BOOKNOTES, the newsletter of THE ELLIOTT BAY BOOK COMPANY, is written entirely by bookstore staff. It represents a sampling of recently published books that we have enjoyed reading. We appreciate every opportunity to assist in finding books to meet your interests.

Nonfiction

Other Colors
by Orhan Pamuk
trans. by Maureen Freely (Knopf)

A reader gets the feeling early on in this generous, various, welcome collection that recent Nobel laureate Pamuk is chomping at the bit to get back to novel-writing. This book is a heeding of other calls, some of which (his daughter) he joyfully accedes to; others (reviews, and, more recently, being himself the center of Turkish/East-West political controversies) he takes on out of necessity, though always thoughtfully and insightfully. Pamuk has a keen sense of his (human) place in the big, long scheme of things, nowhere more apparent than in his loving ruminations on Istanbul. -R. Simonson

The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible
by A.J. Jacobs (Simon & Schuster)

A. J. Jacobs, a young father whose past exploits include reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica, devotes a year to following the Bible as literally as possible, obeying over eight hundred Old and New Testament rules about diet, truth telling, fibers, stoning, slavery, and more. Jacobs, a New Yorker from a secular Jewish background, visits an array of experts, including a creationist museum's caretaker, an atheist group, and his ex-uncle Gil, an ex-guru and Evangelical Christian turned ultra-Orthodox Jew, but it's Jacobs's dedication to this humorous yet ultimately serious spiritual quest that makes this book a fascinating, fun, and terribly compulsive read. -K.M. Allman

The Braindead Megaphone
by George Saunders (Riverhead)

Saunders, certified genius and expert cultural observer, offers up a collection of essays so funny, varied, warm, and wise that it becomes virtually impossible to read this book and not feel joy. We journey to worlds both real and imagined—lavish Dubai hotels, Minutemen's fence lines on the U.S.–Mexico border, the pages of Saunders's favorite books, a hypothetical party that endeavors to explain the current state of the American news media—and spend time plumbing the fluid spaces in between fantasy and reality. One constant is Saunders's indefatigable empathy, the cumulative power of which is strong enough to enlarge your heart. -E. Staudt

The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story
by Diane Ackerman (Norton)

In 1935, the Zabinski family, in charge of Warsaw's lovely, thriving zoo, responded to the evolving tragedy of Hitler's invasion by providing refuge for three hundred Jews. The empty cages became shelters, and their large villa a haven, filled with animals, music, and occasional happiness.

The true story of Jan, brave underground collaborator, and Antonina, with her uncanny ability to relate to animals and people, is told with exquisite detail and empathy. The Nazi plan for domination of both nature and humans and the intricate network of resistance to it provide a multilayered backdrop for this profound portrait of heroism. -E. Dorfman

The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop?
by Francisco Goldman (Grove)

Just days after publishing an exhaustive report on the deaths and injustices inflicted upon hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans during the civil war, Bishop Juan Gerardi, a Guatemalan human-rights activist, is found beaten to death in the parish garage. For novelist and journalist Francisco Goldman, what begins as an assignment for The New Yorker on Guatemala's "crime of the century" becomes an eight-year obsession with the investigation, subsequent trial, and violent aftermath. Goldman follows the trail of sensational leads and lurid details to tell a chilling story of murder in a country too long ruled by corruption. -M. Woolbright

The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window Into Human Nature
by Steven Pinker (Viking)

Steven Pinker has argued that human nature and the capacity for language are shaped primarily by instinct, rather than culture. Now he considers how the two are related by showing, among many other fascinating things, how verb constructions depend on our ideas of cause and effect, how metaphors are more than just a literary device, and how "polite language" softens an otherwise strong blow. And when language fails, we are made aware of our own limitations and the demands of our increasingly complex world. -C. Schwennsen

Musicophilia
by Oliver Sacks (Knopf)

Music is a mighty force, but not everyone experiences music the same way. In his new book, Oliver Sacks illustrates how powerful music is with stories of various patients' reactions to it. Some experience musical tones simultaneously with a color or taste. Some are able to name a tone without reference, while others are unable to tell tones apart at all. We read about the positive way music affects some Parkinson's disease, Tourette's syndrome, and stroke patients, and the negative way it affects those suffering from musical seizures and hallucinations.

