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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
Katherine Stevens has commented on (26) products
Fault in Our Stars Large Print
by
John Green
Katherine Stevens
, April 27, 2013
Unapologetic tearjerker. Inventive, atypical story of two cancer-riddled teenagers who travel to Amsterdam in search of closure from a sad drunk novelist who left his one book incomplete. Even though the ending is no surprise, it is equal parts clever and crushing. Cried so hard I thought I was going to throw up.
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Apples Are From Kazakhstan
by
Christopher Robbins
Katherine Stevens
, April 15, 2013
It may be simplistic but the highest praise I can give this book is that it makes me want to go to Kazakhstan. Honest in its portrayal of Kazakhstan's very challenging recent history, Robbins also clearly is enchanted by the vast and diverse nation and his admiration is catching. If you've ever wondered what the real story is behind this large and largely unknown ex-Soviet republic--and even if you haven't and just want a good book to read, Apples are from Kazakhstan is a great choice.
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The Ginseng Hunter
by
Jeff Talarigo
Katherine Stevens
, January 25, 2013
The story of a solitary Korean-Chinese farmer and ginseng hunter living by the Tumen River, the natural border between China and North Korea, whose morality is dictated by realities beyond his control.
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Pulphead
by
John Jeremiah Sullivan
Katherine Stevens
, January 04, 2013
Best book I read in 2012, hands down.
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Maphead Charting the Wide Weird World of Geography Wonks
by
Ken Jennings
Katherine Stevens
, December 17, 2012
Ken Jennings is a really charming writer, and he tackles the multifaceted world of geography love with humor and love. Geocaching, the National Geography Bee, the story of GPS, the antique map market--all these subjects are given their 15 minutes. Any lover of National Geographic or Sporcle capitals quiz addict will sense themselves in this book and be sad when the book is done. Love!
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Cold Beer & Crocodiles
by
Roff Smith
Katherine Stevens
, August 01, 2012
After living in metropolitan Australia for 15 years, Yankee Roff Smith drops his fantastic job and decides to bicycle around the whole perimeter of Australia. It's a tough, nasty, exhilarating, illuminating business, and Roff is very candid about his trials and tribulations as well as his ventures off the path, from taking up with a bachelor party on their fishing trip and learning how to sheer sheep to dodging kangaroo carcasses and trying to outrun cyclone season. A great read.
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Night Train to Turkistan Modern Adventures Along Chinas Ancient Silk Road
by
Stuart Stevens
Katherine Stevens
, July 25, 2012
Ever wanted to go to China but can't afford it? Well, this is the perfect book, because, unlike some travel books, it won't make you jealous of the author who did go. It will, in fact, make you never, ever, ever want to go to China (even though it's probably changed heavily in the last 20 years). From packed, dirty, freezing cold, vomit-filled bus trips through the high desert to fun with Chinese bureaucracy (they really put the red in red tape), this is a great book not just for fans of Fleming's The News from Tartary, which the book tries and fails to copy, itinerary-wise, but for sadists as well.
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Pulphead
by
John Jeremiah Sullivan
Katherine Stevens
, May 25, 2012
John Jeremiah Sullivan just has the friendliest, most interesting voice. Whether he's talking about the time his house was used as part of the set of One Tree Hill, a Christian music festival, North American cave art, or how animals may all gang up together one day to try to kill us, he is never boring. One of the top American essayists alive.
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Books & Islands In Ojibwe Country
by
Louise Erdrich
Katherine Stevens
, May 19, 2012
Strange, cool, little book from a Native American writer visiting her new daughter's father's ancestral home in Canada. As much about being a single mother and writer as what it means to be an American Indian among the territories and lakes of central Canada, Minnesota, or the Dakotas.
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Voices Of Marrakesh
by
Elias Canetti
Katherine Stevens
, April 13, 2012
I really enjoyed this book. Elias's sincerity and curiosity is refreshing compared to the hipster or overly intellectual narration that frequents much of the travel writing I read, and despite its lack of edge or flowery language, he never loses the reader. Now I must read more Canetti.
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Listomania A World of Fascinating Facts in Graphic Detail
by
The Show Me How Team, The Listomaniacs
Katherine Stevens
, April 05, 2012
A gorgeous art book that's a must-own. Beautiful graphics illustrate lists of the most random, weird, and fascinating trivia about everything from famous survivors to cool things you can see on Google Earth.
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Cloud Atlas
by
David Mitchell
Katherine Stevens
, January 05, 2012
This was both the most challenging and rewarding book I read in 2012, a Jacob's ladder of stories in masterfully different styles and time periods that colorfully clicked together to create one breathtakingly unbreakable chain.
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How Fiction Works
by
James Wood
Katherine Stevens
, December 12, 2011
Should be required reading for any high school English teacher on up, any writer, any serious book lover. Agreement with Wood on all points is not necessary (and impossible for anyone who is not quite so in love with Flaubert), but he opens up so many ways of thinking about what makes great fiction great, even, occasionally, how achieving such a thing might be accomplished, and fights so cleverly against such spectacle poopers as Barthes, that one cannot help but be enlightened and encouraged to take another pass at one's own mouldering manuscripts.
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Goodnight iPad
by
Ann Droyd
Katherine Stevens
, December 07, 2011
Yes, it pays homage to Good Night, Moon, and modernizes it in a sense, but, boy, the characters are creepy. What are they, dingos?
