Third Place Books - staff picks https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/category/blog-tags/staff-picks en 2018 Bookseller Top 20 https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/blog/2018-bookseller-top-20 <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Around the start of the year&nbsp;I usually post each&nbsp;of our bookseller's top ten favorite books from&nbsp;the previous year. Unfortunately, due to a series of unforeseen events it just didn't happen this year. Oh, I solicited their lists&nbsp;and I had a lovely time reading through them. The actual posting of said lists...not so much. But I didn't want to leave you, or them, completely&nbsp;empty handed, so I compiled all the lists&nbsp;and came up with a top 20 list of our favorite books across all three stores. This list of our 21 favorite books (there were a lot of ties) aren't in any particular order. Given the smallness of our staff and our diverse reading tastes, it's difficult to have any real runaway breakout favorites. The 21 titles below represent books that several of us read and loved this year. I hope you'll scroll through the list, and then come&nbsp;by your nearest Third Place Books to&nbsp;ask your favorite bookseller for the rest of their 2018 top ten list.</p> <p><a href="https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9780735219441"><strong><em>The Friend</em></strong></a> by Sigrid Nunez&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /> <a href="https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9780062662804"><strong><em>Poet X</em></strong></a> by Elizabeth Acevedo&nbsp;&nbsp;<br /> <a href="https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9780525552963"><strong><em>Darius the Great is Not Okay</em></strong></a> by Adib Khorram&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /> <a href="https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9781501192555"><strong><em>Ocean of Minutes</em></strong></a> by Thea Lim&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /> <a href="https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9780316556347"><strong><em>Circe</em></strong></a> by Madeline Miller&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /> <a href="https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9780399252525"><strong><em>Harbor Me</em></strong></a> by Jacqueline Woodson&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /> <a href="https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9781538713297"><strong><em>I Might Regret This</em></strong></a> by Abbi Jacobson&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /> <a href="https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9780525521426"><strong><em>Washington Black</em></strong></a> by Esi Edugyan&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /> <a href="https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9780385542869"><strong><em>Rising Out of Hatred</em></strong></a> by Eli Saslow&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /> <a href="https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9780399180989"><strong><em>Spinning Silver</em></strong></a> by Naomi Novak&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /> <a href="https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9781328764522"><strong><em>How to Write an Autobiographical Novel</em></strong></a> by Alexander Chee&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /> <a href="https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9781619023345"><strong><em>Heart Berries</em></strong></a> by Terese Marie Mailhot&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /> <a href="https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9780735217713"><strong><em>The Line Becomes a River</em></strong></a> by Francisco Cantu&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /> <a href="https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9781555978266"><strong><em>Everything Under</em></strong></a> by Daisy Johnson&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /> <a href="https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9781534304772"><strong><em>Moonstruck Vol 1</em></strong></a> by Grace Ellis&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /> <a href="https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9781626723634"><strong><em>The Prince and the Dressmaker</em></strong></a> by Jen Wang&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /> <a href="https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9781250170972"><strong><em>Children of Blood and Bone</em></strong></a> by Tomi Adeyemi&nbsp;<br /> <a href="https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9781580056779"><strong><em>So You Want to Talk About Race</em></strong></a> by Ijeoma Oluo&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /> <a href="https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9780525520375"><strong><em>There, There</em></strong></a> by Tommy Orange&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /> <a href="http://So Lucky"><strong><em>So Lucky</em></strong></a> by Nicola Griffith&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;<br /> <a href="https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9780062319784"><strong><em>I'll Be Gone in the Dark</em></strong></a> by Michelle McNamara&nbsp;</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-blog-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/blog-tags/top-tens">Top Tens</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/blog-tags/staff-picks">staff picks</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/blog-tags/booklists">booklists</a></div></div></div> Mon, 28 Jan 2019 03:00:44 +0000 Erin 41863 at https://www.thirdplacebooks.com The 20 https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/blog/20 <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p class="rtejustify"><span style="font-size:16px;"><img alt="" src="/sites/thirdplacebooks.com/files/20th%20Logo.PNG" style="width: 209px; height: 300px; float: left;" />2018 marks Third Place Books' 20th anniversary. That's 20 years of author events, 20 years of hosting book clubs, 20 years of selling you your new favorite books. It's been a joy to be here in Lake Forest Park, Ravenna, and now our newest location, Seward Park.</span></p> <p class="rtejustify"><span style="font-size:16px;">For as long as we've been around, we've collected quite the cadre of booksellers. But what you may not realize... bookselling has been a lifelong career for many of us. Not only are books&nbsp;our hobby, they're also our job. Doing a very rough calculation, our booksellers have an average of 13 years experience. Of course all that time spent around books is bound to give us some opinions. And let me tell you, those opinions are strong. A list of our collective 20 favorite books would be impossible. Just out&nbsp;of the question. Instead, I'm giving everyone the chance to make their own list.&nbsp;</span></p> <p class="rtejustify"><span style="font-size:16px;">Throughout the next several months, the Lake Forest Park store will be featuring <strong>The 20</strong>. Each bookseller will have the chance to select and display<img alt="" src="/sites/thirdplacebooks.com/files/20180603_191654.jpg" style="width: 281px; height: 375px; float: right;" /> 20 books. I'm&nbsp;talking 20 books that changed their lives, their 20 absolute favorites, the 20 books they could read over and over again. You might think 20 books is a big list to come up with, but more that one bookseller has expressed very real&nbsp;anguish at having to narrow down their selections.</span></p> <p class="rtejustify"><span style="font-size:16px;">Come in and check out our display, designed to look like the bookshelves&nbsp;we have at home, complete with spined out titles, and bookshelf ephemera. Each bookseller's 20 books will also be 20% off while&nbsp;featured.</span></p> <p class="rtejustify"><span style="font-size:16px;">This is just the beginning of the 20th Anniversary celebration. Stay tuned for more features and events. And thanks to all of you for these 20 amazing years!</span></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-blog-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/blog-tags/20th-anniversary">20th Anniversary</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/blog-tags/staff-picks">staff picks</a></div></div></div> Sun, 03 Jun 2018 16:58:00 +0000 Erin 36853 at https://www.thirdplacebooks.com My Favorite Book : Tinkers https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/blog/my-favorite-book-tinkers <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><span style="font-size:16px;">As I am getting to awkwardly know someone I love to ask what their favorite book is. But having worked here I learned that my fellow booksellers hate being asked that question. I usually get one of three responses:&nbsp;</span></p> <ol> <li><span style="font-size:16px;">I am given a look that is the equivalent to “????”.</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:16px;">Or, I get the incredibly specific favorite. “Well, I would have to say my favorite Victorian era novel published in the year 1847 with a character named Mr. Rochester, would have to be…… Jane Eyre for sure.”</span></li> <li><span style="font-size:16px;">Most of the time they just flat out ignore me, because, you know, it's obviously impossible to answer.</span></li> </ol> <p><span style="font-size:16px;">I understand though. For a really long time I never had a favorite book and loathed being asked. Like most people, reading for me was a way of escapism. I was a very Matilda type of kid (including the telepathy) but I never had a favorite until I was 20.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;">Like most juniors in college I was experiencing a real slump. I had just returned to Fairbanks, Alaska (a place I hated) after a real bummer of a sophomore year in Anchorage. Everything about trying to do any sort of schooling in Alaska is the worst. It’s dark and always freezing, your car is constantly breaking down, and classes are never, ever, ever canceled, not even for freezing rain. It's&nbsp;a real recipe for a mental breakdown.