Soul Boom: Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution by Rainn Wilson Viewers of the sitcom The Office may wonder why the guy who played the “beet-farming, paper-selling, tangentially Amish man-baby with the giant forehead and short-sleeved mustard shirts” is writing a book about spirituality and how it can save humanity from all that threatens to overwhelm us. Three-time … Read more
Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention–and How to Think Deeply Again by Johann Hari If you’ve ever Googled “how to get my brain to focus” or lamented your lost capacity for concentration, check out writer and journalist Johann Hari’s most recent book, “Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention — and How to Think Deeply … Read more
111 Places in Seattle That You Must Not Miss by Harriet Baskas February and March can be challenging months here in the Pacific Northwest. Snow is on the ground as I write this, the temperature is freezing and it will be dark in a few hours. It’s a time when PNWers fantasize about trips to warmer … Read more
Better Than We Found It: Conversations to Help Save the World by Frederick and Porsche Joseph Intended as an introduction to topics of the day for a teen audience, adult readers of “Better Than We Found It: Conversations to Help Save the World” by Frederick and Porsche Joseph will appreciate this inspired examination of society’s most … Read more
The Book of Difficult Fruit: Arguments for the Tart, Tender, and Unruly (with Recipes) by Kate Lebo Mixing culinary history, personal reflections and tantalizing trivia, poet and pie aficionado Kate Lebo delves deep into 26 lyrical essays featuring “difficult” fruit — one for each letter of the alphabet — in her first work of nonfiction, “The … Read more
Monk and Robot series by Becky Chambers In the gentle, hopeful future world of the ‘Monk and Robot’ series by Becky Chambers, Sibling Dex, a tea monk on the planet Panga, and a scatterbrained and lovable robot named Splendid Speckled Mosscap (robots in Panga are named for the first thing their awareness touches on, in this … Read more
52 Ways to Nature: Washington: Your Seasonal Guide to a Wilder Year by Lauren Braden Now that the Fourth of July has come and gone, signaling summer has finally arrived to Whatcom County, it’s time to make adventure plans to make the most of each precious weekend. Seattle-based travel writer Lauren Braden’s “52 Ways to Nature: … Read more
Everything Left to Remember: My Mother, Our Memories, and A Journey Through the Rocky Mountains by Steph Jagger Bainbridge Island author Steph Jagger follows up her memoir “Unbound” with “Everything Left to Remember: My Mother, Our Memories, and a Journey Through the Rocky Mountains,” a heart-wrenching yet hopeful recounting of a mother-daughter road trip taken 11 … Read more
The Salt Fields by Stacy D. Flood In spare prose with haunting images, Stacy D. Flood’s novella, “The Salt Fields,” tells of a Black man’s train journey north, leaving South Carolina with its ghosts and grief for a fresh start in the northern steel mills. Set just after World War II during the beginning of the … Read more
Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography of A Coast Salish Punk by Sasha taqwšeblu LaPointe Reviewed by Lisa Gresham, collection servcies manager, Whatcom County Library System An Indigenous artist from the Nooksack and Upper Skagit Indian tribes, Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe, shares her story of trauma, healing and the search for home in “Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography … Read more