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Powell's Staff:
Five Book Friday: In Memoriam
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Every year, the booksellers at Powell’s submit their Top Fives: their five favorite books that were released in 2023. It’s a list that, when put together, shows just how varied and interesting the book tastes of Powell’s booksellers are. I highly recommend digging into the recommendations — we would never lead you astray — but today...
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Brontez Purnell:
Powell’s Q&A: Brontez Purnell, author of ‘Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt’
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Rachael P.:
Starter Pack: Where to Begin with Ursula K. Le Guin
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Customer Comments
OpeningDialogue has commented on (10) products
Unmedicated: The Four Pillars of Natural Wellness
by
Madisyn Taylor
OpeningDialogue
, January 28, 2018
Madisyn Taylor’s unmedicated. is deceptively simple — and exceptionally powerful. In 165 pages, this beautiful book lays out how she found her path to wellness and how others might do the same thing, relying upon her as a friendly guide along the way. Don’t let the slim, well-designed book fool you. This is no guru intoning the best way to enlightenment, that following her path will lead you to glories and robust wellbeing. Her way is simple, inexpensive, free of complications and drama, but it is not a quick, easy, one-shot process. It takes commitment, full attention and admitting to yourself what you know to be true, but prefer to keep hidden, smushed, and unsaid. It’s easier to stay broken and miserable than it is to know what you know and take action. Within the first pages, Taylor lays it out, “…I had to get serious about how I was going to live my life….[B]y radically changing the course of how I treated and thought of my health, I gradually gained my life back. I had a chance to finally live life as a whole being.” After sharing her story, Taylor discusses the specifics for each of the four pillars that establish a healing foundation: Clear your mind Nurture your spirit Strengthen your body Find your tribe Her book is profound, simple, not challenging established protocols for addressing depression, anxiety, angst, but suggesting there are other ways to live, whole and aware, making your own way in the world. If you are in crisis, get help, but don’t stop there. Keep going until you are creating a sustainable life with the support and tools you need for wellbeing. Here is where my apology comes in: Madisyn, I truly enjoyed unmedicated. the first time I read it. I breezed through, appreciating your clear, calm writer’s voice and the wise, actionable plan for the reader to find their own path to wellbeing. I gave it a five-star review, highlighting the clarity, the wisdom, the honesty of a lifelong commitment. Where I fell short — and why I am apologizing — was not describing how powerful and transformational this book can be. For some reason, I was moved to read it again, only this time I took notes, thought deeply about what I was reading instead of racing on ahead to file a review. Your book is powerful. It is transformational. The work that you have put into this beautiful book is a genuine gift to the world, a beacon of light and possibility made manifest by a woman who dared to change herself and share her journey. Thank you for writing this book, for sharing it with the world.
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Your Creative Career
by
Anna Sabino
OpeningDialogue
, January 22, 2018
Your Creative Career provides the motivating, passionate support that every creative entrepreneur can use to develop the business that supports the life that they want to create for themselves. Honest, forthright, powerful examples and straight talk make the book feel like a life-changing session with an intelligent, perceptive coach. Sabino has your back in every aspect of developing your career, encourages the reader to be smart, to be mindful, and to look forward into the future with excitement. Sabino provides all of us creatives with the information, support, and motivation to create, inhabit, and grow into our own biggest creative selves. I received an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
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Always
by
Sarah Jio
OpeningDialogue
, February 18, 2017
Within the first few pages of Jin’s Always, I was ready to give up. Plodding prose, too-clever ways to describe appearance and back story, and other missteps nearly killed the story for me. But then, something happened. I continued reading for a few more pages and found myself absolutely invested in the story of a woman on the verge of marrying her perfect fiance when she discovers that the man she believed was her soulmate is now living on the streets. Ultimately, Jio delivered a fascinating story of a woman torn between her present life and honoring her past with a man who feels like home and once saved her life — and who needs saving right now. A wonderful aspect of the story is Jio’s Seattle: glorious in all of its rainy beauty and exploration of the complex issues between the different constituencies who love their city and want different futures for it. Ultimately, it’s a fast read and a thought-provoking exploration of “What if?”
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Emotional Craft of Fiction How to Write with Emotional Power Develop Achingly Real Characters Move Your Readers & Create Riveting Moral Stak
by
Donald Maass
OpeningDialogue
, January 11, 2017
Donald Maass’s THE EMOTIONAL CRAFT OF FICTION: HOW TO WRITE THE STORY BENEATH THE SURFACE is the ultimate writer’s guide to telling a story. Set aside the countless books about plotting, structure, and craft and read this book before you go any further in imagining, drafting, and revising your stories. Throughout this pithy, important book, Maass instructs, demonstrates, motivates, and then gently pushes you out the door to write your story as only you can do. Read it in one exhilarating thrill ride and then read it again slowly to savor its clear prose and authoritative examples. Do the 34 Emotional Mastery exercises and witness your stories grow complexity, depth, and power. Learn from a brilliant master of story at his most personal, eloquent, and encouraging: “The spirit you bring is the spirit that we’ll feel as we read, and of all the feelings you can excite in your readers the most gripping and beautiful is the spirit of hope.”