&nbsp;</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;">The only thing getting me through it was my best friend Jonathan. We had met a few years earlier in an art history class and bonded over our mutual hatred for Banksy. The best word to describe Jonathan is simply “kind”. He had had an especially difficult life, but he tried really hard to see the good in all of it. A trait I hoped one day I would learn. There was something about our friendship that just clicked. We understood each other in a way that couldn't be explained. We could be around each other for hours and not ever say a word. It was like we were each others' therapy pets. The year prior he had broken his wrist shielding me from overly excited nerf welding students participating in a game of zombies vs. humans. Another thing we bonded over hating.&nbsp;</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;"><img alt="" src="https://images.booksense.com/images/123/137/9781934137123.jpg" style="width: 286px; height: 400px; float: left;" />That spring, for some unfathomable reason, Jonathan and I decided to sign up for an 8 AM literature class. We stupidly figured all we'd have to do was show up and stay awake and we'd be golden. But to our surprise, the professor was hands down the coolest person we had ever met in our lives. He looked like he either played the banjo or was a werewolf. He was always walking into the room like he was mid-conversation, swinging open the door and with a sashay of his hips would immediately go to the black board. Using his whole body he would write a single discussion question that would take up the entire class. One time he was able to use a block of cheese as a metaphor for Hamlet. I loved just about every book we discussed in that class, but the last one we read, <a href="https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9781934137123"><em><strong>Tinkers</strong></em></a> by Paul Harding, quickly became my favorite.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;">Tinkers &nbsp;is a profoundly moving meditation on death and time. It begins with an old man, George Crosby, in the process of dying. &nbsp;As he drifts in and out of consciousness he thinks of his childhood in Maine, and as his time winds down, his memories intertwine with those of his epeleptic father and his grandfather, a crazed Methodist preacher. It's a beautiful, heartbreaking book. Before I wrote my final paper, I had read <em>Tinkers</em> four times. Most times it reads more like an epic poem than a novel, and that’s what I loved most about it.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;">Jonathan and I fell madly in love with that book and like a bunch of nerds we carried our copies in our back pockets. Just in case the opportunity rose to talk about it and we needed to reference it, or to force some unsuspecting victim to listen to us read from it. We spent countless hours after class with Professor Banjo-Werewolf in the pub getting overly ecstatic about the language. “Howard, by accident of birth, tasted the raw stuff of the cosmos.” (pg 47) Never have I ever read about a seizure sounding so beautiful before.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;">When the time came for our&nbsp;meetings with Professor Banjo-Werewolf to discuss our final paper, I was officially obsessed and brought note cards full of my favorite passages and discussion questions. As if we hadn't been spending the last couple of weeks talking about it outside of class. I had misplaced&nbsp;my own copy just days prior; lost forever in the black hole that was the art studio. I was devastated. At the time we only had one bookstore in Fairbanks. A favorite haunting of mine, but it was a used bookstore and ordering a new book usually took weeks. Besides, a new copy would be just that, new. When I mentioned this to Prof. Werewolf he pulled his own tattered copy from his bag and handed it over to me. I loved this copy dearly. Jonathan and I would spend hours flipping through it, discovering questions and theories and notes written in the margins. And occasionally we would find love notes from a woman named Gwen. He had several passages highlighted with the words “MUST READ OUT LOUD” written next to it, and that summer we did. We would take it hiking and camping with us. Take it up to the mountains and yell it from the rocky tops, our voices echoing around us.&nbsp;</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;">And then Jonathan died that fall. Unexpected and heartbreaking. At his memorial I pulled out <em>Tinkers</em> and read his favorite passage to a crowd of unfamiliar faces, “be comforted in the fact that the ache in your heart and the confusion in your soul means that you are still alive, still human, and still open to the beauty of the world, even though you have done nothing to deserve it.”&nbsp;</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;">It seemed fitting.<img alt="" src="/sites/thirdplacebooks.com/files/steve-halama-266139-unsplash.jpg" style="float: right; width: 293px; height: 400px;" /></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;">A couple of years later when I packed a duffel and a backpack and moved over 2000 miles to Seattle, I made sure two of the three books I brought&nbsp;with me were <em>Tinkers</em>: Prof. Banjo's copy, and the other, Jonathan's.