Small Game by Blair Braverman Writer and dogsledder Blair Braverman has faced down nature on dozens of real-life adventures. After she became violently ill on an episode Naked and Afraid she wondered: what would have happened if the crew wasn’t there to pull me out? Small Game is Braverman’s answer to that question. In her debut novel, adventure guide … Read more
Patricia Wants to Cuddle by Samantha Allen The Bachelor meets Bigfoot in this wacky page-turner. The cast and crew of reality dating show The Catch travel to a remote island in the San Juans to film an episode on location. The four remaining contestants all want very different outcomes from their time on the show, and it’s not necessarily … Read more
Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk by Sasha taqʷšəblu LaPointe is the Whatcom READS 2024 book selection. Jess Walter, author of the 2023 featured title, The Cold Millions, announced the book and author during the March 3 author event at the Mount Baker Theatre. Winner of a 2023 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association award, Red … Read more
The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka Reviewed by Emma Radosevich, collection development librarian, Whatcom County Library System At the community pool, obsessive lap swimmers adhere to a strict, unspoken social code. They stick to their lanes and keep an eye out for each other–especially Alice, who has been swimming laps here for 35 years. Her dementia doesn’t … Read more
All That’s Left Unsaid by Tracey Lien It’s 1996, and Ky Tran has left her tiny hometown of Cabramatta and her Vietnamese immigrant community to scratch out a future as a journalist in Melbourne. Then tragedy strikes: Ky’s brother Denny, a star student with a bright future, is brutally murdered in a popular restaurant. Despite the … Read more
Think Black: A Memoir by Clyde W. Ford Few people have lives as varied and interesting as Bellingham’s own Clyde Ford. In his professional life, he’s been a chiropractor, a psychotherapist and a business owner. He’s studied mind-body healing, African mythology, the environment and history, and he’s channeled these interests into a career as a renowned … Read more
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
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
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
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