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Visual Intelligence Sharpen Your Perception Change Your Life
by
Amy E Herman
OpeningDialogue
, August 02, 2016
I want to be an FBI agent. Well, not really, but if I could take The Art of Perception course taught by Amy Herman, I would definitely opt in -- along with the NYPD, Department of Defense, doctors, teachers, CEOs and others who have learned how to see more clearly and completely than ever before. Visual Intelligence: Sharpen Your Perception, Change Your Life is a book that encapsulates the in-depth course that Amy Herman has taught for fourteen years. In clear, enjoyable chapters, she guides the reader through the stages of seeing clearly: assess, analyze, articulate, and adapt. There is art to examine to develop your own abilities as well as stories about how the class has been used to great effect to save lives, money, and reputations. I finished reading the book last weekend and already enjoyed a more thorough and conscious experience of what I see and what I do with the information. However, Ms. Herman's book goes beyond the simple exercises of sight to expand perspective and understanding. So, if takes becoming an agent, an officer, a CEO of a multinational corporation, I'm in if it means that I can take the course that brought such a wonderful book to the world. For now, I am taking to heart a simple piece of wisdom that she shared in an aside that agents are taught to look behind them when heading into an unfamiliar environment in case of needing to make a quick getaway.
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Writing Deep Scenes: Plotting Your Story Through Action, Emotion, and Theme
by
Martha Alderson and Jordan Rosenfeld
OpeningDialogue
, July 30, 2016
Never have I read such a succinct, smart book for writers about plotting including action, emotion, and theme. I read it pen in hand and notebook at the ready to scrawl down new ideas for my own books, including, yes, the wonderful ways that I can make things worse for my characters. With this book, I have mucked about, explored, and scrambled my way to an entirely different, more fully realized story. Their approach to four quadrants of narrative arc (Beginning, Emerging Middle, Deeper Middle, and End) were the compass, the North Star, the map, the everything that I needed to reimagine, inhabit, and enjoy the story that I have been working on for more than two years. With their view of Action, Emotion, and Theme in each stage of the story, I was able to deepen, enrich, and enjoy my story from different angles. Days after finishing the book, I am still struck by how powerful, how magical, and how useful their well-written and clearly delineated guide has been. I could not recommend this book more highly. Shove all your guides to plot and story structure to the side and read this one.
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Mimi Malloy, at Last!
by
Julia MacDonnell
OpeningDialogue
, May 02, 2016
Mimi Malloy is 69, living in Quincy, Massachusetts. Recently retired, Mimi is bustled into a doctor's office where she undergoes a brain scan and learns that she has dark spots indicating atrophy and warned that she must change her habits or risk stroke and death. In this well-crafted novel, Mimi not only refuses to get with the program foisted upon her by an overbearing daughter, but slowly faces the deaths, secrets, betrayals, and terrible silences of a painful past. As Mimi does this, she comes to a fuller appreciation of herself and the life that she has lived, falls in love with a man facing his own challenges, and comes to a fuller, richer love of her family. Well-written and filled with believable, multifaceted characters, this story flows effortlessly to an outstanding conclusion. Not all mysteries are explained, nor all events managed and understood, much like a fully lived life of love and connection. Significantly, the book is grounded in Massachusetts so firmly that you believe that you're there. I like Mimi. I ache for her losses and the sorrows that she has borne, and admire her courage in going down into the dark basement of memory to emerge with treasure to share. Her coming to terms with people and events long denied inspires others to do the same. I wish she were a real person that I could sit with over a cup of coffee or one of her beloved Manhattan cocktails.
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I Always Cry at Weddings
by
Sara Goff
OpeningDialogue
, January 25, 2016
Ava Larson is about to marry as expected when she takes a different road and ends up with the life of her dreams, an "If Only" life that she once thought impossible. Her adventures, triumphs, and disasters are believable, honest, and completely engaging. I couldn't put the book down, eager to see what she would do next. The supporting characters are strong, vividly drawn, and real. I don't think I have ever read a better depiction of New York City, a powerful and compelling character in its own right, with all its wonders, filth, and possibilities. Ava's story is original, wonderfully told -- don't miss it!
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If You Only Knew
by
Kristan Higgins
OpeningDialogue
, October 06, 2015
Higgins has launched into women's fiction and made a spacious, welcoming space for readers to savor her unique warmth, wit, and compassionate insight into all things human as well as sidesplitting humor in this story about the lives and loves of two sisters. Well-wrought and well-done!
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(1 of 1 readers found this comment helpful)
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Bachelorette for Sale
by
Gail Chianese
OpeningDialogue
, October 03, 2015
This debut novel, the first in a series, hits one right out of the ballpark in a gripping, well-wrought story. Cherry Ryan is all about heart: family, friends, the community center that saved her when she was young and confused. When we meet her, she is doing her utmost to save the community center and to get past a disastrous betrayal on a reality show. Romantic love has not worked out for her in the past, so she is more than guarded when Jason Valentine enters her life. In this charming, well-written story, the reader comes to know Cherry and Jason and to root for their happily ever after through daunting challenges and difficult choices. Having read this story, I now feel like I know these people, the place that they love and a part of the country that I now want to tour for myself. I loved spending time with these characters -- and cannot wait for the next story.
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