Hello, intrepid readers! It feels like we should start you off this week with a map, and yes, while we are indirectly talking about a map through the dizzying conundrum of street closures and detour signs and what-not that are separating you from us, we shall be less catty and say: Oh, look! Here's a fun thing to do for Independent Bookstore Day!
That's right. The South Sound is starting its own book crawl. You can get details at the website, but the short and sweet of it is: starting April 29th, you have 9 days to visit 10 bookstores. Can you do it? Let's show those big city rats that us country mice have our own culture, thankyouverymuch.
As for getting around locally, well, it's a trick. Pack snacks.
But when you do find your way to the store, here's what you'll find on the shelves.
A new Don Winslow book, for one. This is City of Dreams, a much more uplifting story about families coming together, communities supporting one another—oh, who are we kidding? It's Winslow. It's like trying to pretend a Fast and the Furious film is all about family BBQs and not souped-up cars and even more souped-up physical stunts.
Anyway, after the events of City on Fire, Danny Ryan is on the run from the mob, the cops, and the government. So he goes to California and does that thing you do in the city of Reinvention. Except, you know, dreams make you starry-eyed and the past never stays in the past, and everything will probably blow up again. Because, you know, Fast and the Furious.
David Baldacci is back with Simply Lies, a story about a former detective and a con-artist who go head-to-head in a dangerous game of cat and mouse. It starts with a simple request to inventory a vacant home, and gets complicated when one of the things to be inventoried is a dead body. Naturally, no one wants to be caught with the dead guy. This looks like a tidy little standalone thriller from Baldacci. Yes, please.
And for the true crime history buffs, David Grann is back with The Wager, the story of what happened to the HMS Wager, a British ship that disappeared in 1740 while on a secret mission. Several years later, two groups of survivors turn up, and they offer very different tales of what went down out there on the sea. Grann's no stranger to digging deep into the archives to find fascinating tidbits (Killers of the Flower Moon, for instance), and we suspect this one is going to read like a real thriller.
And while this next one moves at a slightly different pace, we assure you that it's just as engaging. This is Peter Frankopan's The Earth Transformed. It's the story of how everything new is already old, especially when you get a sixty gazillion perspective. This planet has gone through a few dramatic climate changes in the past, and Frankopan explores how humanity coped and changed as a result of these intense shifts. Catastrophic crop failures in the early middle ages? Here come the Vikings. Regime change in eleventh-century Baghdad? Collapse of the cotton market due to climate change. Western expansion across North America? Solar flares.
Look, there's a subtle warning in here too—disregard the signs and things go poorly for you—but Frankopan's not here to wag a finger. He's curious about how we might approach the future by paying closer attention to the past.
And speaking of the past continuing to hang out and haunt us, here is Saturday Night at the Lakeside Supper Club, by J. Ryan Stradal, which is a little less expansive in its scope. It focuses on Mariel and Ned, two people who are bound by family and a struggling business. It's got food. It's got moments of catharsis. It's got cranky grandparents. It's like a bagel sandwich and a cup of warm cocoa, but you read it, instead of, you know, eating it.
And speaking of food and family, Danny Trejo is back with Trejo's Cantina: Cocktails, Snacks & Amazing Nonalcoholic Drinks from the Heart of Hollywood. Machette is not just about tacos; he's also got recipes for Agua Frescas, Oaxacan Mules, Fight Night Nachos, and Danger Dogs.
Can we just get it all in a food truck out back, please?
And speaking of wild fantasies, here is Ame Dyckman and Jennifer Harney's How Dinosaurs Went Extinct. It's a children's picture book about making up stories to keep little kids from losing their minds when visiting boring old museums. No, wait. It's about fomenting a sense of wonder about the grand things in our universe, about how little we truly know about the epic wonder that is history and evolution and—okay, look. It's got pictures of T-rexes on rollerskates with rocket packs, which is a super accurate representation from the fossil record. Fight us on this, we dare you. We've got Jack Horner on speed dial. He'll totally back us up.
Also, is it "rexes" or "reges"? Or, God help us, "rexen"? Where's Benjamin Dreyer when we need him?
Oh, here's something you didn't know you needed until RIGHT NOW. It's a special edition of Colleen Hoover's It Ends With Us—the book that USA Today believes is "the kind of book that gets handed down."
Why is this one so special? Well, it's a hardback, for one. It's got nice endpapers, for another. And it also has an exclusive Q & A between Colleen and her Ma, where they talk about important author stuff or mother/daughter stuff or maybe they trade recipes. Who knows! But it's an exclusive add-on! Oh, and it has Colleen's signature stamped into the front board of the book. Under the dust jacket! It's like an extra surprise!
Which we've just ruined. Sorry about that.
And, yeah, dinosaurs didn't have roller-skates and rocket packs either. Sorry, again.
Well, this is probably a good time to distract you with the new paperback edition of Michael Schur's How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question. Schur, coming off the outstanding TV show The Good Place, decided to sit down and pen a little book about what he's learned in the last few years. Some of it is in jest; some of it is earnest; and most of it will warrant some thinking on your part. Recommended.
And finally, here is Cinematic Places, the next volume in the Inspired Traveller's Guides, a delightful guide to 25 essential cinematic destinations, in case you needed a nudge to get out of the house and see parts of the world.
And speaking of visiting places, guess what wandered into the store this week? A delightful rack of tiny chapbooks from 253 Books. They go into your pocket! They are thematically structured (50 Bells, 50 Murals, 50 Desserts)! They're made by hand! #totesadorable as the kids say. (Do they still use hashtags?)
Anyway, we're delighted to be THE place to get 253 Books on THIS side of the river. Come get a handful and go exploring. It'll be the best fun you can have while trying to find your way home.
