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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
Janet Hamilton has commented on (16) products
The Higher Power Of Lucky
by
Susan Patron
Janet Hamilton
, March 01, 2007
What an honor to encounter an author unafraid of helping children to face whatever complications happen to occur in their lives. Lucky at age 10 knows that life can be both beautiful and scary. She knows that friends can be adorable and annoying, that losing someone you love challenges you sometimes to find out if you are just plain unlovable. Sheâs not afraid of facing up to what Alcoholics Anonymous is all about or figuring out the meaning of a word like âscrotum.â She doesnât have to be protected from the realities of the world around her. She is a resourceful survivor and she knows she needs love. She knows she has a mean gland and she knows how to compensate. Sheâs trying to take all the complicated strands of her life, including her electrocuted mother, her absent father, and the beloved guardian who she fears will leave her and weave them into a beautiful neat 10 strand knot like her friend Lincoln knows how to create. She takes it all very seriously with a delightful sense of humor. Lucky is a real kid in a real world and she comes alive in a book that deserves medals not banning.
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Hank Zipzer 06 Holy Enchilada
by
Henry Winkler
Janet Hamilton
, March 01, 2007
If you're old enough to remember the Fonz, you're old enough to have a child, or even a grandchild, who experiences some kind of learning challenge, or who has a close buddy who is as charmingly challenged as 4th grader Hank Zipper. This delightful story brings irreverent fun to the solemn diagnosis of dyslexia and every pompous list your teacher ever made you write. Read it out loud to your pet iguana, your brother who can't decipher fractions, or if you tend to see things backward yourself, maybe your sister's nerdy boyfriend will help. The point is, read it, you'll not only feel better, you'll put a lotta zing into your enchiladas.
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Him Her Him Again The End Of Him
by
Patricia Marx
Janet Hamilton
, February 21, 2007
Like a Saturday Night Live sketch, this book is not flawless, but it is very funny and almost perfectly embodies obsession and dysfunction in the cynically conceived get a life delusion that passes for the âheroineâsâ existence. Itâs one of those stay up all night to see how she gets over him reads. The quote that best describes the sarcastic style and tone is: âOnce you do something against your better judgment, it gets easier to do something else against your better judgment and pretty soon, youâre doing things against everyoneâs better judgment.â Actually, I was so sick of hearing about that obnoxious Eugene Obello that I could hardly bear to go back and search through the book for the name of the neurotic narrator who is so fixated on whatever it is he means to her that she seems to have lost not only her senses but her name. The ending is even harder to believe than all that precedes. Patricia Marx, go directly to Saturday Night Live. On the way, pass GO and collect $$$ to buy more baked potatoes to take out of the oven with your bare hand.
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Protector
by
Laurel Dewey
Janet Hamilton
, January 23, 2007
Laurel Dewey makes an impressive debut with Protector, a gripping thriller that goes far beyond the requirements of the suspense/crime genre to provide penetrating psychological insight into the human condition. In the paranormal spirit of the heroine, I predict that Inspector (or Sergeant!) Jane Perry will soon be solving more cases for the Denver Police Department.
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Water for Elephants
by
Sara Gruen
Janet Hamilton
, January 16, 2007
Alternating between present and past, the crotchety elderly narrator tells the story of his depression era career in the circus. It?s a fast, entertaining read from start to finish. For those seeking romance there?s an intense love story. For those seeking psychological insight, it?s a quality that abounds in the details of both today and yesteryear. The human/animal connection is beautifully rendered, especially through the tale of the Polish-speaking pachyderm, Rosie. The writing is touching, perceptive, and deeply comic. The ending comes as a wonderful imaginative surprise after such a factual depiction of life in the circus and the old folk?s home.
