Michael Wells, Bailey/Coy Books
*I Captured the Castle, Dodie Smith (reprinted after being published in 1948, author of 101 Dalmatians, “very British, coming-of-age; a real charmer”)
*Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters (lesbian novel, fantastic reviews, set in 18th-century London, “rollicking, bawdy, completely enjoyable read, big seller, very literary”)
*Literary biographies: An Unfinished Woman, Lillian Hellman (reprinted, paperback, “she’s itching for a fight all the way through; all kinds of literary gossip, biting wit”); Lovely Me: The Life of Jacqueline Susann, Barbara Seman (“Susann revolutionized the way books are marketed; she created author celebrity in a way that had never been done before; she brought sex into popular fiction; it’s fascinating, the way women’s lives were changing in the ’60s and ’70s; it’s also really trashy”)
*Everybody Was So Young, Amanda Vaill (“dual biography of Sara and Gerald Murphy, major figures in the 1920s lit scene in Paris, modeled into the Divers in Tender Is the Night; all about hanging out on the Riviera with a lot of drunken writers; very glittery and glamorous”)
Rick Simonson, Elliott Bay Book Company
*The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Salman Rushdie (“big, messy, lots of trails to follow, but very readable”)
*The Strangeness of Beauty, Lydia Minatoya (Seattle author, “intergenerational book set in Seattle and Japan, nicely done”)
*The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, Roberto Calasso (“a retelling, re-voicing of Greek myths in the postmodern sensibility, pretty amazing”)
Bill Farley, Seattle Mystery Bookshop
*Sins of Betrayal, Valerie Wilcox (local author, sailing mystery set on Elliott Bay, paperback)
*12 Drummers Drumming, Diana Deverell (Portland author, espionage, paperback)
*Judas Child, Carol O’Connell (author of Mallory series, paperback)
*The Blue Place, Nicola Griffith (mystery by local sci-fi author, paperback)
*The Pied Piper, Ridley Pearson (Idaho author, Seattle cop series)
*The Breaker, Minette Walters (Brit author’s newest)
*Welcome to Paradise, Laurence Shames
*California Fire and Life, Don Winslow
*In a Dry Season, Peter Robinson (“best book of the decade”)
*Speed Week, S.V. Date (a Florida romp, ࠬa Hiaasen)
Judith Chandler, Third Place Books
*Steps and Exes, Laura Kalpakian (“set in the Northwest, it’s a novel of families and about the way we accumulate the people in our lives—really quite brilliant”)
*About This Life, Barry Lopez (new in paperback)
*The Immense Journey, Lauren Iseley (“an absolute classic; it contains one of the single best essays in the English language, ‘The Bird in the Machine'”)
*Radiant Measures, poetry by James Gurley (Floating Bridge Press, “one of the most physically gorgeous books I’ve come across”)
*Graced Land, Laura Kalpakian (“I can’t recommend it too highly; before you’re done, you’ll get out your Elvis CDs and you’ll be having the best time in the world”)
Kim Ricketts, University Book Store
*Peyton Place, Grace Matalious (25th anniversary reissue)
*The Group, Mary McCarthy
*The Brothers K, David James Duncan (“big family saga set in Washington state”)
*Remembrance of Things Past, Marcel Proust (“not just because I used to be an English teacher—it’ll take you the whole summer because it’s seven volumes, but I think it’s one of the best things ever written”)
*My Russian, Deidre McNamer (“perfect summer book, sort of a mystery and sort of a love story”)
*Another Life: A Memoir of Other People, Michael Korda (“about two steps up from reading a bunch of Vanity Fair magazines”)
*Mister Sandman, Barbara Gowdy (“funny, eccentric, family story, John Irving esque”)
*The Way I Found Her, by Rose Tremain (“a sweet and erotic coming-of-age story”)
*Dreams of My Russian Summers, Andrei Makine (“the perfect example of a book that can transport you to another time entirely”)