Sacks has once again provided a thoughtful, insightful, and fascinating book. -P. Egan

Brother, I'm Dying
by Edwidge Danticat (Knopf)

Haitian American novelist Edwidge Danticat tells the story of her life and that of her two fathers—her actual father, who emigrated and became a Brooklyn cabdriver, and his brother, a minister who raised Danticat in Haiti during her early life—in this bittersweet, evocative family memoir. Surviving separation and the turmoil of violent occupation, revolution, gangs, and alleged peacekeepers, her loving family members manage to nurture one another and their communities. Love can't save them all, though, and Danticat's telling of the fates of loved ones lost to this violence and to the brutality of American detainee prisons sears. -K.M. Allman

Coltrane: The Story of a Sound
by Ben Ratliff (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

In the first part of Ratliff's new book, we witness the evolution of one of the most powerful voices in all of jazz. Coltrane, Ratliff shows us, did not stumble across his sound but worked tirelessly (spending most of his waking hours practicing, turning his reeds red with blood), perhaps obsessively, to achieve it. The second part traces Coltrane's legacy and influence, citing reactions from critics and musicians alike.

Ratliff considers jazz as important an art as any other, and Coltrane as important as any other artist. After reading this book, it's easy to see why. -P. Egan

Vanishing America: In Pursuit of Our Elusive Landscapes
by James Conaway (Shoemaker & Hoard)

James Conaway offers a cross-continental road trip spanning four decades in this fascinating combination travelogue, memoir, history lesson, and political rant. At the core of his argument we see the transformation that occurs when beauty is made into a commodity. The struggle emerges between economic progress and the preservation of natural heritage. Conaway is lucid in his awareness of the inherent complexities of this argument, as he realizes it sometimes pits culture against nature, and he acknowledges that visiting delicate monuments inevitably contributes to their destruction. A brilliant examination of both the nature of experience and the experience of nature. -C. Sabatini

Once Upon a Quinceañera: Coming of Age in the USA
by Julia Alvarez (Viking)

With statistics showing teen pregnancy, drugs, and dropouts as an epidemic for Latinas, Julia Alvarez asks, "What are we not giving our young women?" She wages a full-on investigation into the current state of the quinceañera in the United States today, finding seething conflicts between tradition—girls displayed as elaborate jewels of a patriarchy—and feminism—the celebration of life as an adult woman-warrior. She concludes that the support found in an important community event is at battle with a Disneyfied consumeristic extravaganza.

With hilarious and well-spoken insights, Alvarez delivers deeper resources for purpose and identity to Latinas today. -T. Radebaugh

Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Aspergers
by John Elder Robison (Crown)

John Elder Robison, Augusten Burroughs’s older brother, was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome in his forties so suffered through his life mislabeled first as a misfit and later as an arrogant eccentric. While his attempts to connect with people were a failure, he found himself comforted by his understanding of machines. His love of engineering and electronics led him to create fire-breathing guitars for KISS, design electronic toys for Milton Bradley, and open his door to the world of people. The author’s adolescent pranks and later successes in marriage and child rearing make this a moving and highly entertaining memoir. -P. Yearby

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
by Naomi Klein (Metropolitan Books)

This astounding, tough, riveting book ranges as far back as Cold War–era electroshock experiments undertaken under CIA guidance, then starts hunkering down with Pinochet’s brutal 1973 coup in Chile and goes from there: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Poland, China, South Africa, Russia, Iraq, Sri Lanka after the tsunami, New Orleans after Katrina. Around the world and then home, Klein tellingly portrays the connections between the applied “shock” economic principles espoused by Milton Friedman and his “Chicago Boys” and the elitist antidemocratic currents they require, be they in newly emergent “free” societies or harshly brutal regimes. This is a damning book, eloquent, and absolutely necessary. -R. Simonson

The Scent of Desire: Discovering Our Enigmatic Sense of Smell
by Rachel Herz (Morrow)

Why do memories triggered by scent seem particularly vivid and emotional? How does olfaction determine whom we date? What does the future hold for olfactory technologies like Smell-O-Vision? Everyone—from the mildly curious to the scent obsessed—stands to benefit from Herz's investigation into our most mysterious sense.

