‘Beekeeper’s Apprentice’ the featured read
There are two things that you need to know about Laurie R. King’s novel “The Beekeeper’s Apprentice.”
One, it was named one of the “100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century” by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association.
Two, it’s been chosen as the featured read for the fifth-annual Spokane Is Reading program, which will run throughout October with book discussions and two special appearances by King on Oct. 19.
Spokane Is Reading is sponsored by theSpokane Public Library, Spokane County Library and Auntie’s Bookstore.
Past reads have included Kent Haruf’s “Plainsong,” Charles Frazier’s “Cold Mountain,” Orson Scott Card’s “Ender’s Game” and Susan Vreeland’s “The Girl in Hyacinth Blue.”
“The Beekeeper’s Apprentice” (Bantam, 448 pages, $6.99) tells the story of Mary Russell, a young woman who befriends the aging Sherlock Holmes and soon becomes his apprentice. Their success in a kidnapping case causes them to become targets of a mysterious “master criminal.”
“King has created a fitting partner for the Great Detective,” wrote a reviewer for Publishers Weekly, “a quirky, intelligent woman who can hold her own with a man renowned for his contempt for other people’s thought processes.”
For more information about Spokane Is Reading, go online at www.spokaneisreading.org.
All in the words
Novelist/poet Gary Soto will read from his work at 7 p.m. Tuesday at Spokane Community College. The reading, which is free and open to the public, will be in the school’s Hagan Foundation Center for the Humanities on the second floor of the Learning Resource Center/Library, Building 16, 1810 N. Greene St.
Soto’s scheduled appearance has had at least one effect: All SCC English 101 students were required during spring quarter to read his book “The Effects of Knut Hamsun on a Fresno Boy: Recollections and Short Essays,” which is a collection of 48 memoir pieces concerning his childhood growing up in Fresno, Calif., and the San Francisco Bay Area.
For further information, call 533-7382.
Academic corner
•Gordon S. Jackson, professor of communications studies at Whitworth College, is the author of “Watchdogs, Blogs and Wild Hogs: A Collection of Quotations on Media” (New Media Ventures, 269 pages, $18.95).
New Media Ventures is a subsidiary of Cowles Co., which publishes The Spokesman-Review.
One example: Jackson quotes former President Bill Clinton as saying, “I hardly have any time to read the news anymore. Mostly, I just skim the retractions.”
•Kevin O’Connor, an assistant professor of history at Gonzaga University, had two books published recently. “Intellectuals and Apparatchiks: Russian Nationalism and the Gorbachev Revolution” was published by Lexington Books, while “Culture and Customs of the Baltic States” was published by Greenwood Press.
Book club
You have one week left to post a review of the April read of The Spokesman-Review Book Club, John Saul’s “The God Project.” To do so, go to www.spokesmanreview.com/interactive/bookclub, click on “more reader reviews” and follow the cues. The book club’s read for May is “Homestead” by Montana writer Annick Smith.
Upcoming reads include: June, Norman Maclean’s “A River Runs Through It”; July, Kathleen Alcala’s “Spirits of the Ordinary.”
Interested in suggesting a selection? E-mail danw@spokesman.com. Remember: The S-R Book Club reads only books written by Northwest authors.
Book talk
•Gay & Lesbian Book Group (“Songs of the Gorilla Nation,” by Dawn Prince Hughes), 7 p.m. Wednesday, Auntie’s Bookstore, Main and Washington (838-0206).
The reader board
•Swami Rahdhananda (“Inspired Lives”), reading, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Auntie’s Bookstore.
•Stuart Woods (“Dark Harbor”), reading, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Auntie’s Bookstore.
•David Dodd Lee (“Arrow Pointing North”), reading, 7:30 p.m. Friday, Auntie’s Bookstore.
•MaryJane Butters (“MaryJane’s Ideabook, Cookbook, Lifebook”), signing, noon Saturday, Costco, 7619 N. Division St.
•Patricia Campbell Kowal (“Stillpoint”), signing, 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday, Auntie’s Bookstore.