The Chuckanut Reader - Summer 2023

20%

OFF SALE STOREWIDE

at Village Books & Paper Dreams in Fairhaven and Lynden! *

June 24 & 25 Saturday & Sunday

Fairhaven: 9am-8pm

Fairhaven: 10am-8pm

Lynden: 12pm-4pm

*Some exceptions apply.

TWO DAYS ONLY!

Dear Reader,

Ah, summer. There’s just nothing like sitting outside and enjoying a good book—grass between your toes, birds chirping, cool drink at your side. Luckily, these pages are chock full of books that will entertain, inspire, and educate. Who says we can’t have it all! And, if you need a break from all of that relaxing, you can find some great author events to attend starting on page 73. Speaking of events, we’re wishing happy trails to Claire McElroy and welcoming Hanna Buehrer, our new Events Coordinator, to help keep our events calendar full of new discoveries and longtime favorites. Read more about them on page 72. And finally, we want to be sure to thank you, dear reader, for your support. Whether it’s the dead of winter or the sunniest of summer days, we know we wouldn’t be here without you and we appreciate it.

– Sarah, Kelly, Paul,

In This Issue...

Publisher: Village Books and Paper Dreams

Production & Design: Kelly Carbert

Contributors: Kiana Allen, Anna Brown, Kendra Calitri, Kelly Carbert, Erin Chervenock, Sydney Durst, Kelly Evert, Paul Hanson, Chloe Hovind, Sarah Hutton, Anne Lillis, Troy Luginbill, Madison Marko, Claire McElroy, Laura Miller, Maddie Musquiz, Laura Picco, Tova Portmann-Bown, Sophie Richmond

Cover: We are excited to carry merchandise from Native Northwest. Look for samples sprinkled throughout this issue. AND...the Passport is back! Content except art & book covers ©Village Books 2023

June is Pride Month and we're celebrating! Look for the rainbow tags on our shelves throughout the store with suggestions of great LGBTQ+ themed reads for all ages. Love is love is love. Celebrate your true colors!

2023

June 24

TOP GUN

Brie Muellar Band

July 1

TOP GUN: MAVERICK Bayou Opossums

July 8

FINDING NEMO

The Song Wranglers

July 15

MAMMA MIA

Quickdraw String Band

Perfect Pairings

July 22

BLACK PANTHER

Entertainment TBD

July 29

BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER

Entertainment TBD

August 5 A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN

D’Vas

August 12

FIELD OF DREAMS Cardova

www.enjoyfairhaven.com

August 19

THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG

Guitars and Gratitude

Aug 26

THE PRINCESS BRIDE

Bird Cage

Village Books & Paper Dreams is proud to be the PRESENTING SPONSOR of this series! $7

2023 Fairhaven Summer Outdoor Movies

Join us every Saturday for entertainment and a movie!

Movies start at Dusk - Live entertainment for about 1 hour prior.

Event entry is $7 per person / $8 if paying by credit card (children 4 and under are FREE)

Concessions will be offered for sale / $3 (choice of popcorn, candy or drink)

Sorry, no chairs are allowed on the grass—bring your favorite blankets!

Since its opening in 1980, Village Books and Paper Dreams has become a world unto its own. In 2018, co-owners Kelly Evert, Paul Hanson, and Sarah Hutton decided to celebrate the stores’ world of discovery by creating the Village Books and Paper Dreams Passport. “We created our passport program to reward customers as they make new discoveries at the store and to thank them for being part of our history,” said co-owner Paul Hanson.

As in-person experiences were curtailed during the pandemic, the passport program was curtailed but we’re excited to announce that the Village Books and Paper Dreams passport is back by popular demand!

The 32-page, whimsical passport includes a range of experiences that passport holders will complete to earn prizes, including T-shirts, special discounts, journals, candy, treats at Evolve Chocolate + Café, books, games, and more. “Each time you complete a task, you’ll receive a stamp and come one step closer to prizes awarded along the way,” co-owner Sarah Hutton says. “It’s a lot of fun for our customers and for our staff. It’s one more way we are building community, and we’re looking forward to cheering people along as they gather stamps.”

Upon completion of the passport, you’ll be inducted into the exclusive League of Extraordinary Readers. Honors can include a year supply of fudge, tickets for a literary-themed dinner at Evolve, a behind-the-scenes party at the bookstore, and a chance to win a variety of other amazing prizes.

Join us for Books A'Sail A Book Group at Sea

Come aboard the annual “Books A’Sail” cruise on the historic tall ship the Schooner Zodiac! Village Books is honored to sponsor the trip with owners Paul Hanson and Kelly Evert guiding the literary journey.

We’ll enjoy three full days of sailing and book discussion amid the gorgeous San Juan Islands. We’ll dip into all that the Schooner Zodiac has to offer, from kayaking and hiking to top-notch meals, to wine on deck at sunset. Passengers will even have an opportunity to navigate and sail this classic ship! Then when the anchor drops, the books come out!

We’ve arranged for TWO amazing authors to join us this year: ERICA BAUERMEISTER for two of her books, The Scent Keeper and No Two Persons, and DAVID B. WILLIAMS with his book Homewaters: A Human and Natural History of Puget Sound. Each of these books is an immersive experience on their own, but together they’re positively magical. Prepare to be transported!

September 12-14, 2023

• No Two Persons by Erica Bauermeister

• The Scent Keeper by Erica Bauermeister

• Homewaters: A Human and Natural History of Puget Sound by David B.

Williams

The Schooner Zodiac also offers many day cruises and themed multi-day cruises to choose from

Have Fun in Fairhaven!

Fairhaven

CHICKEN FESTIVAL

Saturday, June 17, noon-4pm

Head to the Fairhaven Village Green for a whimsical and family friendly afternoon of all-ages fun. Stop by and enjoy...

• An Arts and Crafts Market

• Carnival Games

• Circus Performers

Don't Miss Out!

• A Scavenger Hunt

• A Chicken Costume Contest

• The Chicken Dance

• Music from the Bayou Opossums (watch out chickens!)

And most importantly,

• Meet our VIP (Very Important Poultry - fingers crossed!)

Fairhaven

Funky Bizarre Bazaar

Saturday, August 5, 11am-5pm

Saturday August 5th from 11am to 5pm is the 3rd annual Fairhaven Funky Bizarre Bazaar! Come and join us for a festive day of art and entertainment. The Fairhaven Association will be filling the Village Green with creative recreators, costumers, up-cyclers, collectors of the funky and unusual, musicians, writers, and artists. Think quality, unusual, up-cycled furniture, costumes, clothing and jewelry, original art, vintage, carefully curated, sculpture, yard art, Belly Dancing, music and much more. It’s a Bizarre Bazaar so feel free to dress accordingly!

Proceeds to benefit NAMI Whatcom (National Alliance on Mental Illness) and the Historic Fairhaven Association.

Happy 50th Anniversary to our Friends and Neighbors, Bellingham Training & Tennis Club!

Art by Scott Ward

Village Books is a proud sponsor of Bellingham TheatreWorks and the Fairhaven Summer Repertory Theatre—producing stories of significance to the Pacific Northwest with an emphasis on local actors and local playwrights. Thanks for supporting your local arts and businesses!

Don't Miss Out!

Literacy Breakfast with Nancy Pearl

Thursday, November 16

Hey Book Lovers, mark your calendar for the annual breakfast with the one and only Nancy Pearl! The Whatcom Literacy Council will share highlights of their services and author/librarian/NPR commentator Nancy Pearl will offer her book recommendations for the year. Registration will begin after Labor Day and will be available via whatcomliteracy.org; donations to attend support the adult literacy programs of the Whatcom Literacy Council. Watch whatcomliteracy.org and the Literacy Council Facebook page for updates.

Change a Life • Become a Tutor

As a volunteer tutor, you can help adult learners reach their goals and strengthen our community. See whatcomlitercy.org for an online orientation, application, and instructions for how to set up an interview.

Enjoy Live Entertainment Throughout Fairhaven This Summer

In addition to our own event programming (pages 73-77) and the Fairhaven Association community events and movies, many of our neighboring businesses provide a variety of entertainment options for you to enjoy. For expample, check out Skylark’s Beer & Wine Garden or Stones Throw Brewing Co. for live music schedules. There is live theater at the Firehouse Arts & Event Center and concerts on the Village Green—don’t miss out!

Dragonflies Sticker by Simone Diamond, Coast Salish Native Northwest

Are You Receiving the

Every week, Village Books sends out an email newsletter packed full of store and book information including our latest virtual LitLive events, sale dates, and on occasion, special promotions. Twice each week, we also provide Shelf Awareness for Readers book reviews. If you’re not currently receiving these updates and would like to, you may sign up in the store or, even easier, do it at villagebooks.com today!

Michael Palmer, Conductor Laureate

HOT SUMMER GIFTS Shopping with Kelly

Undeniably, summer is probably the best season in the northwest. Whatcom County has so much to offer in fun, from hiking in the mountains, to biking the backroads and trails, to kayaking in the bay. And in between we have restaurants serving local food, berries, ice cream, and spirits. As I write this, hummingbirds are flying around and diving into the trees, which looks like so much fun. We are also blessed with artists that live in the area that share their creativity with us. You will be able to see some of their work at the Farmer’s Market and we happily feature some of their wares in our stores.

Phoebe Wahl is an award-winning children’s book author, illustrator, and surface designer whose work focuses on themes of comfort, fantasy, and intimacy with nature and one another. She grew up in Washington state and credits her free-range childhood in the Northwest for much of her inspiration and values. Phoebe’s first children’s book, Sonya’s Chickens was the recipient of the Ezra Jack Keats Book Award for New Illustrator, and her most recent book, Little Witch Hazel was an Indie Bestseller, Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Title, as well as being named one of the Best Books of 2021. All of us at the store just adore her illustrations and always look forward when a new delivery of her books and cards come in.

Phoebe’s Diary

by Phoebe Wahl

available in September, hardcover, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Drawn from real life, here is a bracingly honest illustrated diary of a teenage girl that captures the explosive turmoil and joy of adolescence. Meet Phoebe. She’s cool and insecure, talented and vulnerable, sexy and awkward, driven and confused, ecstatic and tragic. Like you.

Shop with Kelly

ALPHABET STUDIOS

Formerly called Gold Teeth Brooklyn, Alphabet Studios is a local screen-printing business that makes cards, jewelry, prints, and books through vibrant colors and playful design. The creative endeavor of Jesse Levison, the company is centered around throughtful palettes on small batch runs filled with humor, food, and joy. Each and every card is screen printed and folded by hand! There is nothing chemical in the making of these products. Jesse started printing cards in her kitchen while living in Brooklyn, New York but now lives here in Bellingham. One of our employees, Rae, also works in her studio! Rae just loves working there and says working with Jess is great fun while the local radio station KUGS plays and shop dog Scout makes sure everyone stops a moment for a biscuit—both human and canine.

