When some family member texts me a photo of a blooming daffodil on March 1, I survey this odd spectacle with a mix of wonder, resentment and pity. Where does this person live? I want to send them back a picture of my driveway. The woodstove. I recently took a trip to Seattle where I spied nary a daffodil nor icy rut. Believe it or not, it rained.
Seattle was the site of the 18th annual [minus 2021-2022] Winter Institute—a national conference hosted by the American Booksellers Association. It is an event heavy on useful educational programming with a significant dose of authors and publishing professionals. New co-owner Nicole Ihasz and I represented the Northshire Bookstore at the gathering and returned with renewed energy about the state of independent bookselling. We also heard about and met the authors of forthcoming books that you might love.
If you are one of the many readers who adored Abraham Verghese’s Cutting For Stone, brace yourself. The Covenant of Water will arrive in early May. It weighs about one red brick and this epic inter-generational story is one of the most anticipated novels of the year.
The brilliant Andre Dubus III returns this June with a classic Dubus tale of working-class New England involving addiction, class divides and themes of masculine identity. He will read from Such Kindness at our Manchester store on August 5th. Says the publisher: “For Andre this is a hopeful book.”
Claire Fuller’s novels are mainstays in our fiction sections in each store. Her new novel this June, The Memory of Animals, involves a pandemic and octopuses. She swears she began writing the book pre-Covid and pre-My Octopus Teacher. I swear she’s a wonderful writer.
Moving on to July, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Colson Whitehead delivers Crook Manifesto. It’s the sequel to Harlem Shuffle, his sensational novel I read on my journey across the country and back. In the new one, it’s the 1970s and Ray Carney, the furniture store owner who reluctantly dabbles in criminal schemes, is still dabbling.
If you really plan ahead, this October plan to read Let Us Descend, by two-time National Book Award winner, Jesmyn Ward. She was not in Seattle but I acquired a precious advance copy of her new novel in a secret exchange in the lobby of a certain hotel. Daffodils will be a distant memory by the time you get to read this book, but it will be worth the wait.
Happy Reading.
Stan Hynds, Adult Book Buyer
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Select events from Northshire Bookstore. For a complete schedule, click here
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Northshire Bookstore records many of our author and bookstore events and makes them available for free viewing through our “Northshire Presents” YouTube Channel. We are continually updating these offerings to allow our community to connect with other readers & book lovers. Explore & Enjoy - and please like and subscribe to see more videos as we add them!
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From the multi-award-winning and internationally bestselling author Donal Ryan, a searing, jubilant story about four generations of women and fierce love.
"Donal Ryan absolutely sticks it in his spectacular new novel about four generations of Irish women. Each short chapter tells a story of its own and these little tales slowly build the larger narrative of a family bound by love and strife. Some chapters are brilliantly funny. Others are filled with melancholy and heartbreak. One sucked the air out of my lungs. It's all pitched perfectly in Ryan's singular voice with the occasional use of the best all-caps I've ever read. All together, GRAND." — Stan Hynds
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The Pulitzer Prize–winning, bestselling author of Evicted reimagines the debate on poverty, making a new and bracing argument about why it persists in America: because the rest of us benefit from it.
ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2023: The Washington Post, Time, Esquire, Newsweek, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Elle, Salon, Lit Hub, Kirkus Reviews
In this landmark book, acclaimed sociologist Matthew Desmond draws on history, research, and original reporting to show how affluent Americans knowingly and unknowingly keep poor people poor. Those of us who are financially secure exploit the poor, driving down their wages while forcing them to overpay for housing and access to cash and credit. We prioritize the subsidization of our wealth over the alleviation of poverty, designing a welfare state that gives the most to those who need the least. And we stockpile opportunity in exclusive communities, creating zones of concentrated riches alongside those of concentrated despair. Some lives are made small so that others may grow.
“Reading Poverty, by America, I felt like Matthew Desmond was sitting at my kitchen table, explaining the complexities of poverty in a way I could completely understand. This book is essential and instructive, hopeful and enraging. It is a road map for how we can be better people, working together to build a better country.”—Ann Patchett
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Read Matthew Desmond's Facts About Poverty in VT and NY
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New Fiction on our Shelves |
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New Nonfiction on our Shelves |
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New Paperbacks on our Shelves |
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New Releases from our Children's Department |
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Manchester Center, VT
open to the public and for curbside delivery
4869 Main Street
Manchester Center, VT 05255
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Saratoga Springs, NY
open to the public, for curbside pickup,
and for home delivery with 9 Miles East
424 Broadway
Saratoga Springs, NY 12866
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Both stores are open daily from 10 am - 7 pm
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Thank you for supporting Independent Bookselling! |
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Follow us on Social Media - Saratoga Springs, NY |
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