The Elliott Bay Book Company

I'll admit I picked this up because I loved the cover. However, I read the book because I loved it and found Susan's story compelling, vivid and insightful. She brings Beijing to her readers as she experiences it and candidly describes her journey through breast cancer.

In the mood for a quiet, well-written, lovely story? This is a gem. A renowned mathematics professor who, after a horrible car accident, can only remember the last eighty minutes, his housekeeper, a single mother and her son create a lovely triangle where each gives and receives in return.

Finally, a book by Janet Brown, a very gifted writer, a keen observer of the world, and one of the most wicked wits around. I love this collection of stories about life in Bangkok, feeling the outsider, and aging.

I love Michael Perry. He makes me laugh and laugh and laugh and then cry. This is not about chickens, although there are chickens in it, it is about family and life on a rural Wisconsin farm.

My 9 year old devoured this book, carted it off to a playdate, read it aloud to his friends, and we never saw our copy again.... What more can you ask for?

For the last eight years Laura Bush has been a complete enigma to me. I can only wonder.... In this well constructed, compelling novel, Curtis Sittenfeld attempts a glimpse into a life we can only imagine and he does a fantastic job. I couldn't put this down. I can't stop thinking about it.

Selig loved to collect words. Everywhere he went, he collected words and stuffed them into his pockets—lozenge, sprinkle, oddball, crisp, abundant... Needless to say, he didn't quite fit in with the other children and at recess prefered to collect words while other children played. In this delightful children's book you will discover the magic of words and sounds and new meanings. This was my favorite children's book published in the last year and it has become a favorite of my childs as well.

I loved this book! Yes, it's short and yes, it's hardcover, but it's beautiful and you'll want to read it again and again and then share it with all your friends. It's about true love and marriage where two people truly appreciated everything about one another. Trillin begins this small treasure by talking about the condolence cards he received after Alice died, most of which came from people who didn't know Alice personally, but knew of her from Calvin's books. One young woman sent her condolences and said that she looked across the table one evening at her boyfriend and wondered if he would ever love her as much as Calvin loved Alice.

This is one of my favorite book published in recent years! A family story so amazingly well crafted that I reread passages again and again. I am still wondering how Lee was able to put some of his concepts into words.

I couldn't pull myself away from this memoir. Holman vividly and beautifully recounts her mother's decline into schizophrenia in the mid 1970s. Holman identifies with Hearst when she and her sisters are "kidnapped" by their mother for four years, to prepare for the refugee children of WWII. Holman clearly and eloquently tackles her demons in this childhood memoir and takes her reader along for the extraordinary ride.

I usually find the use of Ph.D at the end of one's name arrogant and off-putting, but in this book it says everything. A local author tells of her experience coping with Asperger's and finding a way into the world by observing the lives of the gorillas at the Woodland Park Zoo. Now a Ph.D, Dawn Hughes shares her story.

Open - Read. Laugh.