Native Northwest’s story began over 40 years ago with a rack of postcards and the vision of building everyday connections to indigenous cultures. From sourcing and compensation of Indigenous artists to the staff and merchants, all are part of a lifelong relationship between Indigenous cultures and the communities that honor and respect them. Authenticity of art, design, and culture is the foundation of building everyday connections to Indigenous cultures. Native Northwest has funded 250 plus scholarships and awards at 20 partner colleges and universities. 100% of Native Northwest products are designed by Indigenous artists who have provided consent for their art. So as you drink out of a mug designed by Francis Horne Sr., Coast Salish or wear a hoodie designed by artist Ernest Swanson, Haida, you can honor the cultural traditions and the beautiful talent of these artists.

Have a wonderfully fun and safe summer!

Kelly Evert, Owner of an Independent Business Building Community Since 1980

Sasquatch Travel Mug Francis Horne, Sr., Coast Salish

Humpback Whale Eco Scarf by Gordon White, Haida modeled by Kelly on pg 10

Salmon and Eggs Balancing Game Paul Windsor, Haisla, Heiltsuk

Orca Family Tea Towel by Paul Windsor, Haisla, Heiltsuk

Hummingbird Porcelain Art Maynard Johnny, Jr, Coast Salish,Kwakwaka’wakw

Octopus (Nuu) Sweatshirt Ernest Swanson, Haida

New Fiction

Sun House

by David James Duncan

available in August, hardcover, Little, Brown & Co. David James Duncan continues exploring the American search for meaning and love that he began in his acclaimed novels  The River Why and The Brothers K. This stunning novel, set amid the gorgeous landscapes of the American West, illuminates the contemporary world through the prisms of Eastern wisdom, cast-off ecstatic religious ideals, and the unpredictable, expansive yearnings of the human heart.

The Memory of Animals

by Claire Fuller

available in June, hardcover, Tin House Books

Claire Fuller is one of my all time favorite authors.  She has an incredible mind that creates the most amazing stories.  I have read all her books and will continue for as long as she decides to write, which I hope is forever.  This is a story of Neffy, a marine biologist in London.  She registers herself for an experimental vaccine.  Isolated from everything, the latest pandemic has taken over, but not in the unit that Neffy and the other volunteers have been encapsulated in.  With just enough food, just enough medicinal drugs, and an air conditioner that won’t turn off, Neffy and the others must fend for themselves and survive.  With technological aid, they can visit memories that help them get through time.  Such a good book!  So real, and yet not.   –Kelly E .

The Brightest Star

by Gail Tsukiyama

available in June, hardcover, HarperVia

The beloved bestselling author of The Color of Air, Women of the Silk, and The Samurai’s Garden returns with this magnificent historical novel based on the life of the luminous, groundbreaking actress Anna May Wong— the first and only Asian American woman to gain movie stardom in the early days of Hollywood. Powerful, poignant, and imbued with Gail Tsukiyama’s warmth and empathy, The Brightest Star reimagines the life of the first Asian American screen star whose legacy endures—a remarkable and inspiring woman who broke barriers and became a shining light in Hollywood history.

The Covenant of Water

by Abraham Verghese

available now, hardcover, Grove Press

From the author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, and following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. A shimmering evocation of a bygone India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the difficulties undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. It is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.

The House of Lincoln

by Nancy Horan

available in June, hardcover, Sourcebooks Landmark Ana Ferreira, a young asylum-seeker who arrives from Portugal, tells the story of Abraham Lincoln’s ascendance from rumpled lawyer to U.S. president to the Great Emancipator. She lands a job in the Lincoln household assisting Mary Lincoln with their boys and with the hostess duties borne by the wife of a rising political star. Ana bears witness to the evolution of Lincoln’s views on equality and the Union and observes in full complexity the psyche and pain of his bold, polarizing wife, Mary. Culminating in an eyewitness account of the little-known Springfield race riot of 1908, The House of Lincoln takes readers on a journey through the historic changes that reshaped America and that continue to reverberate today.

LGBTQ+ Romance Dykette

by Jenny Fran Davis

available now, hardcover, Henry Holt & Co. The most hilariously relatable book, especially for those that can understand its queer lingo and humor. Reading this book felt like spending time laughing with close friends, while also being a statement on modern day lesbian relationships and the involvement of technology and social media. Author Jenny Fran Davis created a seductive and erotic story that makes you laugh and understand the complexity of gender all while having a good time. –Anna

New Fiction

Half Life of a Stolen Sister

by Rachel Cantor

available in July, hardcover, Soho Press

If you’re like me, you’ve fallen in love with the Brontë siblings’ classic novels, and cannot get enough of their tragic, imaginative, and curious backstory. Rachel Cantor expertly weaves their personal accounts with reimaginings of their lives, highlighting their relationships with one another and all the ways their creativity brought about the stories we know and love today. –Chloe

Ripe

by Sarah Rose Etter

available in July, hardcover, Scribner

A year into her dream job at a cutthroat Silicon Valley start-up, Cassie finds herself trapped in a corporate nightmare. Between the long hours, toxic bosses, and unethical projects, she also struggles to reconcile the glittering promise of a city where obscene wealth lives alongside abject poverty and suffering. When her CEO’s demands cross an illegal threshold and she ends up unexpectedly pregnant, Cassie must decide whether the tempting fruits of Silicon Valley are really worth it.

The Crow Valley Karaoke Championships

by Ali Bryan

available in July, hardcover, Henry Holt and Co.

A year after forest fires sweep through the town of Crow Valley and claim the life of Dale Jepson—karaoke legend, local prison guard, and “all-around good guy”—the community holds a karaoke competition. But when a convicted arsonist escapes from nearby Crow Valley Correctional, the residents learn there’s more on the line than a trip to the National Karaoke Championships. Marriages are at stake, jobs are jeopardized, sobrieties threatened, and second chances start to slip away as the community is forced, once again through misfortune, to rally together to save themselves and one another. The Crow Valley Karaoke Championships is a story about the fires we all fight in life—from the smoldering embers to the blazing infernos—and how, ultimately, there is dignity in the struggle to keep singing, to keep fighting, to keep going, to keep living no matter how high the flames get.

The Door-to-Door Bookstore

by Carsten Henn

available in July, hardcover, Hanover Square Press

The Door to Door Bookstore is a charming international bestseller. Bookseller Carl Christian Kollhoff delivers books to special customers in the evening hours after closing time, walking through the picturesque alleys of the city. These people are almost like friends to him, and he is their most important connection to the world. When Kollhoff unexpectedly loses his job, it takes the power of books and a nine-year-old girl to make them all find the courage to rebuild their bonds with each other.

The Imposters

by Tom Rachman

available in June, hardcover, Little, Brown Dora Frenhofer, a once successful but now aging and embittered novelist, knows her mind is going. She is determined, however, to finish her final book, and reverse her fortunes, before time runs out. Alone in her London home during the pandemic, she creates, and is in turn created by, the fascinating real characters from her own life.

The Road to Dalton

by Shannon Bowring

available in June, hardcover, Europa Editions

Have you lived in a small town?  If so, you know that if you want to be alone—move to a city.  This is a story of the small town of Dalton, Maine and its inhabitants.  It can be rough, everyone knows everyone, and is in each other’s business.  A fun debut novel that makes you remember who is important in your life and why. –Kelly E.

Village Books and Paper Dreams

New Fiction

Lost Believers

Lady Tan’s Circle of Women

by Lisa See

available in June, hardcover, Scribner

It is hard to find words to describe how deeply moved I was by the story of Tan Yunxian and the women around her. Sometimes the most powerful historic novels aren’t about the major events we hear about all the time. Instead, the power comes from small ways in which people who face adversity throughout history hold each other up and carve their place in time. –Kiana

The St. Ambrose School for Girls

by Jessica Ward

available in July, hardcover, Gallery

Queen bee Greta Stanhope picks Sarah Taylor as a target from day one and the most popular, horrible girl at school is relentless in making sure Sarah knows what the pecking order is. Thankfully, Sarah makes an ally out of her roommate Ellen and Nick Hollis, the devastatingly handsome RA. Between Ellen and Nick, Sarah hopes she can make it through the semester, dealing with not only her schoolwork and a recent bipolar diagnosis, but Greta’s increasingly malicious pranks. She’s determined not to give Greta the satisfaction of breaking her. But when scandal unfolds, and someone ends up dead, her world threatens to unravel in ways she could never have imagined. The St. Ambrose School for Girls is a dangerous, delicious, twisty coming-of-age tale that will stay with you long after you turn the last page.

An Astronomer in Love

by Antoine Laurain

available in June, hardcover, Gallic

Books

In 1760, Guillaume le Gentil, real-life astronomer to King Louis XV, sets out for the oceans of India to document the transit of Venus. The weather is turbulent, the seas are rough and his quest may be more complicated than initially thought. 250 years later, estate agent Xavier Lemercier chances upon Guillaume’s telescope in a property he’s sold. As he looks out across the rooftops of Paris, he discovers an intriguing woman with a zebra in her apartment. Then the woman walks through the doors of his office, and his life changes forever.

by Irina Zhorov

available in August, hardcover, Scribner

Galina, a promising young geologist from Moscow, is falling in love with her pilot, Snow Crane, on a trip exploring for minerals in Siberia. Agafia was born in Siberia into a family of Old Believers, a small sect of Christians who rejected the reforms that shaped the modern Russian Orthodox church. Galina and Snow Crane are the first people she has ever met outside of her immediate family. As the two women develop a friendship, each becomes conflicted about futures that once seemed certain—and each is hindered by the immovable forces shaping their lives.

Disobedient by Elizabeth Fremantle

available in August, hardcover, Pegasus Artemisia Gentileschi dreams of becoming a great artist in a world of men. As she patiently goes from lesson to lesson, perfecting her craft, a mysterious tutor enters her life. Tassi is a dashing figure, handsome and worldly. But then a violent act threatens Artemisia’s honor, and her virtue. She has accused her painting teacher of the darkest betrayal; he accuses her of being an immoral liar. What really happened, and why will this trial scandalize seventeenth-century Rome?