&nbsp;</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;">Professor Banjo's class made me a stronger and better reader, but <em>Tinkers</em> taught me the joy of sharing the love of a book with someone. <em>Tinkers</em> helps me remember that last year together as something a lot less tragic. It is more than just a novel to me, it's a way to live through those memories. &nbsp;As I flip through and read random passages, I remember laughing at Jonathan trying to impress Prof. Banjo at the pub. I can hear the familiar groan from our friends as we to once again randomly started quoting the book. And I can almost feel the breeze of the hot summer air as we yelled “IT DOESN'T STOP, IT SIMPLY ENDS”!!!! &nbsp;to the trees below us, our hands cupped around our mouths, our books heavy in our back pockets.</span></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-blog-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/blog-tags/staff-stories">Staff Stories</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/blog-tags/staff-picks">staff picks</a></div></div></div> Mon, 26 Feb 2018 02:49:12 +0000 Erin 35722 at https://www.thirdplacebooks.com Read This Book https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/blog/read-book-0 <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><span style="font-size:20px;"><a href="https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9780525520221"><em><strong>I Am, I Am, I Am</strong></em></a> by Maggie O'Farrell</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;">A drowning. A birth. A conversation with a killer. These are all moments when O'Farrell's story could have ended.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;">When I was nine I had my on brush with death. I'd lingered too long chatting with my bus driver, and the man behind the bus got impatient. Just as I went to step off, a blur&nbsp;of red, a rush of air sweeping my hair to the side. The bus driver was furious, but I was perplexed. As O'Farrell's memoir unfurled with lyrical anecdotes of her possible demises, I couldn't help but relive mine as well. Death is never far, but sometimes we slip its grasp for a moment, safe until our next encounter.&nbsp; -Ashley</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;">Check out NPR's <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/02/05/583333064/after-17-brushes-with-death-a-writer-reflects-on-coming-back-from-the-brink">interview</a> with the author.&nbsp;</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;"><img alt="" src="https://images.booksense.com/images/221/520/9780525520221.jpg" style="width: 265px; height: 400px; float: left;" /></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;"><em>We are never closer to life than when we brush up against the possibility of death. </em></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;">I Am, I Am, I Am<em> is Maggie O'Farrell's astonishing memoir of the near-death experiences that have punctuated and defined her life. The childhood illness that left her bedridden for a year, which she was not expected to survive. A teenage yearning to escape that nearly ended in disaster. An encounter with a disturbed man on a remote path. And, most terrifying of all, an ongoing, daily struggle to protect her daughter--for whom this book was written--from a condition that leaves her unimaginably vulnerable to life's myriad dangers.</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;"><em>Seventeen discrete encounters with Maggie at different ages, in different locations, reveal a whole life in a series of tense, visceral snapshots. In taut prose that vibrates with electricity and restrained emotion, O'Farrell captures the perils running just beneath the surface, and illuminates the preciousness, beauty, and mysteries of life itself.</em></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;"><em>Born in Northern Ireland in 1972, Maggie O'Farrell grew up in Wales and Scotland and now lives in London. She has worked as a waitress, chambermaid, bike messenger, teacher, arts administrator, and journalist in Hong Kong and London, and as the deputy literary editor of The Independent on Sunday. Her debut novel, </em>After You'd Gone<em> (2000) won a Betty Trask Award and was followed by </em>My Lover's Lover<em> (2002); </em>The Distance Between Us<em> (2004), winner of a Somerset Maugham Award; </em>The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox<em> (2006); </em>The Hand That First Held Mine<em> (2010), winner of the Costa Novel Award; </em>Instructions for a Heatwave<em> (2013), and, most recently, </em>This Must Be the Place<em> (2016).