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At Powell's, our book buyers select all the new books in our vast inventory. If we need a book recommendation, we turn to our team of resident experts. Need a gift idea for a fan of vampire novels? Looking for a guide that will best demonstrate how to knit argyle socks? Need a book for a vegetarian who loves Radiohead and Flight of the Conchords? Email your question to askabuyer@powells.com. We'll be posting personalized recommendations regularly.

Q: I'm a huge fan of bell hooks and Audre Lorde. Do you know of any great books on race and gender by black female authors? –Crystal

A: Try Rebecca Walker's Black White and Jewish — she is the daughter of Alice Walker and has a strong, distinctive voice. And if you haven't already, go out and get yourself a copy of Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston; it is a classic and an essential piece of work. –Rhianna

Q: I am about to start a trial separation with my wife of almost 23 years. Are there any self-help books out there offering advice to the man trying to make it work when his wife has basically given up? –Bill

A: I have three favorite manuals that I've relied on for help with getting through seemingly impossible times in my life. They are: Difficult Conversations by Douglas Stone, Beyond Reason by Roger Fisher, and Pema Chödrön's When Things Fall Apart.

Now I know the first two texts are often used in the business world, but I think you will find them to be invaluable tools for talking about "the tough stuff." They provide practical advice for communicating with detachment and compassion. The third selection, When Things Fall Apart, is an especially useful personal guide for staying centered amidst chaos. I hope that these are helpful to you! –Aubrey

At Powell's, our book buyers select all the new books in our vast inventory. If we need a book recommendation, we turn to our team of resident experts. Need a gift idea for a fan of vampire novels? Looking for a guide that will best demonstrate how to knit argyle socks? Need a book for a vegetarian who loves Radiohead and Flight of the Conchords? Email your question to askabuyer@powells.com. We'll be posting personalized recommendations regularly.

Q: I am on the hunt for books! Historical fiction — from medieval times to pioneers — is wonderful, although I'm not a fan of war tales. Stories with a little bit of an "epic" feel to them are especially fabulous. I'm also definitely not afraid of being afraid — ghosts, mysteries, vampires, werewolves, murders, zombies? Bring 'em on! –Jamie

A: For guilty pleasure reading, you can't go wrong with the Outlander series, about a woman who travels back in time to 18th-century Scotland. More highbrow but equally entertaining are Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (Tudor England), The Long Ships by Frans Bengtsson (vikings!), The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (Dracula!), and Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund (19th-century America with a literary edge). For vintage, epic historical fiction, you can't beat Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset. –Rhianna

For historic novels, time-travel style, try Connie Willis's Doomsday Book and her Blackout series.

Year of Wonders isn't epic; in fact, it takes place in one small town, but author Geraldine Brooks has a wonderful touch with 17th-century England. And it's a wee bit spooky.

Ellis Peters's Brother Cadfael series will give you mysteries in a historic setting. Again, not epic, but she's written so dang many books in the series it seems epic!

Official dire prophecy USED to be issued exclusively under the authority of the cleric/sorcerer, but now the public trust for such tales has shifted to the province of the professional scientist. It makes sense. The scientist has models and stuff and has studied subjects deeply. Writers have minor credibility in this area but often discredit themselves by putting specific dates on apocalyptic predictions (see Mayan calendar).

I'd love to join the fray, too, but I'm always wrong. I actually went to live on a tropical island in the 1970s because I thought the whole Western Thing was coming down. Later I made a number of dubious moves, always keeping my life stripped down because the next depression/world war/plague/environmental catastrophe/monetary collapse was at hand. Last year I seriously went out THREE times to stock up on food.

What we forget is that even though it runs against our sentiments, we are at base interdependent, and even if we do grind our heels into each other's face too often, at least under THIS flag and in the matrix of THIS mythology, we've managed to pull together so far when the ...

Larry Watson, the author of Montana 1948 and many other fine novels, has just published Let Him Go, his latest foray into literary fiction. Let Him Go, like many of his previous novels, was published by legendary independent Milkweed Editions, his publisher of choice. It tells the story of the Blackledges, Margaret and George, as they make the trek from their home in the Dakotas to Montana, where they hope to be reunited with their grandson, Jimmy, in the face of fierce opposition from his mother and stepfather, the utterly loathsome Donnie Weboy.

When Montana 1948 came out back in 1993, I somehow came upon a copy. It's a shortish book; I read it in one sitting, if memory serves. But what has really stuck with me is how enormously blown away I was by it. I was writing reviews and some other small-press oriented stuff for The Nation at the time, and I wrote about it for the magazine. It was, of course, a glowing review.

As for Let Him Go, once again I'm having a literary peak experience. I've read a lot of good books this year, some of them very good indeed. But, to be honest, I can't remember the last time I read a book that was not only this powerful but this deeply satisfying in every way (read here: Nation déjà vu). So I was thrilled to have the opportunity to catch up with Larry for a few moments shortly after his book's release.

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Chris Faatz: Larry, as you know, I've been a fan of your work for years. One of the things that makes your writing truly sing is the way you depict landscape, and the way that human beings fit into the landscape that you've chosen for them. In this book, which takes place primarily in Montana, the prose is taut and spare yet peppered with breathtakingly lovely depictions of the country and those who inhabit it. What do you draw from to bring this stuff forth?

Larry Watson: I always hope that an idea for a book will come as a package deal — character, situation, setting (in place and time), point of view, structure, and perhaps other elements all bundled with a label that says, "Here it is. Tell it this way." And that instruction as to how it should be told has to do with voice, which will affect the presentation of everything on the page. I don't know my entire story in advance of writing it, but I do have a sense of how it should be written.