Burn the Negative

by Josh Winning

available in July, hardcover, G.P. Putnam’s Sons

This page-turning thriller follows the main character Laura who is uncovering all of her skeletons in the closet that have come back to haunt her (literally and figuratively). It is all of your favorite aspects of horror movies in a novel—I found it very hard to put down. –Maddie

Dances

by Nicole Cuffy

available now, hardcover, One World

A provocative and lyrical debut novel follows a trailblazing Black ballerina who must reconcile the ever-rising stakes of her grueling career with difficult questions of love, loss, and her journey to self-liberation, from a sensuous new voice in fiction.

New Fiction

Maddalena and the Dark

by Julia Fine

available in June, hardcover, Flatiron Books

Venice, 1717. Fifteen-year-old Luisa has only wanted one thing: to be the best at violin. As a student at the Ospedale della Pietà, she hopes to join the highest ranks of its illustrious girls’ orchestra and become a protégé of the great Antonio Vivaldi. Luisa is good at violin, but she is not the best. She has peers, but she does not have friends. Until Maddalena. Lush and heady, swirling with music and magic, Maddalena and the Dark is a Venetian fairytale about the friendship between two girls and the boundless desire that will set them free, if it doesn’t consume them first.

Christian Fiction

Paradises Lost: #1 in The Passage Through Time Series

by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, translated by Steven Rendall available now, hardcover, Europa Editions

Noam is a young man when the Flood wreaks havoc on the world, destroying the peaceful lakeside village he called home, and turning his whole life upside down. Destined to live forever as an immortal, Noam travels through the centuries in search of the meaning of life, and the events which shaped who we have become today. Paradises Lost is the first installment of Schmitt’s monumental project of recounting the history of humanity, the fruits of more than thirty years of research. Schmitt combines his scientific, religious, and philosophical research to propel readers from one world to another, and from pre-history to today.

The Long March Home : A World War II Novel of the Pacific

by Marcus Brotherton and Tosca Lee available now. hardcover, Revell

Jimmy Propfield joined the army for two reasons: to get out of Alabama with his best friends Hank and Billy and to forget his high school sweetheart, Claire. Life in the Philippines seems like paradise—until the morning of December 8, 1941, when news comes from Manila: Imperial Japan has bombed Pearl Harbor. Within hours, the teenage friends are plunged into war and what will become known as one of the worst atrocities in modern warfare: the Bataan Death March. Inspired by true stories, The Long March Home is a gripping coming-of-age tale of friendship, sacrifice, and the power of unrelenting hope. LOCAL AUTHOR!

Atalanta

by Jennifer Saint

available now, hardcover, Flatiron Books

From the beloved, bestselling author of Elektra and Ariadne, a reimagining of the myth of Atalanta, a fierce huntress raised by bears and the only woman in the world’s most famous band of heroes, the Argonauts. When Princess Atalanta is born, a daughter rather than the son her parents hoped for, she is left on a mountainside to die. But even then, she is a survivor. Raised by a mother bear under the protective eye of the goddess Artemis, Atalanta grows up wild and free, with just one condition: if she marries, Artemis warns, it will be her undoing. Full of joy, passion, and adventure, Atalanta is the story of a woman who refuses to be contained. Jennifer Saint places Atalanta in the pantheon of the greatest heroes in Greek mythology, where she belongs.

The Night Flowers

by Sara Herchenroether

available now, hardcover, Tin House

In 1983, deep in New Mexico’s Gila National Forest, the bodies of a young woman and two children were found. Who were they? How did they get there? Thirty years later, two women find themselves drawn to the cold case. Librarian Laura MacDonald begins her own investigation to distract herself from cancer treatments and becomes consumed by her search for answers. Jean Martinez is a veteran detective determined to keep working cold cases for the Sierra County police force even as her family begs her to retire. With only fragments from dusty case files and a witness who doesn’t want to remember, this unlikely duo is determined—no matter the cost—to uncover the truth behind the murders.

The End of August

by Yu Miri

available in August, hardcover, Riverhead Books

In 1930s Japanese-occupied Korea, Lee Woo-cheol was a running prodigy and a contender for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics. But he would have had to run under the Japanese flag. Nearly a century later, his granddaughter is living in Japan and training to run a marathon herself. She summons Korean shamans to hold a ritual to connect with Lee Woo-cheol. When his ghost appears, she must uncover his story to free his soul. What she discovers is at the heart of this sweeping, majestic novel about a family that endured death, love, betrayal, war, political upheaval, and ghosts, both vengeful and wistful.

New Fiction

Crook Manifesto

by

Colson Whitehead

available in July, hardcover, Doubleday

Two-time Pulitzer Prize winning Colson Whitehead continues his Harlem saga in a powerful and hugely entertaining novel that summons 1970s New York in all its seedy glory. A darkly funny tale of a city under siege, but also a sneakily searching portrait of the meaning of family. Colson Whitehead’s kaleidoscopic portrait of Harlem is sure to stand as one of the all-time great evocations of a place and a time.

Talking at Night

by Claire Daverley

available in June, hardcover, Pamela Dorman Books

“I absolutely adored Talking at Night… A gorgeous story of first love, loss, and the people who stick to your ribs, it should be on everyone’s must-read list. Beautiful, poignant, and heart-wrenching in the best way possible.”

Halcyon

by Elliot Ackerman

available now,hardcover, Knopf

In this intriguing alternate history novel, politically funded research uncovers a cure for death. Grappling with issues of morality, fate, scientific uncertainty, and the balance between good and evil, you won’t want to miss this one. –Sophie

The Lost Journals of Sacajewea

by Debra Magpie Earling

available now, hardcover, Harper

My Murder

by Katie Williams

From the award-winning author of Perma Red comes a devastatingly beautiful novel that challenges prevailing historical narratives of Sacajewea. Among the most memorialized women in American history, Sacajewea served as interpreter and guide for Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery. In this visionary novel, acclaimed Indigenous author Debra Magpie Earling brings this mythologized figure vividly to life, casting unsparing light on the men who brutalized her and recentering Sacajewea as the arbiter of her own history. Written in lyrical, dreamlike prose, this is an astonishing work of art and a powerful tale of perseverance—the Indigenous woman’s story that hasn’t been told.

available in June, hardcover, Riverhead Books

Lou is a happily married mother of an adorable toddler. She’s also the victim of a local serial killer. Recently brought back to life and returned to her grieving family by a government project, she is grateful for this second chance. But as the new Lou re-adapts to her old routines, and as she bonds with other female victims, she realizes that disturbing questions remain about what exactly preceded her death and how much she can really trust those around her.

Horror

Carley Fortune, New York Times bestselling author of Every Summer After. Check

The Salt Grows Heavy

by Cassandra Khaw

available now, hardcover, Tor Nightfire

You may think you know how the fairy tale goes: a mermaid comes to shore and weds the prince. But what the fables forget is that mermaids have teeth. And now, her daughters have devoured the kingdom and burned it to ashes. On the run, the mermaid is joined by a mysterious plague doctor with a darkness of their own. Deep in the eerie, snow-crusted forest, the pair stumble upon a village of ageless children who thirst for blood, and the three “saints” who control them. The mermaid and her doctor must embrace the cruelest parts of their true nature if they hope to survive.

The Five-Star Weekend

by Elin Hilderbrand

available in June, hardcover, Little, Brown and Company

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Hotel Nantucket: After tragedy strikes, Hollis Shaw gathers four friends from different stages in her life to spend an unforgettable weekend on Nantucket. This surprising and captivating story about friendship, love, and self-discovery is the perfect summer read.

Frog Sticker by Tsimshian artist, Corey W. Moraes Native Northwest

The History of a Difficult Child

by Mihret Sibhat

available in June, hardcover, Viking

A breathtaking, tragicomic debut novel about the indomitable child of a scorned, formerly land-owning family who must grow up in the wake of Ethiopia’s socialist revolution. “An exhilarating novel by a powerful new writer.”

—Elif Batuman, author of Pulitzer-Prize finalist

The Idiot and Either/Or.

The Wind Knows My Name

by Isabel Allende

translated by Frances Riddle

available in June, hardcover, Ballantine Books

Intertwining past and present, The Wind Knows

My Name tells the tale of two unforgettable characters: both in search of family and home. It is both a testament to the sacrifices that parents make, and a love letter to the children who survive the most unfathomable dangers—and never stop dreaming.

The First Ladies

by Marie Benedict

and Victoria Christopher Murray

available in June, hardcover, Berkley

A novel about the extraordinary partnership between First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune—an unlikely friendship that changed the world, from the New York Times bestselling authors of the Good Morning America Book Club pick The Personal Librarian.

New Fiction

The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store

by James McBride

available in August, hardcover, Riverhead

Books

In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows.

Medusa’s Sisters

by

Lauren J. A. Bear

available in August, hardcover, Ace

Even before they were transformed into Gorgons, Medusa, Stheno, and Euryale were unique among their immortal family. Curious about mortals and their lives, Medusa and her sisters entered the human world in search of a place to belong, yet quickly found themselves at the perilous center of a dangerous Olympian rivalry and learned—too late—that a god’s love is a violent one.

The Last Ranger

by Peter Heller

available in August, hardcover, Knopf

The bestselling author of The River returns with a vibrant, lyrical mystery set in Yellowstone National Park where a skirmish between a local hunter and a wolf biologist turns violent, and a park ranger, adrift in his own life, becomes obsessed with discovering the truth.

Libro.fm makes it possible for you to buy audiobooks through your local bookstore (Village Books!) giving you the power to keep money within your local economy.

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New Fiction

Family Lore

by Elizabeth Acevedo

available in August, hardcover, Ecco

From the bestselling, National Book Award winning author, Elizabeth Acevedo this is this story of a Dominican American family spanning three days and tracing the lives of each of the Marte women, weaving together past and present, Santo Domingo and New York City. Told with Acevedo’s inimitable and incandescent voice, this is a portrait of sisters and cousins, aunts and nieces—one family’s journey through their history, helping them better navigate all that is to come.

The Librarianist

by Patrick deWitt

available in July, hardcover, Ecco Bob Comet is a retired librarian passing his solitary days surrounded by books and small comforts in a mint-colored house in Portland, Oregon. One morning on his daily walk he encounters a confused elderly woman lost in a market and returns her to the senior center that is her home. Hoping to fill the void he’s known since retiring, he begins volunteering at the center. Here, as a community of strange peers gathers around Bob, and following a happenstance brush with a painful complication from his past, the events of his life and the details of his character are revealed. With his inimitable verve, skewed humor, and compassion for the outcast, Patrick deWitt has written a wide-ranging and ambitious document of the introvert’s condition.

Tom Lake

by Ann Patchett

available in August, hardcover, Harper

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.

Good Night, Irene

by Luis Alberto Urrea

available now, hardcover, Little, Brown and Co.