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Things You Should Know A Collection Of
by
A M Homes
Janet Hamilton
, January 16, 2007
A.M. Homes: Things You Should Know If you?ve never read anything by A.M. Homes, this collection of short stories is a fine place to start. It gives you an introduction to the scope of her talent and the depth of her perception. If you read the title story first you?ll know. What you?ll know is that most of us most of the time believe that we are missing some essential knowledge that was passed out one day when we were absent from school. That?s why our lives don?t work. Then maybe much later, if you?re lucky, like the narrator of this story, you?ll figure out that this list entitled: ?Things you should know? is not a list some teacher might have given you, but one you have to make up for yourself. A central theme in Home?s fiction is the human search for a sense of real connection, something many of her characters seem to be missing. She?s not the first writer to show us how most of us, like her characters, have a sense of wanting to go home, but not knowing where home is. It?s how she lets her characters show us how to see deeply into our own yearnings that makes her spectacularly appealing. A casual remark made by one character about another will jump out from every page to show you to yourself. In ?The Chinese Lesson? Susan, the wife, has a brother who is a psychopharmocologist, ?a specialist in the containment of feeling.? He has arranged for a tracing chip to be implanted in their aging mother to keep track of her. Susan?s husband, Geordie, the narrator, longs for connection to his half Chinese wife. As he attempts to track his mother in law, he realizes how distant he is from his own life. Geordie is one of those people who think they missed out on some vital piece of info somewhere along the way when they weren?t listening to the teacher. To him it?s something ?earth-shattering,? but Susan insists: ?Everything is not earth-shattering, despite what you think.? Geordie wants something. He wants more. He wants connection He tells us that he fell in love with Susan because of something he imagines she is missing, some hollowness, some lack, some feeling of being on the outside, some thing he?s familiar with and lacks himself. But he can?t figure out how to connect with her lack of connection. There is one thing Geordie knows about Susan: ?There is nothing Susan likes less than to fail. She will do anything not to fail; she will not try so as not to fail.? Susan will not try to find the connection. Geordie can?t stop trying. Homes chooses unique situations to people with characters built around psychological honesty and insightful perception. One of the most starkly original stories in the collection is ?Georgica,? in which a young woman seeks to impregnate herself with stolen sperm. Here Homes is asking hard questions: Can you start a connection with a new baby by stealing sperm from the father who you don?t even know? How?s that going to turn out? Wouldn?t that be like getting really drunk on New Year?s Eve, and believing everything will be new tomorrow? Knowing you?ll have a hangover -- is that anyway to start something new? Homes sometimes drifts her readers into surrealistic waters, as in ?Raft in Water, Floating.? In this story ?people often have the feeling there is something wrong, that they are not where they should be.? ?Something is not right.? To this already surrealistic world of swimming pools and anorexia, Homes adds shape-shifting transformations that may or may not be gratuitous. Whether it?s the painful neediness of an adult daughter in ?Remedy,? a young man who learns a excruciating lesson in ?The Whiz Kids,? or Nancy Reagan in ?The Former First Lady and the Football Hero? struggling to cope with Ronnie?s Alzheimer?s, A.M. Homes probes our human wounds deeply, opening us to see, feel, and laugh at our aching selves in ways we wouldn?t have believed possible.
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Madman Dreams Of Turing Machines
by
Janna Levin
Janet Hamilton
, December 27, 2006
This book is not for everyone. This book is not for those unwilling to ask hard questions or work through mathematical explanations way beyond their own limited capacities. This book is for those willing to wonder what they might learn about themselves from a fictionalized study of the lives of some of the world?s most brilliant minds. Kurt Godel, responsible for the incompleteness theory, and Alan Turing, a brilliant World War II decoder, and computer pioneer are the main math wizards. Men of genius, they make major contributions to the world, but find it next to impossible to function as human beings in that world. Godel and Turing never meet in person, though their ideas reverberate in each other?s heads. In fact, this book is largely about how ideas stir up human lives and communicate in ways in which humans are unable to. The philosopher Wittgenstein as well as other historic thinkers from the Vienna Circle play their parts as readers are asked to consider existential questions that plague us all. The main subject here is how within the fragile framework of our human frailty we cultivate or torture our monumental minds. The author, Janna Levin, herself a physicist, finds it necessary to insert herself into the story. She does this, perhaps, because she does not have confidence in her own powers to let the story convey its own meaning, which it does quite well. Yes, we are all limited. Yes, we are all boundless. Yes, we all want to be acknowledged and seen. And yes, it is probably going to be our fate to be disappointed in ourselves. Some will look at this book and find much to criticize, while some will find much to praise. Perhaps both praise and criticism will come from the same lips. That?s the point. As Levin says: ?That was us?funny and lousy and great all at once.? Read it. You're bound to find something out about some great minds, as well as about yourself.
