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Upcoming Events from Books in Common NW
The next couple of weeks are busy ones for Books in Common NW, the three bookstores, including our own sibling store, Madison Books, who have teamed up during the pandemic to host virtual events with an excellent series of authors. On Wednesday, October 13, they'll be presenting Margaret Renkl and Ed Tarkington, in discussion about Renkl's new book of essays, Graceland, At Last. The following evening, Theodore Van Alst will be discussing his novel Sacred City with Stephen Graham Jones, and on Tuesday, October 19, our local natural historian Thor Hanson will talk about his new book, Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid. All events start at 6:30 pm Pacific, and you can sign up via the links provided.
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New Book of the Week
Crossroads
by Jonathan Franzen
Of all the things a novelist can do, Jonathan Franzen is among the best at one of the most important: creating full, human characters who make terrible decisions, again and again. In Crossroads, those characters are the Hildebrandts, a family of six in suburban Chicago in December 1971, each of them vivid and flawed, thwarted by their own essence but capable, possibly, of change. A suburban Christian youth group (which gives the novel its name) may not sound like a promising subject for a 592-page novel, but in Franzen's hands it's rich and fertile ground, not just for satire but for a fully populated world of actions and consequences that left me looking forward to the rest of the trilogy that Franzen has said will follow. —Tom
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New and Old Books of the Week
Eight Ghosts: The English Heritage Book of Ghost Stories
by Sarah Perry, Max Porter, et al.
These Our Monsters: The English Heritage Book of New Folktale, Myth, and Legend
by Sarah Hall, Paul Kingsnorth, et al.
This is the time of year when we seek out stories to touch something primitive in us—we want to revisit the things that scared us years ago, and dig up those that have scared people through the ages. Most of all, we crave the sensation of fear, whether it’s a shiver or a gasp or—for me—a queasiness that signals dread. To satisfy this perennial hunger, English Heritage (the organization that oversees nationally important sites) commissioned two anthologies. In one, top-notch authors crafted ghost stories in historic settings; in the other, they fashioned tales around figures of legend. Time periods, styles, and messages vary, but all triggered that peculiar feeling in the pit of my stomach. They also gave me an itchy Google-finger. But instead of typing in a search box, I merely flipped to the enlightening endnotes. Both books are the perfect package for any combination of: History Buff, Anglophile, Chill-seeker. Warning: You can try to savor these sixteen stories, but you might end up gobbling them like that bag of fun-size Snickers I imagined was for the trick-or-treaters. —Liz
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Old Books of the Week
All Systems Red and Artificial Condition
by Martha Wells
After multiple customer recommendations for Wells's Murderbot Diaries series, I finally jumped in, and after two books I'm hooked. The books' slim size (most of them just 160 quick-turning pages) give a hint of Wells's great gift: her lightness of touch, which manages to drop you into a fascinating future world—and introduce you to a particularly fascinating main character—with just a few deft strokes. Your guide is a manufactured, near-human security android—a Murderbot, as it calls itself with typical grim humor—which has quietly gone rogue by hacking its own control system. There's plenty of action, and a gradually unfurling plot, but the best attraction is the bot itself, a drily funny and affectingly earnest and awkward machine (imagine Marvin the Paranoid Android, but with the Terminator's combat skills) that would really rather be bingeing on downloaded entertainment serials but feels obligated, by ethics and curiosity, to get to the bottom of a deepening mystery. —Tom
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Non-Book of the Week
Hot Dog Finger Puppet
We've restocked our popular Folkmanis finger puppets, with a few new additions, including this adorable item, a wiener dog with its own removable Halloween costume.
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Cover Crop Quiz #211
This 1964 first-edition cover (which is the same as the current edition) is a bit abstract, but perhaps the number (or the fact that it is part of a series) may help.
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Last Week's Answer
Well, it pays to have publisher reps reading your newsletter, because I learned (to my delight) that I was incorrect in declaring that Charles Burns's Black Hole, one of the great Seattle books and one of the great graphic novels, was out of print, despite, for whatever reason, not being currently listed by our wholesaler. And the best news: we have it back in stock!
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New to Our 100 Club
The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey
by Trenton Lee Stewart
(652 weeks to reach 100)
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Phinney Books
7405 Greenwood Ave. N
Seattle, WA 98103
206.297.2665
www.phinneybooks.com
info@phinneybooks.com
Facebook page
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Speaking of books in high demand, as we mentioned in the last newsletter, the 
