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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
CatMS18 has commented on (3) products
Dodgers
by
Bill Beverly
CatMS18
, April 03, 2017
On a previous job I had the employees participated in a team building exercise, much like the Myers-Briggs system. This exercise identified what the employee would bring to a team; an organizer, a leader, the member that would get the project off the ground, the mediator, etc. The object of this exercise is to build teams that would include at least one of each of these strengths, and bring the project to a successful end. Bill Beverly has done something similar in a LA gang setting in DODGERS, published by Penguin Random House. This is an ensemble piece with characters that represent the best and worst parts of a team. There is East a 15-year-old who has never experienced a childhood, raised in the drug world of East LA. East is the loyal one. He can always be relied upon to follow the rules and do what is expected of him and get the job done. He is the order keeper. Ty, 13, Easts psycho, younger half-brother with the gun. He doesn’t think beyond aiming and pulling the trigger. The trigger-man. The brains of the outfit is Walter, intelligent, always thinking ahead, knowing how to get things done. He is the strategist. Rounding out the crew is Michael Wilson the older college boy from the hood who is to be in-charge. He is a chance taker and never follows the rules. He is the fuck-up. The story begins in an LA ghetto at The Boxes, the hood where the boys live and work for Fin, the boss, the main supplier of drugs and East’s uncle. Due to a momentary lack of focus, the drug house that East is responsible for is raided by the police. Holding East responsible, Fin sends East with this crew of boys to Wisconsin to take out a murder witness before he has the opportunity to testify against Fin’s organization. Piling into a van the boys head in the compass direction E. “Only once did East turn and look back. Everything he recognized was already past: The Boxes. His gang. His mother.” The further east the boys go the more the mission goes awry. The boys begin to rely on their own selves to get through this task as they become estranged from the comfort of their gang life. East is the one who becomes more independent, realizing there may be something more than the gang life at home even as he finds himself friendless and alone in America’s white Midwest. This book has won awards as best crime novel and best debut for a reason. The prose is poetic, many times I jotted down quotes and passages I want to remember. "It took a moment for East's eyes to read the scene. He could see the valley's depth, feel the real wind dipping down it. But he could not convince himself that is was real. Space both vast and unattainable, opening up between the blue walls of stone. The air below was cold, he could feel it, a reservoir, and he could sense something about the chasm, all the time piled up there. Close to forever. More time than he had in a hundred lives like his."It also evokes a sense of place from the LA ghetto The Boxes where the boys live, to a stop on the way east at Las Vegas Casino, to a rest stop in Utah where big-rig truckers and families in SUV’s mingle to take a break from white-line-fever, to the white American Midwest."The farther east they got, the dirtier the toilets. Like every toilet in the country has been cleaned the moment they left LA, and none of them since." Bill Beverly shows us this country can be strange, scary, and unfriendly once we leave the comforts of what we know. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It is the best book I read in 2016, and that is really saying something.
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Station Eleven
by
Emily St John Mandel
CatMS18
, October 21, 2014
Every now and then a book comes along that you don't want to end, this is that book. It takes place in the dystopian future but it is not your typical dystopian tale. You learn to love the characters and want to keep hearing about their lives and travels. I highly recommend it.
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The Golem and the Jinni
by
Wecker, Helene
CatMS18
, February 05, 2014
"The Golem and The Jinni" by Helene Wecker is an incredible book where the main characters are taken right out of Jewish and Arabian folk lore. A Golem made of clay who has a young soul, and a Jinni, a spirit made from fire who is centuries old. Their lives, before and after, arriving in early century New York, the people they come in contact with, and how they each adapt to a completely foreign existence makes for a great story. I loved every minute of this fantastic tale.
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