Herz calls olfaction the "orphan cousin" of the senses—underappreciated, misunderstood, and forgotten—but her thoughtful, über-informative account will ensure that readers leave wanting to celebrate this sense. The nose knows more than we could possibly guess, and understanding its power is essential to our appreciation of the "texture of life itself." -E. Staudt

Ike: An American Hero
by Michael Korda (Harpercollins)

When thinking about the famous generals who served in World War II, the names Patton, Bradley, Montgomery, and Rommel come quickly to mind. But what about Eisenhower? Korda’s insightful and thorough biography elevates Ike to the top as supreme commander of the allies. He focuses on Ike's common sense, morals, and indefatigable work ethic to explain how a boy from a poor family in Kansas grew to become a five-star general and eventually president. Ike was a true leader, and Korda's masterful study should be an example and inspiration for leaders and followers alike. -C. Kirchner

Dismantling Discontent: Buddha's Way Through Darwin's World
by Dr. Charles Fisher (Elite Books)

Science and Buddhism go hand in hand in Charles Fisher's book, which synthesizes the worldviews of Darwin and the Buddha. By considering the Buddhist notions of birth, old age, disease, and death, we find, as Fisher argues, that "Darwin provides tools to examine how the questions raised by the Buddha are embedded in nature." Fisher, a practitioner of insight meditation, employs his Buddhist practice as a tool to overcome the malaise of discontent. Both the Buddha and Darwin created methods for using constant awareness as a means for understanding life. –G. Berry

Red Moon Rising: Sputnik and the Hidden Rivalries that Ignited the Space Age
by Matthew Brzezinski (Henry Holt)

Fifty years ago, the overhead arc of a small, Soviet-made reflective sphere triggered a frenzy among the American media and public. Although the United States arguably had a greater collection of know-how—German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun and others emigrated from their war-torn homeland following the Second World War—politicians in both the First and Second worlds seemed oblivious to the scientific and military advantages that satellites could provide. As Brzezinski reveals in his exciting Red Moon Rising, the beginnings of the Space Race were fraught with political uncertainty and technological failure, but success proved to be world changing. -D. Evans

Fiction

Run
by Ann Patchett (HarperCollins)

In the space of a heartbeat, lives can be irrevocably changed—news of a diagnosis, an accident, the revelation of a secret—this moment is the pivot of Ann Patchett's brilliant new novel, Run. As Bernard Doyle and his two grown sons, Tip and Teddy, make their way from the lecture they have just attended, their first words of an argument are spoken, but before it can reach its fury an accident involving a stranger and her daughter halts everything. What takes place over the course of the next twenty-four hours shows how one group of people, family and strangers, come together. -H. Myers

Exit Ghosts
by Phillip Roth (Houghton Mifflin)

The reclusive author Nathan Zuckerman, now aged and incontinent, returns to the city that made him. Over a few weeks in New York City, Nathan is thrust back into a world that idolizes him, a place he left for just that reason. Meeting a young idealistic couple, his mentor's biographer, and his mentor's mistress along the way, Zuckerman becomes embroiled in his own misplaced lust and the truth about dark family secrets. Set against the backdrop of the 2004 presidential election, this book presents the sexual repression and brilliant prose of the final act in the Nathan Zuckerman saga. -C. Stryer

Bad Monkeys
by Matt Ruff (HarperCollins)

