The Family Chao by Lan Samatha Chang Lan Samantha Chang’s latest novel, “The Family Chao,” centers around a murder, but it’s less of a whodunit than a psychological study of complicated family relationships. The plot is similar to “The Brothers Karamazov,” but you need not be a scholar of 19th-century Russian literature to appreciate this rendition. … 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
Very Cold People by Sarah Manguso If Edith Wharton wrote Ethan Frome in 1986, it might look like Very Cold People. Also set in a fictional Massachusetts town, Sarah Manguso’s first novel is a pithy coming-of-age story with a bleak outlook. Ruthie doesn’t know why her non-WASP family lives in Waitsfield– they can’t afford it and they don’t fit in. … Read more
Northwest Know-how: Beaches by Rena Priest Nature lovers and poetry enthusiasts have a couple of chances to meet a local treasure, Washington State Poet Laureate Rena Priest. Priest will be speaking about her latest book, “Northwest Know-How: Beaches” from 7-8:30 p.m. Friday, June 10 at Village Books in Bellingham as part of the spring “Nature of Writing” series. Humanities … Read more
Tell Me an Ending by Jo Harkin. Our lives are shaped by our memories. They influence our understanding of the world, and through them we develop our sense of self. But what if you could excise a piece of your past? At Nepenthe, memory erasure is big business, allowing clients to eliminate snippets of recall that … Read more
Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson. FRUIT, RUM, SUGAR, spices — their mother Eleanor’s black cake is a family tradition that runs throughout Benny and Byron’s childhoods, tying them to their Caribbean heritage and to one another. When Eleanor passes away, she leaves her children one final black cake to share, along with a mysterious recorded message. … Read more
Orhan’s Inheritance by Aline Ohanesian Long before President Biden declared Russia’s Ukraine war “genocide,” and long before the word was first coined during World War II to describe Nazi Germany’s actions toward European Jews, the Ottoman Empire’s ruling Committee of Union and Progress systematically implemented the mass murder of approximately 1 million Armenians in what is … 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
Murder at the Mission: A Frontier Killing, Its Legacy of Lies, and the Taking of the American West by Blaine Harden Whether you’re a “Whittie,” know someone who attended Whitman College, or have never heard about early Washington pioneer Marcus Whitman, you’ll still find much to learn by reading veteran journalist Blaine Harden’s deeply researched work, … 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