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Skellig
by
David Almond
Janet Hamilton
, December 26, 2006
In Skellig, David Almond has created a creature both believable and unbelievable. Young Michael finds Skellig in a falling down garage, covered with dust, spider webs and dead flies. ?He was filthy and pale and dried out and I thought he was dead,? is how Michael describes his first impression. Giving Skellig friendship and sustenance, with the help of his new friend Mina, Michael brings him back to life and in the process, with the help of a heart surgeon, keeps his baby sister alive. Is Skellig real? Is he a beer drinking, Chinese-food loving angel? Do we all have wings folded under our shoulder blades? What must we do to discover their presence and purpose. Could we all fly out from the dark places where we are hidden in our dried out dust-bin lives if we learned to listen and look and feel and be present to experience the heart beat of others right there next to our own? Gently full of magic and realism, and the beauty and harshness of nature, Almond?s young adult novel is masculine and feminine, thoughtful and intense, full of contradictions, and tenderly oozing with life and of death. He captures the challenge of the human heart to embrace its own helplessness and work a magic transformation. In writing about a young boy just discovering his inner power, Almond has created a story that will speak softly yet memorably to ten year olds as well as reverberate in the echo chambers of much older readers as well.
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The Butter Battle Book
by
Dr Seuss
Janet Hamilton
, December 10, 2006
It?s time to rediscover The Butter Battle Book! This Dr. Seuss book that appeared originally in 1984, makes fun of the insane arms race in which the world was then engaged. It is brilliantly appropriate again today for parents and teachers who do not want to be in denial about the warfare in the world and do want young people to see how ridiculous humans can be in their opposition to each other. Presented in the zany rhyme and whacky illustration style for which Seuss is famous, The Butter Battle Book begins with a grandfather telling his grandson about the wall between their people, the Yooks, and their neighbors, the Zooks. The Zooks and the Yooks with their irreconcilable differences and escalating weapons production provide a satirical laugh with a light touch at a seriously heavy subject. The war between the Zooks who eat their bread with butter side down and the Yooks who eat their bread with butter side up begins with primitive sling shots and progresses through a fantastical history of warfare to the point of bomb shelters and a final Big-Boy Boomeroo bomb dropping standoff. The inconclusive ending is perfect for provoking discussion on how Zooks and Yooks might alternative ways to solve their problems. In fact, this entire book could be an excellent manual for peace educators to use with humans of all ages
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Dooby Dooby Moo
by
Doreen Cronin, Lewin
Janet Hamilton
, December 01, 2006
Another successful production from Doreen Cronin and Betsy Lewin who gave us Click, Clack, Moo: Cows that Type! Once again the not so bright farmer gets outsmarted by his animals as readers young and old laugh at their antics. The words are simple and funny and the illustrations are engrossing and delightful. Here's what everyone will be saying about this book: Whacka, whacka Boing!