Jane Charlotte kills people. Upon finally being incarcerated, she claims to be a member of a clandestine organization known as the Bad Monkeys, who weed out society's bad seeds before they can perpetrate their diabolical mischief on humankind. By reading transcripts of her interview sessions, readers must determine if she is insane, a liar, or (perhaps most frighteningly) telling the truth. Like an expert psychiatrist, Ruff medicates readers with a few milligrams of Philip K. Dick and a dose of The Matrix to concoct an experience of eerie mystery and futuristic mayhem teetering on the brink of insanity. -J. Zaidi

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
by Junot Díaz (Riverhead)

The story of Oscar—an overweight, apocalypse-obsessed New Jersey sci-fi fiend who falls in love hard, easily, and often—anchors the stories of the women in his life: his sister, mother, grandmother, and several hardcore crushes. Their stories are shaped in turn by the men in their lives, most notably and ominously Dominican dictator Trujillo.

Narrated by lady-killer Yunior (Oscar's erstwhile roommate), Oscar's family history is offered in language so greedily glorious that it buoys the reader along in the most hopeless of moments. Even in the shadow of a powerful family curse, love, in all its wonder and ugliness, blazes on the page. -E. Staudt

Tree of Smoke
by Denis Johnson (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

Fans of Vietnam-era fiction are in for a thrill with Denis Johnson's first full-length novel in nine years. The book begins with the death of JFK and spans a twenty-year period from 1963 to 1983. We meet the colonel, a legendary CIA operative; his nephew Skip Sands, also CIA; the Houston Brothers, two wayward GIs; a Canadian nurse; Vietnamese spies; gunrunning priests; and seasoned soldiers. This vast cavalcade of intense and interesting characters casts light on the brutality and desperation of the time. Tree of Smoke is a colossal undertaking by a very gifted storyteller. -C. Stryer

Away
by Amy Bloom (Random House)

After Lillian Leyb's entire family is slaughtered in a Russian pogrom, she makes her way to America in 1924. Her dream of a new beginning takes an unexpected turn, however, when she discovers that the daughter she thought murdered with the rest of her family may still be alive. Lillian's quest to find Sophie takes her from New York's Lower East Side to Seattle's jazz district to the Alaskan wilderness, as she endures unimaginable travails in her determination to make it to Siberia.

Bloom has given us that rarest of literary pleasures: a gorgeously written page-turner, alive with passion, tenderness, and heart. -L. Paus

Like You'd Understand, Anyway
by Jim Shepard (Knopf)

It's difficult to think of another collection of stories whose settings and subjects are so varied. From Aeschylus's lament to astronauts in love, from the greatest executioner in France to a disastrous card game between brothers, Shepard's imaginative stories are leavened with a sense of truth that renders even the most distant land and time as authentic as the world outside your window. That the stories all portray how we can talk to someone directly in front of us and still miss each others' meaning by miles is what makes this collection as satisfying and cohesive as any good novel. -P. Constant

The Cleft
by Doris Lessing (HarperCollins)

What if, at the dawn of time, the human race were made entirely of women and spent its time lolling around in a prehistoric haze and spontaneously popping out female babies? What would happen if one of those newborns were suddenly, inexplicably, male? Doris Lessing’s new book is not for the faint of heart; after finishing it, be prepared to drag your friends out to drinking establishments and pound your fist on tables as you hold forth on whether or not you agree with Lessing's views of gender and history. The Cleft is a thoroughly exciting reading experience. -R. Crawford

An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England
by Brock Clarke (Algonquin)

What makes a good story? What is the purpose of storytelling? These questions are central themes in Clarke's new novel. The narrative follows the life of Sam Pulsifer, who, as a teen, accidentally (he claims) burned down Emily Dickinson's house. As Sam's life careens into a perpetual state of woe, he ruminates on ideas of plagiarism, morality tales, and what makes "great" American literature so great. Sam's thoughts tease out the reader's own opinions about literature, and ultimately one realizes that this tale of a seemingly useless antihero who continually makes the worst possible choices is a very good story indeed. -J. Zaidi

Shortcomings
by Adrian Tomine (Drawn & Quarterly)

