Shannon

Shannon

Shannon was born East Texas and in the year after her birth Houston saw a record three snowfalls. So, though she loved the Gulf and the bayous that birthed her, moving North seemed inevitable. She is a collector of odd images, phrases and words, often compiling them into cryptic little poems. Her curiosities are varied and highly mobile, never staying anywhere too long but always baring the residue of previous adventures. She loves all-things-ocean, ethnobotany, modern surrealist storytelling by women, Northern European mysteries, science fiction, young adult sci-fi-fantasy, sociological inquiry and is very picky about the poetry she reads. She tends to the psychology, poetry and ethnic studies sections of the store. She is also the mother of a teenager who, having inherited the "slave to the Northern winds" gene, dreams of moving to Canada.

Shannon's Recommends

$22.95
ISBN-13: 9781565126800
Availability: Temporarily out. Orders usually back in stock in 1-5 days
Published: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2/2010
More than a nod to Nella Larsen, one of the great Harlem Renaissance writers whose ethnic background mimics Durrow's, this novel stands proper on its own legs. Rachel is coming of age with clouded memories of an elusive event. Still able to sense her mother's love as well as her devastating fears, she roots out of the truth of what has happened to her family. Amidst this, she fights to define herself in a world that would rather do it for her. Rachel's story is a low and steady hum, intensity shrouded in a deceptively simple style. With a sinking feeling and a smooth unraveling, Durrow announces to us worlds we have yet to acknowledge.

$16.00
ISBN-13: 9781594484360
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Riverhead Trade, 2/2010
A profound mix of love, revenge, murder, oppression and salvation occasionally punctuated with magic, this is true Jamaican Gothic. A brutal and transcendent story fleshed out with the most mercurial, confusing and awe-inspiring female archetypes living in human bondage. I tore through it...

$14.00
ISBN-13: 9780802143860
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Grove Press, 9/2008
A dark, witty and often times hilarious struggle with familial quirk and disappointments, immigrant identities, father and son relations and, ultimately, coming into one's own. From feverish recollections of Tehran to Los Angeles and New York immediately after 9/11. Xerxes' coming of age story is without equal. A beautiful debut.

Sea of Poppies (Paperback)

$16.00
ISBN-13: 9780312428594
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Picador, 9/2009
Immediately, I latched onto this book. Perhaps it's the well crafted language, the wonderfully crowded cast or the energetic historical plot. Maybe the romance, the swashbuckling heft, the windswept pirates and sly humor. Could be the deft and entertaining pulse that winds itself from page one to the very "end" that leaves you both satisfied and winded, anxious for the next installment. Yes! A proper novel. Read and share.

Caucasia (Paperback)

$12.00
ISBN-13: 9781573227162
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Riverhead Trade, 2/1999
Stitched up in complex issues and characters, Birdie's story is a provocative, intense little page turner. She is a girl spinning in multiplicities in an either/or world, a painfully lucid witness, a powerful, awkward and thoughtful participant. She resists being the victim of a fractured family, seeking reclamation, self-determination and love to save herself. So well written and one of my all time favorites.