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This Is a Book
by
Demetri Martin
Katherine Stevens
, August 08, 2011
Much in the same vein as Important Things with Demetri Martin, only flatter, This is a Book is a compendium of sketches, short stories, and general silliness. Anyone who likes Demetri Martin should read this book, and anyone who doesn't like Demetri Martin is wasting their time reading this review.
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Stories I Only Tell My Friends
by
Rob Lowe
Katherine Stevens
, August 04, 2011
A well-written memoir with lots of surprising, engrossing anecdotes from great movie shoots (The Outsiders and St. Elmo's Fire) and how a boy from Dayton, Ohio becomes a movie star. The stories of roles not won (Footloose) and political activism are just as entertaining. The book ends, sadly, with an abbreviated, less in-depth account of his time on The West Wing, but it's still a great read. For fans of his work since 2000, we'll have to wait for part two.
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Baba Yaga Laid an Egg
by
Dubravka Ugresic
Katherine Stevens
, July 14, 2011
It is impossible to come out of this book without knowing significantly more about Baba Yaga...yet mystification is inevitable. A strange triple whammy of interconnected (sort of) sections, the first two presumably forming the novel that the third section is commenting on, though the commenter in the third section is a character in the first (and never mentions it)! Borges would have given an appreciative finger wave at this multi-layered "book" and its messing about with not just the myth(s) of Baba Yaga but with both how myth is written about and reimagined. Note: the best part of the book is the middle section, the story of three old women who go to a spa and what happens to them there.
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Matt & Ben
by
Mindy Kaling
Katherine Stevens
, June 23, 2011
I feel like that this is a play that had to live or die by its actors. It's funny, but not hilarious, and isn't crying out to be revived, considering it's a play about the friendship of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck and their "writing" of Good Will Hunting. Considering Ben's now an acclaimed director, the whole "Ben Affleck is a good guy, but an idiot" notion seems a little off. The play stills of Mindy and Brenda, who played Ben and Matt respectively, are a definite bonus, though.
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4 by Pelevin
by
Victor Pelevin
Katherine Stevens
, June 01, 2011
The first two of the four short stories, regarding the coming-to-awareness of a chicken and the crisis of a shed's soul, are probably two of my favorite short stories ever. Certainly not New Yorker pieces. The final two short stories are a bit more enigmatic, but equally unique. A great read from one of the finest living Russian writers.
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Goldberg: Variations
by
Gabriel Josipovici
Katherine Stevens
, May 01, 2011
A meta modern-day version of 1001 Arabian Nights if Scheherazade couldn't come up with any stories that weren't about herself. Broken into 30 sections, we begin the book thinking each of the last 29 chapters is what Goldberg is reading to his employer to try to help him sleep. But as the stories and the narrator's voice separate and merge and details get mixed up, our assumptions devolve. Puzzling, like how a butterfly might get into someone's head, but far more pleasant.
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Macedonia
by
Harvey Pekar
Katherine Stevens
, April 13, 2011
A graphic novel-peace studies thesis about how war has, thus far, been prevented in Macedonia. While some of the academics could have been edited for a cleaner graphic experience, the book is educational in a sticky way. Names like Skopje and Pristina that once had little meaning will now be associated with the images of this book. A rare combination of informative and entertaining.
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Changing My Mind
by
Zadie Smith
Katherine Stevens
, November 25, 2010
If all academics wrote like this, college would be more fun. Zadie shares a smart, highly-readable collection of essays she's been commissioned to write over the years for various periodicals on subjects ranging from David Foster Wallace to her relationship with her father to perceptions of the biracial. Literary but never dour, the essays will make you want to read more of her work as well as the books of those who influenced her.
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Getting Stoned with Savages A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji & Vanuatu
by
J Maarten Troost
Katherine Stevens
, August 31, 2010
While Troost evokes Vanuatu well, his time on Fiji seems abbreviated and less developed. Babies and mudslides will, I think, do that to a person. A good read, but not as fascinating as his first travel memoir The Sex Lives of Cannibals (though there are certainly more cannibals in this).
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Im a Stranger Here Myself Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away
by
Bill Bryson
Katherine Stevens
, August 28, 2010
A '90s flashback in humor column compilation format. Bryson reminisces about all the great things of his childhood in '50s (creepy motels, kitschy roadside attractions, drive-in movie theaters, etc.) that have disappeared or are nearly gone and complains about American excess, yet his "whingeing" is almost universally funny and often self-deprecating and makes for a great, if now outdated read. Unless there is a pretzel stand where there are 100-plus options, in which case, someone please point me in the right direction.
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Anthologist
by
Nicholson Baker
Katherine Stevens
, August 11, 2010
It's really only a book to read if you've gone through a poetry phase. It doesn't matter much how long of a poetry phase. A year or two should suffice. Then maybe it's four stars because it gets you in your gut. Funny and sweet and sad, and not so much of any of it like you feel you're being manipulated, so that's a nice thing. Highly readable.
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Long Way Down An Epic Journey by Motorcycle from Scotland to South Africa
by
Ewan Mcgregor
Katherine Stevens
, July 13, 2010
If you're the sort of person who gets hit with passport itch and all-consuming waves of jealousy every time you read a travelogue, avoid Ewan and Charley's account of their trip through approximately 4 million nations at all costs. The trip from Scotland to South Africa is plum full of adventure, misadventure, heartbreaking visits with the victims of war, AIDS, and insufficient education, and a movie star falling off his bike a lot. Any hesitation about riding through eastern Africa will be completely destroyed. Now can anyone spot me a plane ticket to Rwanda?
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