The Elliott Bay Book Company

Patrick Hamilton is a forgotten giant of 20th century British fiction—think of the cutting wit of Waugh combined with the gritty and pessimistic realism of Celine.
Here is the sad, sordid and somehow redemptive underbelly of pre-WWII working class London as seen through the divergent and overlapping perspectives of three of its unforgettably real denizens.

I bow to Primo Levy: "The greatest book ever written about the German resistance to the Nazis." Based on a true story (with fascinating facsimiles of Gestapo files in the afterward)—this is the saga of an unremarkable couple whose innate decency compels them to protest, hopelessly and courageously, against the brutality of the Reich. Triumphant, tragic, gripping; simply and beautifully narrated.

A quirky, off-beat, innovative, thoroughly original little book. Not its strangest aspect: Borges, reincarnated, as a gecko.

I bow to Primo Levy: "The greatest book ever written about the German resistance to the Nazis." Based on a true story (with fascinating facsimiles of the Gestapo files in the afterword) this is the saga of an unremarkable couple whose innate decency compels them to protest, hopelessly and courageously, against the insane brutality of the Reich. Triumphant, tragic, gripping; simply and beautifully narrated.

Have you ever loved a book so much you almost can't talk about it? This is mine. A sprawling family saga; moving, heartbreaking, triumphant as nothing else I've ever read. At the center of this story of a family uprooted from rural Kentucky to the inferno of Detroit during WWII towers Gertie Nevins, a character so real, so admirable you'll never forget her. I want everyone to read this book.

Sure—it's an investment in over 1100 pages—for which you get to lose yourself in a roiling family saga set in 14th-century Norway. Kristin is the most fully-realized strong female protagonist I've ever encountered—and this is one of the most engrossing and satisfying books I've ever read.

From the writer/director of the film I've Loved You So Long, this slim volume is bound to become a classic. Set in rural France during WWI, it's part murder mystery, part existential musing. Claudel gives us an unforgettable "unreliable first-person narrator", and an ending that will surprise and shock.

He writes with the grace and forgiveness of an angel, the humanity of an everyman. Taha's poems speak the truth, without a trace of rancor—with a transcendent hope for reconciliation and redemption.

The greatest living novelist has written his masterpiece—set in the future (?), when the shopping mall ("The Center") becomes the locus of civilization and authority. A discovery in an excavation changes lives—and threatens the established order.
Compelling and magical—a master's triumph.

What a fabulous book--the fate of mankind rests on the "chance" meeting of two brilliant young Dutch men and the tangled web of their subsequent friendship. This ranks with the best of the masterpieces of fantastic realism.

If I could only own one volume of poetry to read and re-read, this would be my pick. Rilke's mesmerizing voice soars; and Snow's translations provide the almost-perfect conductor of the poet's electricity.