Books

To understand Jules Feiffer the legendary comic mind, one must look to a transformative point in his young adulthood. He didn’t set his early sights on becoming one of America’s greatest satirists. But his powerful creative conscience was sparked by one event and never ebbed across nearly the next eight decades.

Leyna Krow’s newest short story collection, “Sinkhole and Other Inexplicable Voids” delivers on the fabulist elements fans of Krow’s have come to expect from her writing – an octopus love story originally published in The Spokesman-Review’s 2022 Summer Stories, a baby’s twin appearing out of nowhere, a sinkhole that improves everything tossed into it – while exploring complicated family dynamics and climate change anxiety. Instead of looking to Spokane’s past, as she did in her debut novel, “Fire Season,” “Sinkhole” is a return to the “fiction-science” (a term coined by Spokane author Sharma Shields for Krow’s writing specifically) of her first short story collection, “I’m Fine, But You Appear to be Sinking.”

What it means to be good – or not – is the infected wound at the center of Aria Aber’s debut novel, “Good Girl.” The narrator is a forlorn young woman named Nila Haddadi, and the story she tells sounds like a howl of despair transposed into the key of poetic retrospection. Indeed, the fact that this harrowing story recalls events from more than a decade ago provides the only reassurance that the narrator survived her teens.

Jenna Bush Hager, who became one of the most influential figures in publishing when she launched a book club on the “Today” show nearly six years ago, said Wednesday that she now plans to do more than just recommend books: She’s going to publish them.

Jamie Fortin dumped her heart and savings into her dream of opening a bookstore that sells romance novels. Starting the small business consumed her for more than a year, and in November, she painted the walls, then celebrated the grand opening of her shop in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia.

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, Jan. 4, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide, powered by Circana BookScan © 2025 Circana. (Reprinted from Publishers Weekly, published by PWxyz LLC. © 2025, PWxyz LLC.) HARDCOVER FICTION 1. "James: A Novel" by Percival Everett (Doubleday) Last week: 1 2. "The ...

From page-turning sci-fi and real-life accounts from the wildfire frontlines to a thought-provoking look at the history of electric vehicles, the Bloomberg Green team has you covered. Here are 10 books worth packing for your holiday reading.

Patrick Hutchison’s friends were making bewildering (to him) decisions: getting married, buying houses, enrolling in grad school. He earned decent pay as a copywriter for a Seattle tech company, but his life could be broken down to his commute to work, eight hours under fluorescent lighting and the commute home.

Patrick Hutchinson is a writer trying to bang out a living the only way available at a moment in his life: writing marketing emails.

The holidays are a perfect time to cozy up with a good mystery novel, and this season offers a wonderful variety of whodunits starring beloved detectives as well as new characters you will want to get to know.

Who better to recommend the best books of the year than librarians? Staffers at the Spokane Public Library released their recommended reads of 2024 (some were published before 2024), all available to check out at area branches or to purchase at local book shops, such as Auntie’s.

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, Dec. 14, 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. "James: A Novel" by Percival Everett (Doubleday) Last week: 2 2. ...

Readers often go to the library to look into the past, checking out books that have already been written and movies that have already been made, accessing information that’s already been shared.

My big takeaway from “Heartbreak Is the National Anthem” was: Is it even possible for the most famous person in the world to get famouser?

If, rather than process recent events, you’d prefer to immerse yourself in a romance novel, you’re hardly alone. Thankfully, 2024 has been an exceptional year for romance releases. Authors worked overtime in their chemistry labs to brew stories designed to make your toes curl and your spine tingle. Here are eight standouts with some niche superlatives to help you decide which love story is your one true match.

Spokane author Megan Young is out with a new children’s book highlighting some of Spokane’s most iconic spots and paying homage to the famous Garbage Goat in Riverfront Park.

I’m not sure if 2024 had a novel, like 2022’s “Babel” or 2023’s “Fourth Wing,” that took the world by storm and reshaped the map of speculative fiction. But this year did have a wealth of unforgettable books, making it tough to narrow things down to the year’s best. These are the 11 I couldn’t stop thinking about.

Comics are famously adept at visibly rendering the mechanics of time. Many of the best graphic novels of 2024 revel in that very capacity, dwelling on the way stories move between generations, how we recall childhood and even on the inhuman cadence of rivers. These 10 books differ wildly in style and content, capturing the remarkable range and diversity of the medium.

The best thrillers of the year find long-standing series in fine form, as well as newcomers to the genre leaving their chilling mark.