The Elliott Bay Book Company

"We think we know the ones we love," begins Pearlie in this novel set in the San Francisco Bay area during the 1950's, that surreal decade devoted to the surface of things (never mind what was smoldering underneath). It is 1953, and Pearlie is a housewife in love with her husband and devoted to her young son, who has contracted polio. But one morning a strange man appears on her doorstep and life as she knows it will never be the same. This is a remarkable book: sentences that shine like gems, an incredible story, and intermittent revelations along the way that make you want to go back and re-read what you've read thus far with this new understanding in the mix.

A fabulous new collection of short stories by the incomparable Alice Munro, recent winner of the 2009 Man Booker International Award for fiction. In "Dimensions" a young woman travels to visit the man who has killed her children; in "Free Radicals" a widow opens her door to a dangerous stranger on the run; in "Child's Play" a girl's loathing of a fellow camper has dire consequences. Munro has created a remarkable cast of characters beset by calamity and circumstance, and she inhabits their lives so effortlessly that we feel like we are breathing their air as we turn the pages. This is truly a stunning read.

Judd Foxman, the protagonist in this hilarious novel, is in the midst of one big mess. Not only has he discovered his wife in bed with his boss, his father has just died. And as if this wasn't enough, he learns that his atheist father's dying wish was for the family to sit shiva for a week. And what a family it is: a sharky, wise-cracking, darkly comic bunch of characters forced to remain together for seven days as they go through the motions of religious mourning. Tropper is a master of dialogue and his voice is fresh and true. Hands down one of the funniest books I've ever read.

I'll admit that I shied away from this book at first. I like dogs, but I don't especially like reading about them. Still, at the urging of a co-worker, I decided to give it a try, and before I knew it an entire weekend had vanished. WOW. This is one of those books that you feel like you're drifting down a river in, completely given over to the journey. Yes, it's long, and at 560 pages, big enough to tauten your pecs as you tote, but absolutely worth the weight and time commitment. I can't stop thinking about it. It's loosely based on Hamlet, and the main characters are a boy born mute and an assortment of dogs, but in this author's hands theses strange protagonists live out some tragic and beautiful truths. MASTERFUL.

The twelve stories in this collection are twelve of the most original, laugh-out-loud funny, and heartbreakingly poignant stories I've ever read.
Darkly comic and beautifully written, with dialogue that snaps and crackles with pithy one-liners and droll wit, Moore is a master of the absurd, and a shrewd chronicler of the vagaries of the human heart.

If you're looking for a great page turner, a riveting true-life adventure packed with perils, unimaginable travails, and evidence of the triumph of the human spirit, then this book is for you.
The author, one of the survivors of the 1972 plane crash in the Andes, emerged from this ordeal with the kind of insights and wisdom that can only come from facing down death.
This is a beautifully written and gripping tale of survival, courage, faith, and love. Parrado reminds us that we each have the strength within us to confront our "own personal andes."

In December of 2003, Didion's 36 year old daughter was hospitalized in a coma. A few days later her husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne died unexpectedly of cardiac arrest. Didion's book is a raw, unflinching chronicle of the difficult year following her loss.
In a culture that wants to pretend that death doesn't exist and stumbles awkwardly in the presence of grief, Didion's candor is an act of grace and courage. Her story will offer the comfort of recognition to those who have endured loss, and provide illumination to those who must comfort others. This is a beautiful, important, and unforgettable book.