Art doesn’t just imitate life, it captures it in this highly anticipated graphic novel about a young Japanese American man's quest for love and contentment. Tomine has captured the delicate intricacies of human relationships and the unspoken nuances that racial politics, sexuality, and society add to the mix. On the surface, the characters that populate this graphic tale are seemingly well-adjusted, but Tomine takes us deeper...deftly exploring their struggles to connect as friends and lovers. None are perfect, but in spite of their shortcomings, we grow to care for each of them, ultimately cheering their triumphs and mourning their failures. -D. Hsieh

Tomorrow
by Graham Swift (Knopf)

Years ago, Paula and Mike Hook decided to tell their children the truth "after their sixteenth birthday." This, they reasoned, was old enough to know. Well, now sixteen is here, and Paula lies awake, dreading what tomorrow might bring.

Graham Swift has written a masterfully suspenseful story. Over the course of one midsummer's night, he reveals the history and the secrets of Paula and Mike's twenty-five year marriage. As Paula counts down the hours until tomorrow, she comes closer and closer to revealing the potentially family-shattering secret, and as the tension builds, we can only speculate on the impact of the truth. -D. Cronin

The Master Bedroom
by Tessa Hadley (Henry Holt)

Kate Flynn finds herself relieved when she gives up her urban academic lifestyle in London for a quieter one at her childhood home in Cardiff, Wales, to take care of her ailing mother. The calm isn't long-lived, however, as she soon finds herself ineffectively fending off the advances of seventeen-year-old Jamie, the son of David, her real object of desire. Amid arresting prose Kate's eccentric and indulgent actions land her in circumstances that force her to finally consider life as a reality and not just a metaphor. -P. Yearby

Spook Country
by William Gibson (Putnam)

Spook Country follows in the footsteps of Gibson’s previous novel, Pattern Recognition—the two being departures from the author's past efforts that yielded a dizzying array of stylized, nearish-future, tech-laden scenarios that fell into the sometimes mind-opening subgenre of cyberpunk. This new work is still cool, lean, and punky fare from the mind of a visionary, yet is overtly political and grounded in the post-9/11 paranoid here and now. Three relentlessly converging story threads intertwine to shed a disturbing light on the way multinationals and other stateless actors wield developing technology in the constant quest for power and intelligence. -J. Reiner

The Uncommon Reader
by Alan Bennett (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

Queen Elizabeth II has discovered that the traveling library visits the palace every Wednesday. Just to be polite, Her Majesty checks out a book, and quickly becomes an obsessive and sometimes obnoxious reader. Suddenly the procession is often late, and the Queen makes unwelcome inquiries about books during her audiences. The equerries assume she is becoming senile, the private secretary makes comments about shirking one's duty, but the Queen responds only with a few pointed sackings. Perhaps if the staff paid more attention to the queen than to her schedule, they might notice a few changes in her attitude that will alter history. -M. Hickner

Songs without Words
by Ann Packer (Knopf)

Liz has the idyllic upper-middle-class-suburban-housewife lifestyle. She enjoys yoga and planning fun dinners, like jambalaya. Her husband is a good man. Her son, the soccer talent, becomes more handsome daily. She still meets her lifelong best friend, Sarabeth, in the city regularly for Thai food and girl talk. Her daughter Lauren, however, seems to be becoming more volatile and withdrawn lately, but she is fifteen; it's probably nothing to worry about. From the author of The Dive from Clausen's Pier comes a new novel about depression, family, and the mutable bonds of friendship. This is not your average escapist chick lit. -J. Darrah

Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures
by Vincent Lam (Weinstein Books)

Vincent Lam has written a passionate, engaging, and wonderful debut collection of interconnected stories about four young medical students and doctors. The stories follow Ming, Chen, Sri, and Fitzgerald as they make their way to medical school and then into emergency rooms, air medical evacuations, and an encounter with a life-threatening epidemic of SARS. Lam is spot-on in his depiction of the ambition of the characters in their pursuit of the dream to be doctors. He captures with scalpel-like precision the details of human frailty and strength, both physical and emotional. -G. Berry

The Street of a Thousand Blossoms
by Gail Tsukiyama (St. Martin's)

The unintended consequences of devastating acts both large and small are woven together in this absorbing story about the effects of war on one ordinary Japanese family during World War II. Two brothers, one an aspiring sumo wrestler and the other a budding carver of Noh masks, survive bullying ultranationalists, wartime starvation, and the aftermath of the firebombing of Tokyo, then must press on with their families and communities to rebuild their lives during the postwar years.

