 Don't Miss
More at Powell's
Find Books
Read the City
Win Free Books!
PowellsBooks.news
Technica
PowellsBooks.kids
Original Essays | June 27, 2009
By Fran Cannon Slayton
"Unfortunately, I've been to my fair share of wakes."
Continue »
-
 |
We've nowhere near recovered from the death of Kurt Vonnegut last week, but now we're starting to turn our attention toward the Earth, whose demise we'd like to postpone for as long as possible. We're reading This Moment on Earth to figure out what we can do to stop global warming, and our interview with John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry offers more suggestions. Look, nothing thrills us more than sitting outside on a warm day with a good book — such as new books by Christopher Buckley ( Boomsday), A. M. Homes ( The Mistress's Daughter), and Josh Goldfaden ( Human Resources) — but we'd love for our children and grandchildren to be able to do the same without wearing a radiation suit. If the fate of the entire world is too much to think about, give your mind a rest with original essays by David Shipley and J. Peder Zane, scintillating INK Q&As from Harlan Coben and Neil McMahon, and scorching guest blogs from Lizzie Post. 
 
NEW ARRIVALS
HARDCOVER
 Boomsday by Christopher Buckley
Christopher Buckley takes on the plight of aging baby boomers in this
Swiftian comedy about generational warfare. "Boomsday chases each
laugh with a small shudder," praises Powells.com's Hank. "Read it while
it's still fiction!" Save 30% off the cover price now.
 |
Sale $17.49 | Hardcover
List Price: $24.99 (You Save: $7.50) |
  The Mistress's Daughter by A. M. Homes
The Mistress's Daughter is the story of what happened when Homes's birth parents came looking for her thirty years after her adoption. "A can't-put-it-down memoir as remarkable for its crystalline prose, flinty wit, and agile candor as for its arresting revelations," raves Booklist. Save 30% when you buy The Mistress's Daughter from Powells.com.
|
Sale $17.46 | Hardcover
List Price: $24.95 (You Save: $7.49) |
 The Children of Hurin by J.R.R. Tolkien
The first novel by J.R.R. Tolkien in three decades, The Children of
Hurin reunites fans of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings with Elves
and Men, dragons and Dwarves, Eagles and Orcs. Presented for the first
time as a complete, standalone story.
|
Sale $18.20 | Hardcover
List Price: $26.00 (You Save: $7.80) |
DVD
 Children of Men
In the year 2027, eighteen years since the last baby was born, a disillusioned man (Clive Owen) becomes an unlikely champion of the human race when he escorts a young pregnant woman out of the country in Alfonso Cuaron's Oscar-nominated film, Children of Men, co-starring Julianne Moore and Michael Caine and based on the novel by P. D. James.
|
Sale $26.28 | DVD
List Price: $29.98 (You Save: $3.70) |
|
|
|
PAPERBACK
 Human Resources by Josh Goldfaden
In his second short story collection, award-winning writer Josh Goldfaden limns a magical, witty, and touching world of characters whose hidden compulsions and idiosyncrasies reveal their ultimate humanity. "They're some of the best stories I've read in years," promises Powells.com's Jill, "and you'll like them, too." Find out for yourself and get Human Resources for 30% off the cover price.
|
Sale $9.06 | Trade Paper
List Price: $12.95 (You Save: $3.89) |
 A Man without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut
This week the literary world lost one of its most beloved authors when Kurt Vonnegut died at the age of 84. Rediscover the brilliance of Vonnegut with his final published book, A Man without a Country, a penetrating, introspective, incisive, and laugh-out-loud funny collection of essays featuring one of our great thinkers holding forth on life, art, sex, politics, and the state of America's soul. Save 30% off the publisher's price — and visit our Kurt Vonnegut page for more great books!
|
Sale $9.76 | Trade Paper
List Price: $13.95 (You Save: $4.19) |
EBOOK
 I Feel Bad about My Neck by Nora Ephron
Winner of the Book Sense Book Award for Nonfiction, Nora Ephron's I Feel Bad about My Neck offers a candid, hilarious look at women who are getting older and dealing with the tribulations of maintenance, menopause, empty nests, and life itself. "Crackling sharp," raves the Boston Globe.
|
Sale $14.36 | Microsoft eBook
List Price: $17.95 (You Save: $3.59) |
|
After the Walt Disney Company "informed a federal magistrate last month that it would not participate in settlement talks with the family that owns the licensing rights to the characters," it looks like Winnie-the-Pooh is going back to court.
An anonymous source slipped me a transcript of the earlier courtroom proceedings, excerpted below.
OWL: Court will come to order. The prosecution may call its first witness.
RABBIT: Your Honor, I call Tigger to the stand!
[Witness takes the stand. After much bouncing up and down and declaring that taking oaths is what Tiggers do best, witness finally settles down.]
RABBIT: Mr. Tigger, do you recall the defendant signing an exclusive licensing deal with my client, the Walt Disney Company?
TIGGER: Well, I think he did only it's hard to tell 'cause I was standin' on my head 'cause that's what Tiggers do best, but Roo said I said bouncin' on our tails was what Tiggers do best and I said both is what we do best so I showed him by bouncin' on my head—
RABBIT: Your Honor, permission to treat this witness as hostile.