One day back in 1959 in San Clemente, California, Surf Dawg Rickey and Mysterious Felipe were strolling along the beach, boards under arms, when they ran into a slump-shouldered, hairy-backed man with a ski-jump nose and bags under his eyes who said his name was Dick. Dawg and Felipe felt sorry for this gloomy loner, so they let him sit with them at their beach fire and shared some of their malt liquor and ice cream bars. When Dick went in to surf, Rickey and Felipe were amazed at his moves and dubbed him "Tricky."

Tricky looked at you like a hound dog from under his heavy eyebrows and occasionally shivered his jowls as he spoke. He was homeless and only spent money on corn dogs and Anne Bancroft movies, his favorite the 1953 adventure Treasure of the Golden Condor with Cornel Wilde, George Macready, and Fay Wray (Bancroft would later go on to make a gorilla movie, too, which might explain her eventual attraction to the hairy-backed loner).

At night Rickey's ska band, the Doobie-Wah-Doobies, was usually playing somewhere to a packed house. Mysterious Felipe sat in ...

Because I've lived a risky and unconventional life, I don't often struggle for subjects to write about. Spending time homeless on the streets of New Orleans, the sociopath with whom I lost my virginity, feeding the child of the junkies upstairs, getting kicked off the trains in San Antonio — that's all natural, electric material. However, when my neighbor, Steven, disappeared and was found three months later burned and bound to a tree a half a mile south of the college campus where he taught, as natural and electric as the material might've been, I wasn't sure if I wanted to write about it. Wisdom, my own safety, and the fact that I had never written about crime suggested that the mystery was better left unexplored. Among those opposed to a comprehensive treatment of the case were Steven's family, the college that employed him, the various law enforcement agencies who turned in uninspired performances, the criminology professor who tried to have an affair with my wife and then took over the investigation without authority, and last but certainly not least, the people who were responsible for the death ...

A couple of years ago I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Michael Toms for the iconic New Dimensions radio show. Toms, often called the Socrates of Radio, showed up for the interview with a legal pad that was completely filled with tiny handwritten notes and queries about my book Crow Planet. He knew the contents of the book better than I did and, like the real Socrates, drew thoughts from my mind and heart that I didn't even know were there. When I learned of his death early this year, I recalled our post-interview walk in his garden, Michael leaning heavily on a walking stick. He and his wife, Justine, had loaded my arms with gifts: copies of all the books they'd both written, topped with a bright green bumper sticker printed with the words: Celebrate Fiercely. The studio, which occupied the bottom floor of Michael and Justine's home, was perched on an arid Northern California hillside. I remember looking at the sticker, breathing in the pungent fragrance of white sage, and lifting my face to that deserty sun, so different from the moist-clouded sun ...

My good friend Abner Violette, a retired NASA electrical engineer (literally a rocket scientist) and owner of five radio stations throughout Nebraska and Colorado, is the most intelligent person I've ever met. He can talk with facility on just about any subject, from physics to falafel to the Foo Fighters. He is a Christian (though you'd never know it), an admirer of Robert Goddard and Wernher von Braun, and a firm believer in ghosts.

We've gone many times, to the delight of my young (Catholic) son, fully equipped with pyrometers and EMF meters and digital voice recorders and cameras to explore old buildings at night in pursuit of phantoms. Our trips are always fruitful — EMF spikes, batteries mysteriously draining, cameras shutting off by themselves, photographs with orbs, recordings of voices that aren't ours ("I see you grin!"), videos of flying what-nots, candle flames flaring up on request. Abner is not only a spook magnet but a great part of the serendipity of my book. After one of the people who I list as a prime suspect hastily left town and then sold his house, Abner ...

It's the story of the century, the most baffling, bizarre, and beastly crime in anyone's memory. A beautiful, elegant, gentle, brilliant man, a theoretical mathematician, goes missing and is discovered three months later way back in the sticks in a horrifying pose. The town immediately goes into a panic. The local police travel in widening circles, scratching their heads and issuing cryptic statements. Many are convinced a serial killer is on the loose. Jim Hahn swears he saw FBI vans in town. Lisa Aschwege knows who did it. The gossipmongers jump aboard their gossamer machines. In a town where many do not lock their doors, we all begin locking our doors. And in spite of the fact that there are many here qualified to do so, including literature professors who teach up on the hill, NO ONE IS WRITING THE BOOK.

But apparently I'm wrong. For I'm sitting next to Floyd at the local bar. Floyd is a barfly in a brown cowboy suit who lives at a residential motel and tells everyone he's rich. Floyd is hard to get along with. Whether he's intentionally contrary, naturally cranky, ...

At Powell's, our book buyers select all the new books in our vast inventory. If we need a book recommendation, we turn to our team of resident experts. Need a gift idea for a fan of vampire novels? Looking for a guide that will best demonstrate how to knit argyle socks? Need a book for a vegetarian who loves Radiohead and Flight of the Conchords? Email your question to askabuyer@powells.com. We'll be posting personalized recommendations regularly.

Q: With the passing of Elmore Leonard, I realized that I have never read any of his books. Which would you recommend starting with? –Roxane

A: You're dipping into Elmore Leonard! What a treat! Try Get Shorty. Stock is tight on this title at the moment, but used copies can turn up at any time, and more new copies should be available within the next couple of weeks. Rum Punch and Maximum Bob are also two of my favorites. –Tom

Q: I just read Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn and loved it. I really enjoyed her other two books, Gone Girl and Dark Places; she reminds me strongly of one of my longtime favorites, Greg Iles. I'm looking to read something (or multiple somethings) that are in a similar vein — books about strong but damaged characters who are working on a mystery that ultimately ties back to their personal lives in a meaningful way. I'm not interested in anything overly brutal or graphic, but I definitely want that suspenseful edge. Any thoughts? –Justyne