In 1943, Irene Woodward abandons an abusive fiancé in New York to enlist with the Red Cross and head to Europe. She makes fast friends in training with Dorothy Dunford, a towering Midwesterner with a ferocious wit. Together they are part of an elite group of women, nicknamed Donut Dollies, who command military vehicles called Clubmobiles at the front line, providing camaraderie and a taste of home that may be the only solace before troops head into battle.

The Postcard

by Anne Berest, translated by Tina Kover available

now hardcover, Europa

Editions

Every so often a book comes along that stays with you.  The Postcard is that book for me. Extremely difficult at times but then so enduring. How does an author do that?  Part mystery, part historical, part autobiography, this is a story that follows the Rabinovitch family from the flight from Russia to Palestine, and then Paris.  In January of 2003 a postcard arrived at the Berest family home. On the front of the postcard, a photo of the Opera Garnier and on the back, four names—all of whom died at Auschwitz in 1942. Why the postcard?  Who sent it? Anne Berest brings humanity to its worst...and best. Her writing is so beautiful.  I feel like I have met these people, that I can actually smell the oranges that she describes. This is an important book and I encourage you to enjoy this emotional and beautiful experience. –Kelly E.

Somebody’s Fool

by Richard Russo

available in July, hardcover, Knopf

The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Empire Falls returns to North Bath in upstate New York, and to the characters that captured the hearts and imaginations of millions of readers in his beloved bestsellers Nobody’s Fool and Everybody’s Fool. Infused with all the wry humor and shrewd observations that Russo is known for, Somebody’s Fool is another classic from a modern master.

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Fourth Wing: #1 of The Empyrean

by Rebecca Yarros

available now, hardcover, Entangled: Red Tower Books

Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders. Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders. But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.

Fractal Noise : A Fractalverse Novel

by Christopher Paolini

available now, Tor Books, hardcover

This immersive, suspenseful page-turner from Paolini is the latest book in the Fractal Universe. Follow along as a scouting crew stumbles across an inexplicable formation on an empty planet, choosing to investigate the oddity, for better or worse. Impressivelyresearched with diverse and cantankerous characters, this compelling curiosity will have you hooked! –Chloe

The Weaver and the Witch Queen

By Genevieve Gornichec

available in July, hardcover, Ace

The lives of two women—one desperate to save her missing sister, the other a witch destined to become queen of Norway—intertwine in this spellbinding, powerful novel of Viking Age history and myth from the acclaimed author of The Witch’s Heart.

Perilous Times

by Thomas D. Lee

available now, hardcover, Ballantine Books

Titanium Noir

by

Nick Harkaway

available now, hardcover, Knopf

Clearly Harkaway’s muse in voice and tone is Raymond Chandler for this new book. Terse, hard-bitten sentences throw you in medias res to a not-so-distant future with a 20’s/30’s era vibe. Fans of William Gibson or Bladerunne r would enjoy this one. Reading through the first few pages, I wasn’t sure I could adjust to Sounder’s storytelling voice, but I soon realized I couldn’t stop turning the pages. A fun and quick summer read. –Erin

The Road to Roswell

by Connie Willis

available in June, hardcover, Del Rey

When Francie arrives in Roswell, New Mexico, for her college roommate’s UFO-themed wedding, she can’t help but roll her eyes at all the wide-eyed talk of aliens, which obviously don’t exist. Imagine her surprise, then, when she gets abducted by one! Can Francie, stuck in a lime green bridesmaid’s dress, save the world and still make it back for the wedding?

Silenced

by Ann Claycomb

available now, paperback, Titan Books

This dark and chilling modern fairytale had me hooked from the very first page. Ann Claycomb has captured feminine rage in a brand-new way using tales as old as time. In the wake of the #MeToo movement, this deeply powerful story of strong and courageous women is a mustread for fairytale-loving feminists, as we follow four fierce and angry women determined to free themselves from the curses that silence them and prevent them from seeking justice. –Anne

Thanks for Shopping Local!

Being reborn as an immortal defender of the realm gets awfully damn tiring over the years—or at least that’s what Sir Kay’s thinking as he claws his way up from beneath the earth, yet again. Kay fought at Hastings, and at Waterloo, and in both World Wars. After a thousand years, he thought he was used to dealing with a crisis. But now he finds himself in a strange new world where oceans have risen, armies have been privatized, and half of Britain’s been sold. The dragon that’s running amok, that he can handle. The rest? He’s not so sure.

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Prophet

by Helen Macdonald, Sin Blaché

available in August, hardcover, Grove Press

From the extraordinary minds of the author of H Is for Hawk Helen Macdonald and first-time author Sin Blaché, Prophet is their electric debut, a tantalizing adventure fusing noir, sci-fi and a slow burn romance—set in a universe just one perilous step from our own. A tension-shot odd-couple romance, an unflinching send-up of corporate corruption, and a genre-bending tour de force, Prophet is a triumph of storytelling by a new writing duo with a thrilling future.

Translation State

by Ann Leckie

available in June, hardcover, Orbit

If you are a fan of unique, thought-provoking science fiction, look no further than Ann Leckie! Author of the Hugo award winning Imperial Radch trilogy, this novel is set in the same universe with an emphasis on the backstories of the alien Presger translators and how one such translator fights for their right of self-determination. –Laura P.

Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence : An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’

by R. F. Kuang

Revolution

available in August, paperback, Harper Voyager 1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. Babel is the world’s center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization. For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide…

Mountain in the Sea

by Ray Nayler

available now, paperback, Picador

The prospect of a book about an octopus species that has developed its own language and culture drew me in. The thrilling storytelling, complex and compelling characters, and philosophical explorations grabbed me and didn’t let go. Set in a near future where humans are navigating a world of their own creation where they are sometimes second-class citizens, even slaves, to A.I., a few are tasked to navigate this “first contact” with this octopus society. By turns hopeless and inspiring, you find yourself caring for even the vilest of characters. I can’t recommend this book highly enough. –Paul

Immortal Longings

by Chloe Gong

available in July, hardcover, Gallery

Princess Calla lurks in hiding. Five years ago, a massacre killed her parents and left the palace empty…and she was the one who did it. Before King Kasa’s forces in the capital can catch her, she plans to finish the job and bring down the monarchy. Enter Anton Makusa, an exiled aristocrat. His childhood love has lain in a coma since they were both ousted from the palace, and he’s deep in debt trying to keep her alive. Calla finds both an unexpected alliance with Anton and help from King Kasa’s adopted son, August, who wants to mend the country’s ills. But the three of them have very different goals, even as Calla and Anton’s partnership spirals into something all-consuming.

Building Community One Book at a Time

Wolfsong

(Green Creek Series #1)

by TJ Klune

available in July, hardcover, Tor Boooks

I can already tell this series is going to have a chokehold on me for quite some time. The drama is unmatched, the slow-burn romance is unbearable, and the characters are a found family like none other. I know, werewolves in the Pacific Northwest may feel reminiscent of another fantasy series, but this series is for adult readers (and is waaaay better). –Kiana

Nebula Award-Winner!

Paperback Fiction

Elsewhere

by Alexis Schaitkin

available in July, paperback, Celadon

Fans of weird and at times unsettling books gather round. This is one of those book’s where you never quite know whats going on, but you stay for the thrill and great writing. I found this to be such a unique story with a very mind-blowing ending that stayed with me long after I put down the book. –Kiana

Romance Love, Theoretically

by Ali Hazelwood

available in June, paperback, Berkley

Rival physicists collide in a vortex of academic feuds and fake dating shenanigans in this delightfully STEMinist romcom from the New York Times bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis and Love on the Brain. “It would be so easy to hate Ali—who is brilliant and funny and the most delightful writer...but it’s far more productive to create a shrine I can worship at, praying for her to finish another book quickly. LOVED. IT.” —#1 New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult.

Romance Kiss The Sky

by Krista Ritchie and Becca Ritchie

available now, paperback, Berkley Books

A return to the Addicted To You universe that follows Rose Calloway and Conner Cobalt in their academic rivals-to-lovers story. Follow them as Rose goes to extreme lengths to save her fashion company with the help of her family as an increasingly pushy producer pushes the limits of the Calloways strength. Funny, dramatic, and addicting, you’ll find yourself ready glued to the pages to see where their lives take the Calloway sisters next. –Sydney

Red Dust, White Snow

by Pan Huiting

available in August, paperback, Fairlight Books

Moon and the Mars

by Kia Corthron

available in July, paperback, Seven Stories Press

A vivid account of life in New York City for the Black and Irish communities and the events that precipitated—and decided—the Civil War, from the Draft Riots and the the decisive entry of Black soldiers into the Union Army, told through the perspective of a mixed-race orphan.

Not Anywhere, Just Not

by Ken Sparling

available in June, paperback, Coach House Books

I love this book! In this bizarre world, people are disappearing. Just, gone. And then sometimes they come back, but without any idea of what or why or how. One day, the girl’s boy disappears after many years of marriage. The vignette style in which the story is told is gorgeous and dream-like. Peeling back the layers of the girl and her relationship to the boy is page-turning. And, perhaps my favorite bit, God lives in the garage. –Erin

You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty

by Akwaeke Emezi

available now, paperback, Atria

It’s been five years since the accident that killed Feyi’s love of her life and she’s almost a new person now—an artist with her own studio and sharing a brownstone apartment with her ride-or-die best friend, Joy, who insists it’s time for Feyi to ease back into the dating scene. Feyi isn’t ready for anything serious, but a steamy encounter at a rooftop party cascades into a whirlwind summer she could have never imagined: a luxury trip to a tropical island, decadent meals in the glamorous home of a celebrity chef, and a major curator who wants to launch her art career. She’s even started dating the perfect guy, but their new relationship might be sabotaged before it has a chance by the overwhelming desire Feyi feels every time she locks eyes with the one person who is most definitely off-limits—his father.

When an office worker receives a mysterious device promising to transport her to a parallel universe, she assumes it is just another marketing stunt. That night, she visits a fantastical place in her dreams; on waking she returns to her normal life, only to return to the same dream the following night. At first she finds the ongoing dreams bizarre, but the more time she spends in the dream world, the less she wants to wake up. Yet as her fantasy begins to encroach on her waking life, dream and reality collide with drastic consequences.

Paperback Fiction

After You’d Gone

by Maggie O’Farrell

available in August, paperback, Vintage

Alice Raikes takes a train from London to Scotland to visit her family, but when she arrives she witnesses something so shocking that she insists on returning to London immediately. A few hours later, Alice is lying in a coma after an accident that may or may not have been a suicide attempt. Alice’s family gathers at her bedside and as they wait, argue, and remember, long-buried tensions emerge. Alice, meanwhile, slides between varying levels of consciousness, recalling her past and a love affair that recently ended.