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Potatoes Potatoes
by
Anita Lobel
Janet Hamilton
, November 30, 2006
This book has been around for awhile, but it's extremely worth re-discovering for a generation of kids growing up with war talk all around them. Children hear about war in a distant land and form ideas about it. Do these same children form concepts about peace? This book illustrates quite clearly and simply the futility and idiocy of war. Family life and plenty of potatoes to eat are equated with peace. The mother, like many mothers today, feels she must build a wall around her world to keep her sons safe. When they are big enough to see over the wall, and be attracted to the "romantic" hype of war, they go off to fight on opposing sides without even realizing that they will be fighting each other. The happy ending encourages hope for a world without war, without walls, without opposing armies, and with plenty of potatoes for all. Potatoes, Potatoes can stimulate much needed in depth discussion on these subjects in families and classrooms.
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Holes (Full Screen)
by
Sigourney Weaver
Janet Hamilton
, November 29, 2006
This is the best "family" movie I've seen in years! Although some of the characters are caricatures, they are amusing caricatures and Stanley and his family are real enough to outshine any cartoon animation! Most of the acting is outstanding. I didn't even recognize Jon Voight and I'm a film buff! The two main child actors are simply fabulous. Shia LaBeouf as Stanley and Khleo Thomas as Zero show how real friendship can develop under the worst of circumstances. Holes is laugh out loud funny and quite serious at the same time. There are plenty of issues that provide substance for family or classroom discussion. This is a movie that will be viewed and reviewed many times by all ages.
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Wee Free Men
by
Terry Pratchett
Janet Hamilton
, November 28, 2006
Tiffany Aching is a witch in training and a gutsy heroine who could serve as role model for many a youngster who does not hold their place in the world in high esteem. Readers are privileged to watch the quick witted sharp tongued Tiffany as she processes her own awareness of her innate wisdom. Tiffany is the star of this first book in a series of three. Her supporting cast consists of the blue skinned, red haired, Wee Free Men who are strangely bound to their own irreverent laws. Terry Pratchett is an exciting author with a uniquely humorous style that has enough depth and breadth to fascinate both adults and children, gifting us all with a delightful fantasy that's wrapped in fun.
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Girl in the Flammable Skirt
by
Aimee Bender
Janet Hamilton
, November 13, 2006
If you are a reader who does not require dull and boring old fashioned story telling, get yourself turned on to Aimee Bender! Her whacky and wonderful writing keeps the surprises coming at an amazing pace. Her imagination is so unique and awe inspiring that it is difficult to describe. If she were a circus act she would be the lioness jumping through the hoop of fire, fearless and conscious of the passionate nature of the fire. In the title story, "The Girl with the Flammable Skirt," the image of the girl whose skirt is on fire is brought vividly to life when the author wonders if the dancing girl who whirled too close to the burning candle believed for even a moment, after being engulfed in flames, "that her passion had arrived."
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Vegan with a Vengeance Over 150 Delicious Cheap Animal Free Recipies That Rock
by
Isa Chandra Moskowitz
Janet Hamilton
, November 12, 2006
Just in case you're not the punk type at whom this book is aimed, don't let them turn you off. This is a far out, fantastic, and fun cookbook for all ages and stages. Even a grandmother like me found the recipes exciting. Of, course, I have to admit that I was a hippy back in the sixties, but I'm willing to wager that anyone who wants to try going vegetarian will find recipes to love in this book. And don't be scared off if you not literally a vegan. You don't have to sign the vegan oath to turn out delicious non-meat burgers and the carrot soup recipe with coconut milk is incredibly scrumptious!
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Instinct to Heal Curing Depression Anxiety & Stress Without Drugs & Without Talk Therapy
by
David Servan Schreiber
Janet Hamilton
, November 12, 2006
As a person who has just survived a serious scare related to a clinical drug test, I say hurrah for this writer who encourages us to acknowledge our human tendencies to anxiety, depression and stress and to seek the most effective methods available -- which just happen to be the ones over which we have the most control -- internal heart/breath centered mechanisms that can be easily learned. In addition, he espouses acupuncture, which can provide such amazing regulation for our unbalanced bodies! Read it and learn.
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