Told through a constellation of small vignettes and reflections, this novel is like a mosaic, its pieces uniting into a heartbreaking and lyrical portrait. -K.M. Allman

The Intruders
by Michael Marshall (Morrow)

What do a dirty assassin, a possessed little girl, an ex-cop, a wife with something to hide, and an ex-lawyer have in common? They are all characters in The Intruders. Jack Whalen spends most of his day staring out his window instead of working on his book. His simple life is shattered by the disappearance of his wife and the sudden reemergence of a childhood friend who needs help solving a double murder. This makes for great autumn reading set mainly in Seattle, with vivid descriptions of Ballard, Pioneer Square, Post Alley, and even your very own Elliott Bay Book Company. -J. Ditzel

Children's

The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain
by Peter Sís (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

A young artist develops his burgeoning talent in an increasingly volatile culture in this pictorial memoir by Peter Sís. Sís grew up in Cold War–era Czechoslovakia, where creative expression was strictly repressed. As a child Sís draws what he is told—tanks and Soviet stars—but as he grows he discovers the beauty of free expression. This development is portrayed through stunning illustrations, and the personal story is intensified by political backdrop. Dispersed throughout are photos, early drawings, and excerpts from the author's journal, leading to the moment when the figurative is made literal and he sails over walls on wings of art. -C. Sabatini

Deadline
by Chris Crutcher (HarperTeen)

Imagine if you had one year to live. What would you do? Ben Wolf's answer is tell no one, not even his parents. Ben chooses to stay silent because all he really wants is a normal senior year. Having nothing to lose, Ben tries out for football, makes on a move on his crush, and begins to question everything his teachers say. He starts to realize that being "normal" is overrated.

No one writes about the real issues facing teens (racism, censorship, child abuse) like Crutcher. Deadline is another spectacular young-adult tale by the master of the teen-issue novel. -C. Stryer

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
by Sherman Alexie
illus. by Ellen Fourney (Little, Brown)

Alexie delivers an astoundingly raw, hilarious, and cathartic story of adolescence in his first young-adult book. Junior, a young Native American from Wellpinit born with too much water in his brain, a stutter, a determination to draw cartoons, and a great jump shot, is in search of hope in the face of a destiny of alcoholism, death, and poverty on the reservation. With his cartoons, his "tiny little lifeboats," (provided by Seattle artist Ellen Forney) readers see him seek bigger dreams, but at the cost of leaving his tribe and with the task of staying Indian in a society with different rules. -T. Radebaugh

Love, Stargirl
by Jerry Spinelli (Knopf)

You don't have to read Stargirl to enjoy this sequel; the two books have little in common besides the title character. Love, Stargirl hearkens back to earlier Spinelli greats such as Maniac Magee and Dump Days: The dialogue is fantastic and funny, the characters are wonderfully odd (from Alvina, a tough, cranky tomboy with one glittery pink fingernail, to Betty Lou, the friendly agoraphobe next door, to Dootsie, a willful, five-year-old "human bean"), and the denouement is simple, believable, and heartfelt. This is Spinelli at his best. -R. Crawford

If a Tree Falls at Lunch Period
by Gennifer Choldenko (Harcourt)

Kirsten is starting seventh grade, and her life is a complete mess. Her parents refuse to speak to each other (preferring to speak through their children), she has gained thirty pounds in four months, and the new kid at school may be her half brother.

Walker's life isn't going much better. His mother constantly worries that he'll end up like his cousin—a screwup in her eyes—so she has pulled Walker out of his public school and enrolled him in a new, very white private school. Oh, and the guy he thought was his dad might not be. -D. Cronin