Cart
|
|
my account
|
wish list
|
help
|
800-878-7323
Hello, |
Login
MENU
Browse
New Arrivals
Bestsellers
Featured Preorders
Award Winners
Audio Books
See All Subjects
Used
Staff Picks
Staff Picks
Picks of the Month
Bookseller Displays
50 Books for 50 Years
25 Best 21st Century Sci-Fi & Fantasy
25 PNW Books to Read Before You Die
25 Books From the 21st Century
25 Memoirs to Read Before You Die
25 Global Books to Read Before You Die
25 Women to Read Before You Die
25 Books to Read Before You Die
Gifts
Gift Cards & eGift Cards
Powell's Souvenirs
Journals and Notebooks
socks
Games
Sell Books
Blog
Events
Find A Store
Don't Miss
Creatives on Creating Sale
Spotlight Sale
Picture Book Sale
Powell's Author Events
Oregon Battle of the Books
Audio Books
Get the Powell's newsletter
Visit Our Stores
Powell's Staff:
Five Book Friday: In Memoriam
(0 comment)
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...
Read More
»
Brontez Purnell:
Powell’s Q&A: Brontez Purnell, author of ‘Ten Bridges I’ve Burnt’
(0 comment)
Rachael P.:
Starter Pack: Where to Begin with Ursula K. Le Guin
(0 comment)
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
##LOC[Cancel]##
Customer Comments
Jane Ballard has commented on (4) products
Last Day A Novel
by
Domenica Ruta
Jane Ballard
, May 03, 2019
In an alternate but identical universe, May 27 is Last Day, celebrated around the world as the final day of humanity’s existence … every year. The origins of this annual worldwide holiday are buried in myth, but no one really believes the world will end on any particular May 28. After all, there are mattress sales, beer-soaked festivals, and free tattoos dispensed at a Boston shop. This particular May 27 starts at the International Space Station, where two astronauts — one Russian, the other American — and a Japanese space tourist complete experiments, communicate with their respective mission controls, and cope with their profound individual dissatisfactions. The only happy traveler is Yui, the Japanese space tourist, whose primary occupation is his own contentment. Bear and Svec, the American and Russian astronauts, are preoccupied with their orbital duties, as well as family issues on Earth, the lovely blue orb always visible from the ISS portholes. Back on the blue orb, Kathy is overcome by her many psychological issues, including the inability to control her actions, overeating, and consuming inedible objects. Abandoned early in life by her mother, she’s obsessed with finding her half-brother, Dennis, with whom she feels an unshakable bond, and her only friend, Rosie, a Filipino immigrant who introduces her to a splinter congregation of disillusioned Jehovah’s Witnesses. Kathy anchors herself to Rosie, never sensing that the older woman is far from a safe harbor. Meanwhile, Sarah, the beloved but benignly neglected high school daughter of two college professors, stews in ennui as she struggles to make a memorable human connection on this particular Last Day. Long after a few moments of flirting at a faculty picnic, she tracks down the ex-boyfriend of one of her parents’ colleagues, convinced they can create a more authentic world … even if she’s not sure what that means. And as the frantic but common activities of another May 27 wind down, something off-key creeps in, hinting that, just like morning fog on a Massachusetts beach, something hidden has emerged in the last hours of this Last Day. It stretches its fingerlike tendrils as far away from Planet Earth as possible, to a cabin on the International Space Station, in the early hours of May 28, bringing with it what no one ever expected.
Was this comment helpful? |
Yes
|
No
(2 of 2 readers found this comment helpful)
report this comment
Nine Lives Mystery Magic Death & Life in New Orleans
by
Dan Baum
Jane Ballard
, March 09, 2010
Dan Baum follows the lives of nine disparate New Orleanians -- from a bedraggled ex-convict to a high society white lawyer -- over four decades and bracketed by two spectacular hurricanes to demonstrate how life was fundamentally changed, if not completely destroyed, by Hurricane Katrina. While many books have covered the storm and its effects on the Big Easy, none have focused as sharply on the individuals injured, killed and left homeless by the hurricane that leveled the Gulf Coast -- and how they rose again, no matter how hopeless it may have seemed, to resurrect the only city they could ever call home.
Was this comment helpful? |
Yes
|
No
report this comment
Gone Away World
by
Nick Harkaway
Jane Ballard
, January 01, 2010
I'm nominating this book as the best of the decade, not just because I won a Daily Dose prize for my comments in February 2009, but for the strength it gave me when I needed it so badly. My longtime boyfriend died two months after I wrote this review, and while I knew it was coming - he'd been terminally ill for a couple of years -- reaching back for the ultimate lesson of this book, "the unmistakable stamp of love in its many and varied forms," helped me survive a very difficult time. I know Nick Harkaway didn't write this book with me in mind, but the Haulage & HazMat Emergency Freebooting Company -- not to mention the mimes and ninjas -- sustained me through some very dark days and helped me emerge from my own personal fire along the Jorgmund Pipe. Thank you, Gonzo, and thank you, Nick, for restoring my Livable Zone.
Was this comment helpful? |
Yes
|
No
(4 of 5 readers found this comment helpful)
report this comment
Gone Away World
by
Nick Harkaway
Jane Ballard
, February 17, 2009
In a world where the horror of nuclear war has been superseded by a bomb that literally makes the physical world disappear, Gonzo Lubitsch and his nameless best friend head up the Haulage & HazMat Emergency Freebooting Company, a ragged band of troubleshooters who quell problems in the aftermath of the Gone Away War. Through their lives pass ninjas, mimes, pirates, parents and specters surpassing the most active imagination, leading to revelations that shock the reader and stun the soul -- but permeating all is the unmistakable stamp of love in its many and varied forms. The Gone-Away World is a literary masterpiece, and Nick Harkaway is a genius practitioner.
Was this comment helpful? |
Yes
|
No
(8 of 11 readers found this comment helpful)
report this comment