Days at the Morisaki Bookshop

My Lover’s Lover

by Maggie O’Farrell

available in August, paperback, Vintage

When Lily moves into new boyfriend Marcus’s apartment and plunges headlong into their relationship, she must contend with an intangible, hostile presence—Marcus’s ex-girlfriend, Sinead. As Lily and Marcus become more deeply involved, Lily becomes obsessed with Sinead’s fate and thinks she sees her everywhere. She must question not only her sanity, but whether the man she loves is someone she can, or should, be with at all.

Hotel Cuba

by Aaron Hamburger

available now, paperback, Harper Perennial

by

Satoshi Yagisawa, translated by Eric Ozawa available in July, paperback, Harper Perennial

Calling all cozy story fans! If you loved A Psalm for the Wild Built or A Man Called Ove then you better snag this book. Even though it is a short book, I feel like I got to know each character so well. Yagisawa gives a voice to that feeling when you first discover reading and the power stories can have over us. –Kiana

The Last Thing He Told Me

by Laura Dave

available now, paperback, Marysue Rucci Books

Before Owen Michaels disappears, he smuggles a note to his beloved wife of one year: Protect her. Don’t miss the #1 New York Times bestselling blockbuster and Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick that’s sold over 2 million copies—now an Apple TV+ Limited series starring Jennifer Garner! The perfect summer read.

Bride of the Tornado

by James Kennedy

available in August, paperback, Quirk

Books

From the award-winning author of The View from Stalin’s Head, a stunning novel about two sheltered Russian Jewish sisters, desperate to get to America to make a new life, who find themselves trapped in the sultry, hedonistic world of 1920s Havana. These courageous women strive to create a new future in an enticing and dangerous world far different from anything they have ever known.

The Radcliffe Ladies’ Reading Club

by Julia Bryan Thomas

available in June, paperback, Sourcebooks Landmark

Massachsetts, 1955. Four young women have started college and have started going to a bookclub at The Cambridge Bookshop.  This is a coming-of-age book about being young, and having the whole world in front of you.  The young women discuss authors from Charlotte Bronte to Anne Morrow Lindbergh. An inspiring and lovely book for bookclubs or a good sunny deck. –Kelly E.

Don’t Miss the HORROR Section!

Admittedly, I am the perfect audience for this book. I love me some smart horror, I love being puzzled and guessing up to the end, and I love being immersed in a weird world. If you are like me, you will probably love this book. This is for fans of creepy Stephen King, of House of Leaves, and of Ishiguro’s Buried Giant. All with maybe a hint of a young adult vibe. Confused? You’ll just have to read the book. –Erin

Village

Themes include holidays, positive energy/rest & relaxation, Pacific Northwest, nature, biking, writing, tea lover, crazy for cats or dogs, or just let us surprise you with all of it!

It's a Mystery

Murder Before Evensong: A Canon Clement Mystery

by The Reverend Richard Coles

available in June, paperback, Titan Books

This first book in a new series is a charming, warm, and witty tale of secrets and murder set among the parishioners of a quaint English village. This number one Sunday Times bestselling crime novel is perfect for fans of Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club series.

The Late Mrs. Willoughby

by Claudia Gray

available now, paperback, Vintage

The suspenseful sequel to The Murder of Mr. Wickham, which sees Jonathan Darcy and Juliet Tilney reunited, and with another mystery to solve: the dreadful poisoning of the scoundrel Willoughby’s new wife. “Delightful. Claudia Gray is systematically taking out all of the unpleasant characters in Jane Austen’s novels, and I am here for it.” —Juneau Black, author of Shady Hollow

The Lock-Up

by John Banville

available now, hardcover, Hanover Square Press

In 1950s Dublin, the body of a young woman is discovered. Pathologist Dr. Quirke and Detective Inspector Strafford soon suspect foul play. The victim’s sister, a newspaper reporter from London, returns to Dublin to join the two men in their quest to uncover the truth. But as they explore her links to a wealthy German family, and to investigative work she may have been doing in Israel, they are confronted with an ever-deepening mystery.

All the Sinners Bleed

by S.A. Cosby

available in June, hardcover, Flatiron Books

Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. A year to the day after Titus’s election, a school teacher is killed by a former student and the student is fatally shot by Titus’s deputies. As Titus investigates the shootings, he unearths terrible crimes and a serial killer who has been hiding in plain sight. With the killer’s possible connections to a local church and the town’s harrowing history weighing on him, Titus projects confidence about closing the case while concealing a painful secret from his own past. But where faith and violence meet, there will be a reckoning.

Bad Kids

by

Zijin Chen

translated by Michelle Deeter

available in June, paperback, Pushkin Vertigo

One beautiful morning, Zhang Dongsheng pushes his wealthy in-laws off a remote mountain. It’s the perfect crime. Or so he thinks. For Zhang did not expect that three kids would catch him in the act while they’re working on a photography project. When an opportunity for blackmail presents itself the trio start down a dark path that will lead to the unravelling of all their lives.

SUSPENSE

The Quiet Tenant

by Clemence Michallon

available in June, hardcover, Knopf

“All…of the expected suspense and psychological tension but offering a story about women—the ones who didn’t know the evil that lurked within, the ones who tried to placate or fight but still perished, the ones who might actually survive. Haunting but never prurient…truly unforgettable.” — Alafair Burke, author of The Wife.

Girls of Summer

We love giving back, and that includes to YOU! Until recently, we had not one but two frequent buyer programs to reward you for your purchases, depending on the type of purchase you were making. Now, happily, we have merged these into our Reader Rewards program. Next time you’re in the store, grab your Devoted Dreamer card from the card catalog and bring it with you to the register—we’ll take care of the rest.

As you can see, we’ve changed our loyalty programs over time! We hope you’ll enjoy this new, streamlined version of our Reader Rewards program.

Village Books & Paper Dreams Loyalty Programs are Merging! Stop in and Discover New, Used, AND Bargain Books

Our shelves are packed with a wonderful variety of books including new, used, and bargain titles. How can you tell the difference? Look at the labels!

• White labels on the back of these pristine, brand-new gems show that it is a NEW edition.

• Green labels grace our USED Books. Green as in sustainable, eco-friendly, and calming, like the low, low, prices of these copies. When you READcycle, it’s good for the earth and your wallet!

• Yellow labels signify a BARGAIN Book, also known as a publisher remainder. These titles are new but offered at a sale price. A win-win! Yellow is the color of nobility and at these prices, you can live like a king or queen. Look for new arrivals on displays throughout the store.

Interested in selling good condition used books for store credit? See villagebooks.com/readcycle-used-books for guidelines and instructions.

VB WRITES... WRITING GROUPS

Open To Newcomers!

Are you a writer in search of a writing group? Come meet other writers who can help you get organized, give feedback, and help you with your writing goals. These groups are free and open to newcomers and drop-ins Currently, one group meets virtually and the others meet at Village Books in Fairhaven.

FICTION I

Meets 2nd & 4th Thursdays, 6pm in the Writers Corner on the mezzanine level of Village Books in Fairhaven

FICTION II

Just Added!

Meets 2nd & 4th Wednesdays, 6pm in the Writers Corner on the mezzanine level of Village Books in Fairhaven

VIRTUAL NONFICTION & MEMOIR GROUP

Meets VIRTUALLY 1st & 3rd Sundays, 3-5pm. Visit villagebooks.com for more information

ENVIRONMENTALISTS ANONYMOUS

Meets 2nd & 4th Wednesdays from 12-1pm in the Writers Corner on the mezzanine. See page 48 for more.

EVENING POETRY GROUP

Meets 1st & 3rd Thursdays, 5:30pm in the Writers Corner on the mezzanine

MORNING POETRY GROUP

Meets 1st & 3rd Tuesdays, 10:30am-noon in the Readings Gallery of Village Books in Fairhaven

WRITING FROM PROMPTS

Meets 1st & 3rd Wednesday, 10:30am-noon in the Readings Gallery of Village Books in Fairhaven

CHILDREN'S PICTURE BOOK CRITIQUE GROUP

Meets 1st and 3rd Wednesdays from 6-7:30pm in the Writers Corner on the mezzanine level of VIllage Books in Fairhaven

Read full descriptions and expectations for each group at villagebooks.com. Please note that changes do occur. Watch the events calendar at villagebooks.com for updates.

Sign up for our Just Write! eNewsletter, a monthly publication highlighting current classes, tips and tricks, writing book reviews and the like!

WaMemWriMo

Classes for Your Writing Life

Write Your Memoir in September

Since 2014, September has been declared Washington Memoir Writing Month (WaMemWriMo) by the Red Wheelbarrow Writers in conjunction with Village Books and Whatcom Community College. Throughout the month there are classes, write-outs, readings and encouragement to write 1,666 words every day, resulting in 50,000 words of your memoir — a book — by the end of September.

As a part of WaMemWriMo, there will be a series of workshops will help you along the way as you turn your memories into memoir. You will have given shape and voice to the stories and adventures you always wanted to share, the stories your readers want to hear. These workshops, all taught or led by experienced memoir writers and teachers, can be taken as a whole, or you can select from the individual workshops to suit your needs and schedule. Watch villagebooks.com for details.

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The food we make and the community we grow is an extension of our love.

NEW BISTRO

at Bow Sanctuary Wellness Center

3533 Chuckanut Dr Bow, WA 98232

After a year of dreaming and planning, we are proud to announce that Persimmon Bistro is now open! Located on the grounds of the Bow Sanctuary, it is a space where nourishment and wellness come together. Watch our website for hours.

Persimmon Bistro offers a delicious variety of teas, local coffee, and breakfast and lunch bites, made with fresh and locally sourced ingredients. Relax and enjoy the gardens or grab something tasty for your drive.

https://persimmon.love

Thanks

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Full Service Patio Dining

Village Books

One-Pot

Mediterranean : 70+ Simple Recipes for Healthy and Flavorful Weeknight Cooking

by Samantha Ferraro available in June, paperback, Page Street Publishing

Grab your Dutch oven and dive into the most wholesome, flavor-packed recipes the Mediterranean has to offer.

Whip up dishes that are packed with seasonal vegetables, tender meats and healthy grains, all slow-cooked in classic Mediterranean spices--and in just one pot! A bonus chapter of vibrant, crisp salads will complete your Mediterranean meal with that perfect pop of freshness. Welcome the zesty flavors of the Mediterranean into your kitchen because with one pot and an easy cleanup, healthy eating has never been simpler. Samantha Ferraro is the author of The Weeknight Mediterranean Kitchen and founder of the food blog “The Little Ferraro Kitchen.”