</em></span></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-blog-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/blog-tags/read-book">Read This Book</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/blog-tags/staff-picks">staff picks</a></div></div></div> Mon, 19 Feb 2018 02:21:21 +0000 Erin 35619 at https://www.thirdplacebooks.com Dot to Dot https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/blog/dot-dot-0 <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><span style="font-size:16px;"><a href="https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9781615194070"><em><strong><img alt="" src="https://images.booksense.com/images/070/194/9781615194070.jpg" style="float: left; width: 282px; height: 400px;" />Dot Journaling-A Practical Guide: How to Start and Keep the Planner, To-Do List, and Diary That'll Actually Help You Get Your Life Together</strong></em> </a>by Rachel Wilkerson Miller</span><br /> &nbsp;</p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;">Before the cellphone, before the laptop, I bought a We'Moon calendar each year and scribbled about everything from appointments to when I got my period. You're getting the picture; I really need to keep track. But you don't have to be a compulsive to-do-list maker, frustrated diarist, sometime doodler, and planner/scheduler to find joy in using a dot journal (also knows as a bullet journal). The system Rachel Wilkerson Miller lays out in her book Dot-Journaling – A Practical Guide: How to Start and Keep the Planner, To-Do List, and Diary That'll Actually Help You Get Your Life Together, is as simple or as complex as you need it to be, and it's endlessly adjustable.&nbsp;</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;">The first step is choosing a journal. I bought the Weather Observer's Notebook put out by Princeton Architectural Press because it's beautiful (one drawback is that it's not spiral bound, so drawing the lines can get dicey, but I'm still feeling it). Then you create pages to keep track of your time in whatever manner serves you best, your handy how-to book by your side with stylish layouts you can add to your journal as you go. The beautiful detail that makes it all hang together is the index in the back; no more flipping through pages for that phone number you wrote down last week. If you want to keep your serial to-do lists in chronological order, list the books you read this year, and keep track of how many times you've been to the gym this week/had a massage/gone to the movies, this is the system for you. You can draw flowers on good days and shade a whole day gray when ashes fall from the sky. This system is versatile, generous, and powerful. I wish I'd found it years ago.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;">-Dana</span></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-blog-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/blog-tags/staff-picks">staff picks</a></div></div></div> Tue, 23 Jan 2018 04:17:12 +0000 Dana 35218 at https://www.thirdplacebooks.com The Novel is Undead https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/blog/novel-undead <div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p><span style="font-size:16px;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_the_novel">Is the novel really dead?</a> Or is the novel actually still alive but&nbsp;in the witness protection program, living in Sacramento and working in project management desperately trying to avoid whoever wants to kill it. OR is the novel just undead. A zombie novel. That's a thing. Maybe it's all just a useful cliche for book bloggers to use when introducing a post about novels. Whatever your opinion on the subject, welcome to our newest feature "The Novel Is Undead" where we tell you all about our new favorite novels.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;"><img alt="" src="https://images.booksense.com/images/812/434/9780316434812.jpg" style="width: 199px; height: 300px; float: left;" /><a href="https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9780316434812"><em><strong>Red Clocks</strong></em></a> by Leni Zumas</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;"><strong>This is&nbsp;a lightning rod of a novel: a little bit ripped-from-the-headlines, a little bit dystopian, all sharp and adroitly drawn angles. Each of the book's characters and storylines are riveting and perfectly balanced, keeping the reader engaged throughout. Zumas's speculations paint a near future that feels extremely possible, making this a discomfiting but necessary read. -Wes</strong></span></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;">Five women. One question. What is a woman for?</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;">In this ferociously imaginative novel, abortion is once again illegal in America, in-vitro fertilization is banned, and the Personhood Amendment grants rights of life, liberty, and property to every embryo. In a small Oregon fishing town, five very different women navigate these new barriers alongside age-old questions surrounding motherhood, identity, and freedom.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;">Ro, a single high-school teacher, is trying to have a baby on her own, while also writing a biography of Eivor, a little-known 19th-century female polar explorer. Susan is a frustrated mother of two, trapped in a crumbling marriage. Mattie is the adopted daughter of doting parents and one of Ro's best students, who finds herself pregnant with nowhere to turn. And Gin is the gifted, forest-dwelling herbalist, or "mender," who brings all their fates together when she's arrested and put on trial in a frenzied modern-day witch hunt.