OWL: Granted.
RABBIT: Isn't it true that you and the defendant colluded to deny the Walt Disney Company its inalienable right to make billions of dollars on your likeness without giving you one penny? I WANT THE TRUTH!
TIGGER: [Breaks down crying.] Tiggers can't handle the truth!
RABBIT: I have nothing further, Your Honor.
OWL: Cross?
POOH: Oh, bother. Tigger, do you recall — tiddly pom — I can't even recall what I wanted you to recall. Oh, bother. Defense rests.
I hope to have a full transcript of testimony from Eeyore as soon as it's available.
From the Authors: SAVE 30%
DAVID SHIPLEY: ORIGINAL ESSAY
 |
|
Stepping up to the challenges of email, David Shipley's Send: The Essential Guide to Email for Office and Home is a much needed guide to help people use email to their best advantage at work or at home, achieve their goals, and stay out of jail. (The secret is, of course, to think before you click. But you already knew that.) Read this essay by David Shipley and save 30% when you buy Send for a friend who isn't nearly as Web savvy as you, of course, totally are.
|
|
|
Send
 |
|
Sale $13.96 | Hardcover
List Price: $19.95
You Save: $5.99
 |
|
J. PEDER ZANE: ORIGINAL ESSAY
 |
|
What if you asked 125 top writers to pick their ten favorite books? You'll find the intriguing answers in The Top Ten, the ultimate guide to the world's greatest books, featuring responses from such writers as Norman Mailer, Annie Proulx, Stephen King, Jonathan Franzen, Claire Messud, Margaret Drabble, Michael Chabon, and Peter Carey. Read this original essay by editor J. Peder Zane and save 30% off the cover price of Top Ten.
|
|
|
The Top Ten
 |
|
Sale $10.46 | Trade Paper
List Price: $14.95
You Save: $4.49
|
|
HARLAN COBEN: INK Q&A
 |
|
Twenty years ago, four teenagers at summer camp walked into the woods at night. Two were found murdered, and the others were never seen again. Four families had their lives changed forever. Now, two decades later, they are about to change again. The Woods is the latest white-knuckled thriller from bestselling author Harlan Coben, a novel that Library Journal praises as "one of Coben's best." Read our INK Q&A with Coben and hunt down your copy of The Woods at 30% off the publisher's price!
|
|
|
The Woods
 |
|
Sale $18.86 | Trade Paper
List Price: $26.95
You Save: $8.09
|
|
NEIL McMAHON: INK Q&A
 |
|
In Lone Creek, an edgy thriller set on his home turf of Montana, Neil McMahon interweaves the story of family dynasties and an unsolved mystery, all against the backdrop of the beautiful, hard Western landscape. Read this INK Q&A with McMahon and save 30% off the author's "finest achievement to date" (Publishers Weekly).
|
|
|
Lone Creek
 |
|
Sale $17.46 | Trade Paper
List Price: $24.95
You Save: $7.49
|
|
LIZZIE POST: GUEST BLOGGER
 |
|
How Do You Work This Life Thing? is a guide for the newly independent (a.k.a. young adults) on the pleasures and perils of independent life, offering advice on everything from getting along with roommates to getting the right job and keeping it. This week we're pleased to welcome author Lizzie Post as our guest on the Powells.com blog. Save 30% on How Do You Work This Life Thing? all week long — and read tips from the granddaughter of the first lady of etiquette Emily Post.
|
|
|
How Do You Work This Life Thing?
 |
|
Sale $13.96 | Hardcover
List Price: $19.95
You Save: $5.99
|
|
MARTHA McPHEE: GUEST BLOGGER
 |
|
The novel of the American in Europe has a long and lustrous pedigree. Now Martha McPhee joins the ranks of its most impressive practitioners with L'America, an examination of the intersection between Europe and America, the old and the new, that Kirkus calls "ambitious and literate." Next week we're pleased to welcome Martha McPhee as our guest blogger. Save 30% when you buy L'America and viva la difference at our blog!
|
|
|
L'America
 |
|
Sale $9.80 | Trade Paper
List Price: $14.00
You Save: $4.20
|
|
 
in our stores
IN OUR NEXT EDITION:
The cats are sleeping.
The boys can't believe it. They've come all this way, to a bookstore, to the city. And now Fup, Bear, Oreo, and Bagheera — they're sleeping? All at once?
"Cats don't sleep," the younger sibling declares. Once last year his brother warned him to stay away from the robins in the back yard, lest they bite. He will not be fooled so easily again. Can't he just peek in the back room to see?
"I think it's time for some pizza," their mother suggests. "A slice of pepperoni? How's that sound?"
The older boy announces, "Cats do sleep. I want a cat."
"The cats are sleeping, dear," says his mother.
"Cats don't sleep."
"I want my own cat," the eldest clarifies.
"Birds don't bite."
Cats do sleep, true enough, though not so well when families argue outside their open door.
Send questions, comments, suggestions, and courtroom transcripts of your favorite trials of beloved storybook characters to newsletter@powells.com.
PowellsBooks.news
by Bolton and Dave
Copyright 2007 Powells.com
|