All Your Favorites

Company: The Radically Casual Art of Cooking for Others

by Amy Thielen

available in August, hardcover, W.W. Norton

In her much-anticipated follow-up to The New Midwestern Table, Thielen writes, “no one will ever care about the food as much as you and I do.” Company will have you rethinking the way you entertain, throwing dinner parties that are less formal, more frequent, and as fun for the cook as for the guests. Preaching leniency, not-guilty pleasures, and the art of making it in advance, Thielen soothes the most common party anxieties one by one.

Annie’s The Cookbook : Recipes Everybunny Will Love

by Annie’s

available in July, paperback, Harvest

From Annie’s Homegrown, the #1 national organic kids’ food brand, a joyful cookbook of 70 easy, comforting, yummy recipes for breakfast, snacks, lunch, or dinner and even dessert that the whole family will love. Each chapter includes a feature to add more joy to cooking and eating, including Making Breakfast Together, Bento Boxes for Joyful Lunch Surprises, Yummy Ways to Change Up Mac & Cheese, and Fun Things to Do Between Dinner and Dessert. And throughout, you’ll find Farm to Fork Facts that chronicle healthfully grown food and its journey from the farmers who grow our ingredients to the dishes on our table.

The Seriously Good Student Cookbook : 80 Easy Recipes to Make Sure You Don’t Go Hungry

by Quadrille

available in July, flexibound, Quadrille Publishing

Eighty simple but delicious recipes are broken down into chapters covering toast, eggs, sandwiches, pancakes, pasta, potatoes, rice ,and kebabs. With a photo for every recipe and clear instructions, you’ll be able to create food that you actually want to eat. Fancy breakfast-stuffed croissants after a heavy night? Perhaps you want something easy but filling to see you through all those hours at the library, like a Mexican black rice bowl. Or maybe you have friends coming over and want to show off your cooking skills with spicy salami pizza sliders. Whenever you need something SERIOUSLY GOOD to eat, this book will make sure you never go hungry.

Love Japan : Recipes from Our Japanese American Kitchen by Sawako Okochi, Aaron Israel,

Gabriella Gershenson

available now, hardcover, Ten Speed Press

Like many of us, chefs Sawako Okochi and Aaron Israel lead busy lives and often find themselves short on time in the kitchen. Their secret to getting nourishing, delicious food on the table for their family? The Japaneseinspired dishes that Okachi grew up eating. While not rigid in tradition, these recipes are all rooted in the Japanese flavors and techniques taught to Okachi by her mother, with influences from Israel’s Jewish heritage as well as the menu at Shalom Japan.

Knife Drop: Creative Recipes Anyone Can Cook

by Nick DiGiovanni

available in June, hardcover, Alpha

A true showstopper of a cookbook. DiGiovanni has gone above and beyond in creating a series of recipes that you would not find on the internet. They’re original and creative, and the recipes speak for themselves. You may have seen DiGiovanni on TikTok or YouTube as well where his fun and easy cooking tutorials have gone viral. Don’t worry he does a great job of keeping that same energy alive in the cookbook! –Maddie

Entertainment            Wine Club: A Monthly Guide to Swirling, Sipping, and Pairing with Friends

by Maureen Petrosky

available now, hardcover, Chronicle Books

Learning about wine should be fun and is easy to do, if you have a few key things: wine (of course), an opener, a few friends, and this book. That’s your Wine Club! Each month, discover the key elements of a specific style of wine or varietal, from Cabernet Sauvignon in January to bubbly in December, including taste-testing tips, history, and tasty throw-together or make-ahead bites that pair beautifully with whatever you’re pouring. So, uncork (or twist the top off of) a bottle, pour yourself a glass, and join the best club of all: Wine Club!

Orca Family Spatula by Paul Windsor, Haisla, Heiltsuk

Stop by and check out our collection of unique gifts and jewelry while browsing for new & used books. Visit neighboring shops, enjoy a meal and a beer. You can even treat yourself to a mini-vacation at the lovely Inn at Lynden—all without leaving the premises!

Lynden LIVE! EVENTS

The LYNDEN Village Books Literary Events Program

Saturday, June 24, 2pm

SKYE BURN

–Living High: An Unconventional Biography

First published in 1941, t his new 7th edition of Living High includes previously unseen photographs and an expanded epilogue by Skye Burn, June & Farrar’s granddaughter. Can’t make this date? Skye Burn will speak at Village Books in Fairhaven on Friday, June 16 at 6pm.

These LitLive author events take place at the Inn at Lynden in the conference room—adjacent to Village Books and Paper Dreams. Seating is limited. You can register to save your seat at villagebooks.com. $5.

Saturday, July 1, 2pm

CANDACE WELLMAN

–Man of Treacherous Charm : Territorial Justice

Edmund C. Fitzhugh

Appointed to Washington Territory’s District and Supreme Courts in 1857 despite being under indictment for murder and only marginally qualified for the position, Edmund C. Fitzhugh’s biography offers unique insights into the people, personalities, politics, and practices of the territory and the 19th century American West.Candace Wellman’s Peace Weavers won the 2018 WILLA literary award for scholarly nonfiction from Women Writing the West, and her Interwoven Lives was a 2020 finalist. This is her third title with WSU Press. Note: She will also speak at Village Books in Fairhaven on June 25 at 4pm.

Tuesday, July 4

Village Books and Paper Dreams in Lynden will be CLOSED for the day.

See pages 73-77 for more LitLive Events and page 78 for additional Books Groups!

Book Group Lynden FRONT

"Variety is the spice of life!"

Join Gaye from Village Books Lynden and the Front Streeters book group as they discuss titles from a variety of genres. They meet in person in the Waples Room of the Inn at Lynden (adjacent to Village Books) at 7pm the third Wednesday* of each month. All

June 28, 7pm (*Note: meeing one week later than usual)

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

July 19, 7pm

The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi

August 16, 7pm

The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki

Streeters

Attendees are eligible for a 15% discount on group selections

Discover Games Galore Discover Games Galore

HERE BE DRAGONS HERE BE DRAGONS

Gates to Obscure Lands • Tales of Ancient Knowledge Puzzles of Mystery

Village Books and Paper Dreams in Lynden is excited to introduce “Here Be Dragons,” a place to relax and play your favorite game or perhaps learn a new one. Stop by the store and head downstairs where you will find a trove of wonderful puzzles and games for sale.

We are looking forward to offering a number of opportunities and events in this new game space. Want to try something new? We’re in the process of scheduling regular GAME DEMONSTRATIONS—a great opportunity to check out some of our favorite games. Stop by on Saturday, June 24 during our anniversary sale and check it out!

Game

Demonstrations

Saturday, June 24

11am, 1pm, and 4pm Watch for some fun GAME SWAP DAYS where you can trade your used games with other local gamers—you may even want to grab a table and sit down to play in the relaxing ambiance. We also hoping to host some game TOURNAMENTS in the future!

Stop by—it’s time to play!

Revisit Old Favorites & Discover a World of New Entertainment

st rytimes

11am

Village Books & Paper Dreams

STORY TIME with a FIRE FIGHTER

Lynden

Saturday, June 10, 11am

Stop by for a half hour of stories and fun!

Read to a Dog

Third Saturday Story Times

June 17 • July 15 • Aug 19 11am-12pm

Monthly!

Village Books in Lynden is excited to partner with Pack9Training to offer Read to a Dog Story Time.

This is a special story time where THE KIDS do all the reading...TO DOGS. It takes place on the third Saturday of each month. Reading out loud to a furry friend is known to boost self-confidence while encouraging kids to increase their reading skills. Plus it's fun!

There are 12 reading spots available so call or visit Village Books in Lynden to reserve your spot today (430 Front St., Lynden, WA • 360-526-2133). Free to attend! Children must be accompanied by an adult.

Weekly!

Wednesday Stories & Songs with Gaye

At 11am each Wednesday, you and your young book and music lovers can join Gaye for a half hour of stories and songs.

Assistant Fire Chief Kristie Watson of the Lynden Fire Department will sit down with the kiddos for a very special story time. Don’t miss out!

Lots to Do in Lynden

Mark Your Calendars!

Lynden Farmers Parade

July 3, 10:30am

Downtown Lynden

Don’t miss this eclectic menagerie of cars, bands, tractors, trucks, and horses salute the Agriculture Industry of Whatcom County!

Saturdays, June-September • Heritage Park

100% of the products at the Lynden Farmers Market are made or grown in Whatcom County—making it easy to shop local, eat in season, and support your community! www.lyndenfarmersmarket.com

10am-2pm

Find Waldo

Downtown Lynden!

Lynden Farmers Market

July 1-31 • Downtown Lynden

Spot the famous fellow in the striped shirt and black-rimmed specs by visiting businesses in downtown Lynden through the month of July. Grab your passport at Village Books and Paper Dreams1

Monday, July 31, 2pm - Find Waldo in Lynden Celebration

We’ll play games, give out prizes to those who participated in the multistore search, eat treats, and find Waldo hiding in our store! Come in your red stripes and glasses, and ready to have a good time!

July 14-15 • Downtown Lynden

Celebrating North America’s largest raspberry harvest, the Northwest Raspberry Festival includes activities throughout the town including 3-on-3 basketball tournament, classic car show, community salmon barbecue, live music and entertainment on two stages and food and crafts vendors. Don’t miss the famous $2 raspberry sundaes and be sure to pop into Village Books and Paper Dreams to check out our collection of raspberry themed gifts!

Northwest Raspberry Festival

August 10-19 • Lynden Fair Grounds

Did someone say moo-wich? Poffertjes? Head to Lynden and enjoy 10 full days of carnival rides, grandstand entertainment, a variety farm animals, exibits, shopping, delicious food, and so much more. Make great memories with your friends and family. See nwwafair.com for a schedule and details.

Hands of Time : A Watchmaker’s History

by Rebecca Struthers

available in June, hardcover, Harper

Hands of Time is a journey through watchmaking history, from the earliest attempts at timekeeping, to the breakthrough in engineering that gave us the first watch, to today—where the timepieces hold cultural and historical significance beyond what its first creators could have imagined. Acclaimed watchmaker Rebecca Struthers uses the most important watches throughout history to explore their attendant paradigm shifts in how we think about time, and how we think about our own humanity.

