Books

The impetus for Spokane author Joan Burbick to write “Erased” happened the way it would in a book: Her husband received an oil painting of his mother, who disappeared in Japanese-occupied China during his early childhood.

After authoring and designing pages on myriad topics from “The Star -Spangled Banner” to Chick-Fil-A and Henry Ford’s quadricycle, you’d think Charles Apple would run out of topics to feature in his Further Review series.

In Craig Johnson’s newest novella set in the Longmire universe, “Tooth and Claw,” we follow Walt Longmire’s thrilling adventure in the desolate wilderness of the Arctic Circle. It’s John Carpenter’s “The Thing” crossed with Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws,” as Walt and the geographical survey crew he’s supposed to protect finds itself stranded on glaciers near the northernmost point of Alaska, fighting to survive.

This fall has showcased D.C. weather at its very best – temperatures in the 70s, day after day of luminous blue skies and dry, crisp air, lovely afternoons for strolling in parks or hiking along the Potomac and in Rock Creek Park. Overall, God couldn’t have ordered a better lead-up to my birthday on Nov. 6. As it turned out, though, I spent most of that day in quiet despondency, thinking about the future of this country and the world.

“Orbital,” the fifth novel by Samantha Harvey, won the 2024 Booker Prize for fiction on Tuesday. The novel follows astronauts over the course of 24 hours on a space station. The prize comes with a cash award of 50,000 pounds (just under $64,000).

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, Nov. 9, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide, powered by Circana BookScan © 2024 Circana. (Reprinted from Publishers Weekly, published by PWxyz LLC. © 2024, PWxyz LLC.) HARDCOVER FICTION 1. "The Book of Bill" by Alex Hirsch (Hyperion Avenue) Last week: 7 2. ...

Greetings, Spokane. I’m the guy who creates the Further Review pages for your morning newspaper!

Handel’s “Messiah” is performed every Christmas season around the world. Originally composed in 1741, the English-language oratorio, almost entirely made up of text from the King James Bible, is as popular today as ever. “Messiah” is performed in churches, community centers and massive concert halls, as well as during group sing-alongs. Its arias are ethereal, its hallelujah chorus magnificent. Its message, that of resurrection, is uplifting and transformative, and all the more ironic because it was funded by the transatlantic slave trade. Writer Charles King reveals this and more in his book “Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel’s Messiah.”

Every industry has its rock stars. You know, the kind of person everyone in a chosen profession knows exactly who he or she is.

Never judge a book by its cover – even if the cover doesn’t say much at all.

NANTUCKET, Mass. – “I’m trying to think of how bored I would have to be to say, ‘I’m now going to organize my bookshelves,’ ” Elin Hilderbrand told me as we surveyed the floor-to-ceiling collection in the hallway of her Nantucket home last month. “Maybe if there was a blizzard for five days and I had absolutely nothing else to do?”

It’s way more than a book club.

Books about haunted houses fly off library shelves this time of year. For patrons who want a possibly more hair-raising experience, libraries have stepped into the realm of the supernatural: many now lend out ghost-hunting kits, complete with instructions on how to use the equipment.

Based on formal measures like GDP growth and unemployment, the U.S. economy is humming along. The American worker? Not so much. Consumers are still smarting from the legacy of historic inflation as they try to cover essential needs, whether groceries, housing or child care. Labor strikes, protesting the long-term erosion of wages and benefits, have hit industries from Hollywood to shipping. On top of that, the return-to-office debate, raging since the pandemic, has divided upper management from the rank-and-file.

Whether she’s writing a poem, essay, column, story or something in between, humorist Tiffany Midge is known for her sharp pen and perspicacious vignettes. A historian by day, Devon Mihesuah has written countless nonfiction books and papers about the desecration of Native graves, racism, genocide, boarding schools, activism, Native women, and so much more, and through this lens writes fiction firmly planted in Choctaw history and beliefs. On Tuesday, at Auntie’s Bookstore, they will discuss Indigenous horror and read from their most recent books, the poetry collection “Horns” for Midge, and story collection “The Bone Picker” and horror novel “The Hatak Witches” for Mihesuah. 

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, Oct. 19, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide, powered by Circana BookScan © 2024 Circana. (Reprinted from Publishers Weekly, published by PWxyz LLC. © 2024, PWxyz LLC.) HARDCOVER FICTION 1. "The Waiting: A Ballard and Bosch Novel" by Michael Connelly ...

There has only been one dinosaur fossil found in Washington state, and it’s Kelly Milner Halls’ mission to tell you all about it.

Anne Snyder is editor-in-chief of Comment Magazine and author of the 2019 book, "The Fabric of Character: A Wise Giver's Guide to Renewing Our Social and Moral Landscape." Snyder plans to bring such perspectives to a Whitworth University's election year series talk, "Social Architecture: Creating a Scaffold of Social Life for the Common Good," 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Bing Crosby Theater. Northwest Passages is co-hosting the event.

We grow up hearing about “character.”