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;"><em>Red Clocks</em> is at once a riveting drama, whose mysteries unfold with magnetic energy, and a shattering novel of ideas. In the vein of Margaret Atwood and Eileen Myles, Leni Zumas fearlessly explores the contours of female experience, evoking <em>The Handmaid's Tale</em> for a new millennium. This is a story of resilience, transformation, and hope in tumultuous-even frightening-times.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;"><a href="https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9781476716732"><strong><em><img alt="" src="https://images.booksense.com/images/732/716/9781476716732.jpg" style="float: left; width: 199px; height: 300px;" />Manhattan Beach</em></strong></a> by Jennifer Egan</span></p> <p><strong><span style="font-size:16px;">Miles (and decades) away from the unconventional style of A Visit to the Goon Squad, Egan takes a chance on historical fiction and manages to create a beautifully-lush and character-driven story centered around WWII-era New York City. The most compelling voice belongs to a young and ambitious woman new to the once male-dominated workforce, and her story of navigation through a life of newfound independence will cause any reader to root for her survival in a world consistently telling her "no." -Sarah C.</span></strong></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;">Anna Kerrigan, nearly twelve years old, accompanies her father to visit Dexter Styles, a man who, she gleans, is crucial to the survival of her father and her family. She is mesmerized by the sea beyond the house and by some charged mystery between the two men.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;">Years later, her father has disappeared and the country is at war. Anna works at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, where women are allowed to hold jobs that once belonged to men, now soldiers abroad. She becomes the first female diver, the most dangerous and exclusive of occupations, repairing the ships that will help America win the war. One evening at a nightclub, she meets Dexter Styles again, and begins to understand the complexity of her father's life, the reasons he might have vanished.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;">With the atmosphere of a noir thriller, Egan's first historical novel follows Anna and Styles into a world populated by gangsters, sailors, divers, bankers, and union men. <em>Manhattan Beach</em> is a deft, dazzling, propulsive exploration of a transformative moment in the lives and identities of women and men, of America and the world. It is a magnificent novel by the author of A Visit from the Goon Squad, one of the great writers of our time.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;"><a href="https://www.thirdplacebooks.com/book/9780802124913"><strong><em><img alt="" src="https://images.booksense.com/images/913/124/9780802124913.jpg" style="float: left; width: 201px; height: 300px;" />theMystery.doc</em></strong></a> by Matthew McIntosh</span></p> <p><strong><span style="font-size:16px;">This isn't a book-- it is an experience! The story told here feels like it could not have been communicated in any other way. It is surprisingly intimate and personal. I felt like these could have been my memories, my photographs, my dreams and experiences. I found it deeply moving and affecting. -Robert</span></strong></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;">Funny, highly inventive, and deeply moving, theMystery.doc is a vast, shapeshifting literary novel that reads like a page-turner. It's a comedy, a tragedy, a big book about America. It's unlike anything you've read before.<br /> Rooted in the western United States in the decade post-9/11, the book follows a young writer and his wife as he attempts to write the follow-up to his first novel, searching for a form that will express the world as it has become, even as it continually shifts all around him. Pop-up ads, search results, web chats, snippets of conversation, lines of code, and film and television stills mix with alchemical manuscripts, classical works of literature--and the story of a man who wakes up one morning without any memory of who he is, his only clue a single blank document on his computer called themystery.doc. From text messages to The Divine Comedy, first love to artificial intelligence, the book explores what makes us human--the stories we tell, the memories we hold on to, the memories we lose--and the relationships that give our lives meaning.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size:16px;">Part love story, part memoir, part documentary, part existential whodunit, theMystery.doc is a modern epic about the quest to find something lasting in a world where everything--and everyone--is in danger of slipping away.</span></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-blog-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/blog-tags/staff-picks">staff picks</a></div></div></div> Mon, 22 Jan 2018 02:46:44 +0000 Erin 35191 at https://www.thirdplacebooks.com
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