In the Blood : How Two Outsiders Solved a Centuries-Old Medical Mystery and Took on the U.S. Army

by Charles Barber

available now, hardcover, Grand Central Publishing

The tragedy of the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993 reinforced the need for a treatment that could transform trauma medicine. So, when Frank Hursey and Bart Gullong discovered that zeolite had blood - clotting properties, they brought it to the military’s attention. The Marines and the Navy adopted the resulting product, QuikClot, immediately. The Army, however, had two products of its own being developed and set out to smear QuikClot’s reputation. In the Blood recounts this little - known David - and - Goliath story of corruption, greed, and power within the military—and the devastating consequences of unchecked institutional arrogance.

Cultural Criticism To Dye For: How Toxic Fashion Is Making Us Sick–and How We Can Fight Back

by Alden Wicker

available in June, hardcover, G.P. Putnam’s Sons

An eye-opening look at the clothing industry and the harmful by-product cycle that stems from that. Wicker shows us the concerning yet empowering truths behind This industry. this is the first book I have read where the research parts felt just as page-turning as the rest! –Maddie

Last Secret of the Secret Annex : The Untold Story of Anne Frank, Her Silent Protector, and a Family Betrayal

by Joop Van Wijk-Voskuijl and Jeroen De Bruyn

available now, hardcover, Simon & Schuster

A wonderful analysis of the network of people who helped protect Anne Frank and her family and a look into the one who betrayed them, this book offers a new perspective of Bep’s heroism that was thoughtfully brought to light. This book is in my top 10 reads of the year! –Maddie

Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon

by Melissa L. Sevigny

available now, hardcover, W.W. Norton & Co.

In the summer of 1938, botanists Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter set off to run the Colorado River, accompanied by an ambitious and entrepreneurial expedition leader, a zoologist, and two amateur boatmen. With its churning waters and treacherous boulders, the Colorado was famed as the most dangerous river in the world. Journalists and veteran river runners boldly proclaimed that the motley crew would never make it out alive. But for Clover and Jotter, the expedition held a tantalizing appeal: no one had yet surveyed the plant life of the Grand Canyon, and they were determined to be the first.

Read with PRIDE!

P.S. Burn This Letter Please : The Fabulous and Fraught Birth of Modern Drag, in the Queens’ Own Words

edited by Craig Olsen hardcover, available in August, Mobius

Decades before Stonewall, queer folk occupied the margins of society. When a cache of their letters were discovered, these individuals were given a voice where they had traditionally been silenced. The letters they wrote bear witness to a time when gay community was hard to find. Blending social, political and cultural history with memoir, this book is an unforgettable and deeply moving encounter with a generation of incredible survivors and a necessary account of how modern drag culture was born.

What the Greeks Did For Us

by Tony Spawforth

available now, hardcover, Yale University Press

Our contemporary world is inescapably Greek. Whether in a word like “pandemic,” a Freudian state of mind like the “Oedipus complex,” or a replica of the Parthenon in a Chinese theme park, ancient Greek culture shapes the contours of our lives. Ever since the first Roman imitators, we have been continually falling under the Greeks’ spell. Paying attention to the huge breadth and variety of Hellenic influence, this book paints an essential portrait of the ancient world’s living legacy—considering to whom it matters, and why.

The Rediscovery of America : Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History

by Ned Blackhawk

available now, hardcover, Yale University Press

The Summer of 1876 : Outlaws, Lawmen, and Legends in the Season That Defined the American West

by Chris Wimmer

available now, hardcover, St. Martin’s Press

The summer of 1876 was a key time period in the development of the mythology of the Old West. George Armstrong Custer, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Wild Bill Hickok, and Jesse James were all involved in events that began their notoriety or turned out to be the most famous—or infamous—moments of their lives. The Summer of 1876 weaves together the timelines of the events that made these men legends to demonstrate the overlapping context of their stories and to illustrate the historical importance of that summer, all layered with highlights of significant milestones in 1876: the inaugural baseball season of the National League; the final year of President Ulysses S. Grant’s embattled administration; the debut of an invention called the telephone by Alexander Graham Bell; the release of Mark Twain’s novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; and many more.

Gallop Toward the Sun : Tecumseh and William Henry Harrison’s Struggle for the Destiny of a Nation

by Peter Stark

available in August, hardcover, Random House Tecumseh’s brave stand was likely the last chance to protect Indigenous people from U.S. expansion—and prevent the upstart United States from becoming a world power. In this fast-paced narrative—with its bloody battles, high-stakes diplomacy, and sharply drawn characters—Peter Stark, author of Astoria, brings this pivotal moment to life. Pre-order your copy today!

Check out the Village Books

Armchair Historians Book Group

Ned Blackhawk interweaves five centuries of Native and non - Native histories, from Spanish colonial exploration to the rise of Native American self-determination in the late twentieth century. He looks at the beginnings of the American Revolution in response to Native affairs, the legacy of the Civil War including militia attacks on native lands and the recalibration of land, and 20th and 21st century activism. This is a crucial part of the re-visioning of our history. Tickets

We meet the second Monday of each month at 6pm in the Fairhaven Village Books Readings Gallery. See page 78 for more!

Tuesdays, July 11 - September 12

6 - 8 PM

San Juan Cruises

Bellingham/Alaska Ferry Terminal

Find Waldo throughout Fairhaven & Lynden in July!

Biographies & Memoirs

Girls and Their Monsters : The Genain Quadruplets and the Making of Madness in America

by Audrey Clare Farley

available in June, hardcover, Little, Brown

In 1954, researchers at the newly formed National Institute of Mental Health set out to study the genetics of schizophrenia. When they got word that four 24-year-old identical quadruplets in Lansing, Michigan, had all been diagnosed with the mental illness, they could hardly believe their ears. Here was incontrovertible proof of hereditary transmission and, thus, a chance to bring international fame to their fledgling institution. The case of the quadruplets, they soon found, was hardly so straightforward. Girls and Their Monsters chronicles the extraordinary lives of the quadruplets and the lead psychologist who studied them, asking questions that speak directly to our times.

George : A Magpie Memoir

by Frieda Hughes

available in June, hardcover, Avid Reader Press

Hughes’ life in the Welsh countryside sounds amazing enough, but the addition of Goerge the magpie makes it magical! I have my own obsession with a particular family of birds—Steller’s Jays—so I easily understood Hughes’ immediate fascination and fondness for a screechy, mischievous, and intelligent bird. Her memoir unfolds lyrically at times and comically at other times. And always with an honest appraisal of the tension between letting a wild thing be wild and passing that barrier into friendship. I finished this one in under a week, I was so focused on finding out what happened not only to Frieda, but mostly to George. –Erin

Owner of a Lonely Heart

by Beth Nguyen

available in July, hardcover, Scribner

At the end of the Vietnam War, when Beth Nguyen was eight months old, she and her father, sister, grandmother, and uncles fled Saigon for America. Beth’s mother stayed—or was left—behind, and they did not meet again until Beth was nineteen. Beth tells a comingof-age story that spans her own Midwestern childhood, her first meeting with her mother, and becoming a parent herself. Vivid and illuminating, Owner of a Lonely Heart is a deeply personal story of family, connection, and belonging: as a daughter, a mother, and as a Vietnamese refugee in America.

Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City

by Jane Wong

available now, hardcover, Tin House Books

Jane Wong’s writing is ferocious, vulnerable, and deeply tender. These are things that are not necessarily not-related. In fact, Wong illuminates how they are, very much, intertwined. From Chinese American restaurant upbringings, a psychic mother, and Wong’s poetic sensibilities comes a debut memoir that you will want to hold close and share with everyone you love. –Madison

Why Fathers Cry at Night : A Memoir in Love Poems, Recipes, Letters, and Remembrances

by

Kwame Alexander

available now, hardcover, Little, Brown Kwame Alexander shares snapshots of a man learning how to love. He takes us through stories of his parents and explores his own relationships—his difficulties as a newly wedded, 22-year-old father, and the precariousness of his early marriage working in a jazz club with his second wife. Alexander attempts to deal with the unravelling of his marriage and the grief of his mother’s recent passing while sharing the solace he found in learning how to perfect her famous fried chicken dish.

Thinning Blood : A Memoir of Family, Myth, and Identity

by Leah Myers

available now, hardcover, W.W. Norton & Co. What a perfect book to read alongside this year’s Whatcom READS, Red Paint. Leah chronicles four generations of women in her family and how they each represent a figure on her personal totem pole. Her critiques of blood quantum rules and questions about her own identity are vulnerable and powerful. –Kiana

Biographies & Memoirs

Sipping Dom Pérignon Through a Straw: Reimagining Success as a Disabled Achiever

by Eddie Ndopu

available in August, hardcover, Legacy Lit Global humanitarian Eddie Ndopu was born with spinal muscular atrophy, a rare degenerative motor neuron disease affecting his mobility. He was told that he wouldn’t live beyond age five and yet, Ndopu thrived. By his late teens, he had become a sought-after speaker, travelling the world to address audiences about disability justice. He was ecstatic when he was later accepted on a full scholarship into one of the world’s most prestigious schools, Oxford University. But he soon learns that it’s not just the medical community he must thwart— it’s the educational one too.

Walking with Sam : A Father, a Son, and Five Hundred Miles Across Spain

by Andrew McCarthy

available now, hardcover, Hachette

You may know him best from the “Brat Pack” but this time McCarthy is on a journey of self-discovery and resolution with his teenage son. The trials and tribulations of their journey are wonderful and make this a great adventure-filled read. It’s jam packed with awesome history as well! –Maddie

Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World

by Christian Cooper

available in June, hardcover, Random House

This is Christian Cooper’s story of learning to claim and defend space for himself and others like him, from his days as a writer for Marvel Comics, where Cooper introduced the first gay storyline, to vivid and life-changing birding expeditions through Africa, Australia, the Americas, and the Himalayas. Better Living Through Birding is Cooper’s invitation into the wonderful world of birds, and what they can teach us about life, if only we would stop and listen.

August Wilson : A Life

by Patti Hartigan

available in August, hardcover, Simon & Schuster

August Wilson wrote a series of ten plays celebrating African American life in the 20th century, one play for each decade. No other American playwright has completed such an ambitious oeuvre. Through his brilliant use of vernacular speech, Wilson developed unforgettable characters who epitomized the trials and triumphs of the African American experience. He said that he didn’t research his plays but wrote from “the blood’s memory,” a sense of racial history that he believed African Americans shared. Author and theater critic Patti Hartigan traced his ancestry back to slavery, and his plays echo with uncanny similarities to the history of his ancestors.

Winner of the 2023 Pacific Northwest Book Award, the Whatcom READS 2024 book selection is Red Paint by a Coast Salish author from the Nooksack and Upper Skagit Indian tribes, Sasha taqwŠablu LaPointe.

