every word of it feels true. Tommy Orange writes with a palpable anger and pain, telling the history of a cultural trauma handed down through generations in the blood and bones and stories of individual lives. He also writes with incredible heart and humor, infusing his characters with a tangible humanity and moments of joy even as they are headed toward tragedy. There There has claimed a permanent spot in my heart despite having broken it, or maybe because it did. I think this may be the best book I’ve ever read.”
Heather Weldon, Changing Hands
Confessions of the Fox
A Novel
By Jordy Rosenberg
Narrated by Aden Hakimi / 10 hours 12 minutes
Recently jilted and increasingly unhinged, Dr. Voth throws himself into his work, obsessively researching the life of Jack Sheppard, a legendary eighteenth century thief. No one knows Jack's true story—his confessions have never been found. That is, until Dr. Voth discovers a mysterious stack of papers titled Confessions of the Fox. Dated 1724,... Read More »
The Book of Essie
A novel
By Meghan MacLean Weir
Narrated by Robbie Daymond, Tara Sands & Erin Spencer / 11 hours 3 minutes
The Book of Essie
“The Book of Essie is a captivating debut. The original plot moves at lightning speed while giving the reader characters to hang on to, care for, and sympathize with. The novel focuses on 16-year-old Essie Hicks, a star on a reality TV show following her preacher father and her ultra-religious, conservative family. When Essie finds out she is pregnant, she must protect herself and her future in the face of public scorn. I couldn’t stop turning the pages to see what would happen to Essie and Roarke, the boy Essie’s mother has decided she will marry in a primetime, live-televised wedding. Weir proves herself to be a brilliant new talent with a sensitive but unflinching take on child exploitation and life in the public eye. A must-read! ”
Liv Stratman, Theresa Case
Atlas of a Lost World
Travels in Ice Age America
By Craig Childs
Narrated by Craig Childs / 9 hours 10 minutes
From the author of Apocalyptic Planet comes a vivid travelogue through prehistory, that traces the arrival of the first people in North America at least twenty thousand years ago and the artifacts that tell of their lives and fates.In Atlas of a Lost World, Craig Childs upends our notions of where these people came from and who they were. How... Read More »
Tyrant
Shakespeare on Politics
By Stephen Greenblatt
Narrated by Edoardo Ballerini / 5 hours 26 minutes
World-renowned Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblatt explores the playwright's insight into bad (and often mad) rulers. As an aging, tenacious Elizabeth I clung to power, a talented playwright probed the social causes, the psychological roots, and the twisted consequences of tyranny. In exploring the psyche (and psychoses) of the likes of... Read More »
Barracoon
The Story of the Last "Black Cargo"
By Zora Neale Hurston
Narrated by Robin Miles / 3 hours 49 minutes
A major literary event: a never-before-published work from the author of the American classic Their Eyes Were Watching God that brilliantly illuminates the horror and injustices of slavery as it tells the true story of one of the last known survivors of the Atlantic slave trade—abducted from Africa on the last "Black Cargo" ship to arrive in the... Read More »
The Death of Truth
Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump
By Michiko Kakutani
Narrated by Tavia Gilbert / 3 hours 45 minutes
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
NEW YORK TIMES Editors' Choice
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic comes an impassioned critique of America’s retreat from reason
We live in a time when the very idea of objective truth is mocked and discounted by the occupants of the White House. Discredited conspiracy theories and ideologies have resurfaced, proven... Read More »