With Red Paint, this Indigenous artist blends the aesthetics of punk rock with the traditional spiritual practices of the women in her lineage in this bold, contemporary journey to reclaim her heritage and unleash her power and voice while searching for a permanent home. Examining what it means to be vulnerable in love and in art, Sasha offers up an unblinking reckoning with personal traumas amplified by the collective historical traumas of colonialism and genocide that continue to haunt native peoples. Red Paint is an intersectional autobiography of lineage, resilience, and, above all, the ability to heal.

Read the book then join us for a series of related events building up to an author visit in March, 2024.

Top entries are selected for publication in the Whatcom WRITES anthology and contributors are invited to read at a public presentation. See whatcomreads.org for submission guidelines. Have fun!

Biographies & Memoirs

Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop

by Alba Donati

available now, hardcover, Scribner

Donati was used to her hectic life working as a book publicist in Italy but she was ready to make a change. One day she decided to return to the small village in the Tuscan hills where she was born. There she opened a tiny but enchanting bookshop in a lovely little cottage on a hill. With fewer than 200 yearround residents, the shop seemed unlikely to succeed, but it soon sparked the enthusiasm of book lovers both nearby and across Italy. After surviving a fire and pandemic restrictions, the “Bookshop on the Hill” soon became a refuge and destination for an ever-growing community.

Leg: The Story of a Limb and the Boy Who Grew from It

by Greg Marshall

available in June, hardcover, Abrams Press

Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies : How Doubting the Bard Became the Biggest Taboo in Literature

by Elizabeth Winkler

available now, hardcover, Simon & Schuster

As Winkler considers the writers and thinkers who have grappled with the riddle of the plays’ origins, she explores who may perhaps have been hiding behind his name. A forgotten woman? A disgraced aristocrat? A government spy? Hovering over the mystery are Shakespeare’s plays themselves, with their love for mistaken identities, disguises, and things never quite being what they seem. As she interviews scholars and skeptics, Winkler’s interest turns to the larger problem of historical truth—and of how human imperfections (bias, blindness, subjectivity) shape our construction of the past.

Greg Marshall’s early years were pretty bizarre. Rewind the VHS tapes and you’ll see a lopsided teenager limping across a high school stage, or in a wheelchair after leg surgeries, pondering why he’s crushing on half of the Utah Jazz. Add to this footage a mom clacking away at her newspaper column between chemos, a dad with ALS, and a cast of foulmouthed siblings. Fast forward the tape and you’ll find Marshall happily settled into his life as a gay man only to discover he’s been living in another closet his whole life: He has cerebral palsy, a diagnosis that has been kept from him since birth.

True Crime

The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession

by Michael Fenkel

available in June, hardcover, Knopf Breitwieser stole almost 2 billion dollars worth of art during his active time, but never sold any of it. Fenkel chronicles the rise and fall of an unusual thief that you find yourself almost rooting for. An engaging non-fiction that reads like a novel, perfect for those who are interested in a great biography! –Kiana

Cults : Inside the World’s Most Notorious Groups and Understanding the People Who Joined Them

by Max Cutler

available in July, paperback, Gallery Books

Cutler does a wonderful job at analyzing cults all around the world and capturing those who were involved and why. It’s a fantastic look into why people do the things they do and how easily someone may be manipulated to join. You won’t be able to put this one down! –Maddie

Trailed : One Woman’s Quest to Solve the

Shenandoah Murders

by Kathryn Miles

available now, paperback, Workman

This follows the heartbreaking Shenandoah Murders of 1996, Miles does a wonderful job of presenting a factual account of the crimes as well as an accurate depiction of the victims’ lives before the murders. Definitely makes you question how safe the outdoors really is. A great read for anyone interested in true crime! –Maddie

Performing Arts

Parachute Women : Marianne Faithfull, Marsha Hunt, Bianca Jagger, Anita Pallenberg, and the Women Behind the Rolling Stones

by Elizabeth Winder

available in July, hardcover, Hachette

Books

The Rolling Stones have long been considered one of the greatest rock-and-roll bands of all time. In Parachute Women, Elizabeth Winder introduces us to the four women who inspired, styled, wrote for, remixed, and ultimately helped create the legend of the Rolling Stones. Marianne Faithfull, Marsha Hunt, Bianca Jagger, and Anita Pallenberg put the glimmer in the Glimmer Twins and taught a group of straight-laced boys to be bad. They opened the doors to subterranean art and alternative lifestyles, turned them on to Russian literature, occult practices, and LSD. More hip to the times than the rockers themselves, they consciously (and unconsciously) kept the band current—and confident—with that mythic lasting power they still have today.

Holding the Note : Profiles in Popular Music

by David Remnick

available now, hardcover, Knopf

The greatest popular songs, whether it’s Aretha Franklin singing “Respect” or Bob Dylan performing “Blind Willie McTell,” have a way of embedding themselves in our memories. You remember a time and a place and a feeling when you hear that song again. In Holding the Note, David Remnick writes about the lives and work of some of the greatest musicians, songwriters, and performers of the past 50 years.

Pageboy: A Memoir

by Elliot Page

available in June, hardcover, Flatiron

Books

Full of intimate stories, from chasing down secret love affairs to battling body image and struggling with familial strife, Pageboy is a love letter to the power of being seen. With Juno’s massive success, Elliot became one of the world’s most beloved actors. His dreams were coming true, but the pressure to perform suffocated him. As he navigated criticism and abuse from some of the most powerful people in Hollywood, a past that snapped at his heels, and a society dead set on forcing him into a binary, Elliot often stayed silent, unsure of what to do. Until enough was enough. With this evocative and lyrical debut, Oscar-nominated star Elliot Page captures the universal human experience of searching for ourselves and our place in this complicated world.

Mud Ride : A Messy Trip Through the Grunge Explosion

by Steve Turner with Adem Tepedelen

available in June, hardcover, Chronicle Prism

A down-and-dirty chronicle of the birth and evolution of the Seattle grunge scene—from backyard skateboard ramps and underground hardcore clubs to worldwide phenomenon— as told by one of its founding fathers and lead guitarist of legendary alternative rock band, Mudhoney.

Sing, Memory: The Remarkable Story of the Man Who Saved the Music of the Nazi Camps

by Makana Eyre

available now, hardcover, W.W. Norton & Co.

On a cold October night in 1942, SS guards at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp violently disbanded a rehearsal of a secret Jewish choir led by conductor Rosebery d’Arguto. Only one of its members survived the Holocaust. Yet their story survives, thanks to Aleksander Kulisiewicz. An amateur musician, he was not Jewish, but struck up an unlikely friendship with d’Arguto in Sachsenhausen. D’Arguto tasked him with a mission: to save the musical heritage of the victims of the Nazi camps.

Pictorial 1964 : Eyes of the Storm

by Paul McCartney

available in June, hardcover, Liveright

Representing selections found from McCartney’s personal archive in 2020, 1964 looks at photographs taken by McCartney himself in six cities on the world tour that kicked off Beatlemania. While the world looked at the Fab Four, McCartney was looking back at them with his camera lens, capturing a changing world and a band on the cusp of changing the world.

Wood Sticker - Butterflies by Morgan Asoyuf, Tsimshian, Ts’msyen Native Northwest

The Well-Lived Life : A 102-Year-Old Doctor’s Six Secrets to Health and Happiness at Every Age

by Gladys McGarey, MD.

available now, hardcover, Atria

Dr. McGarey, co-founder of the American Holistic Medical Association, began her medical practice at a time when women couldn’t even own their own bank accounts.

Over the past 60years, she has pioneered a new way of thinking about disease and health that has transformed the way we imagine health care and self-care around the world. In a voice that is both practical and inspiring, Dr. McGarey shares her own extraordinary stories and eternal wisdom to her survival of both heartbreak and illness. And she doesn’t just look backward, she looks forward.

The Book of Charlie : Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man

by David von Drehle

available now, hardcover, Simon & Schuster

Born before radio, Charlie White lived long enough to use a smartphone. When a shocking tragedy interrupted his idyllic boyhood, Charlie mastered survival strategies that reflect thousands of years of human wisdom. Thus armored, Charlie’s sense of adventure carried him on an epic journey across the continent, and later found him swinging across bandstands of the Jazz Age, racing aboard ambulances through Depression-era gangster wars, improvising techniques for early open-heart surgery, and cruising the Amazon as a guest of Peru’s president.

Goblin Mode : How to Get Cozy, Embrace Imperfection, and Thrive in the Muck

by McKayla Coyle

available in June, hardcover, Quirk Books

Do you ever feel strange, gross, chaotic, underappreciated, or like you don’t quite fit in? Great news: you might be a goblin! That means your imperfections and idiosyncrasies are the most awesome things about you, and you can build a more harmonious life by accepting and honoring them—taking inspiration from the frogs, fungi, moss, rocks, and dirt that goblins love.

Please Unsubscribe, Thanks!: How to Take Back Our Time, Attention, and Purpose in a World Designed to Bury Us in Bullshit

by Julio Vincent Gambuto

available in August, hardcover, Avid Reader Press

For perhaps the first time in a long time, people during Covid were being honest. Honest about what they wanted, what they believed in. Honest about the problems they were facing within their families, friend groups, and workplaces. That honesty, Gambuto noticed, had the potential to make the ground shift. But he also knew that it likely wouldn’t last, because the most powerful forces running our world would not allow it to. They wanted control over our clicks, our conversations, our dollars, our work, our votes—our lives. The only way that we could beat those systems, would be to resist the calls to keep moving, and to “go back to normal.” In order to change, we have to unsubscribe.

Four Thousand Weeks : Time Management for Mortals

by Oliver Burkeman

available in June, paperback, Macmillan

This book was a great reminder to live life to the fullest even if that means it’s all crammed into the average human lifespan which happens to average out to around 4000 weeks. Though this fact can be scary for many I found it inspiring and the book had actual useful tips surrounding time management and work-life balance! –Maddie

What Small Sound

by Francesca Bell

available now, hardcover, Red Hen

Bell’s poetry is haunting, simple, and lyrical. She writes about life’s tragedies and injustices in a gorgeous, readable way - you mourn along with her, but also appreciate the moments of beauty she creates. Look up the poems “Sandwiches” or “Conduction” for samples of her work. –Sophie

VB Writes... POETRY

Are you a poet in search of a poetry group? Ready to share original poetry out loud? Come meet other writers as we discuss the art of poetry, give feedback, and help you with your writing goals.

The Ugly History of Beautiful Things : Essays on Desire and Consumption

by Katy Kelleher

available now, hardcover, Simon & Schuster

Through thoroughly researched yet delicate personal essays, Kelleher tells the story of consumerism through the ages. As a kid who went from pocketing pebbles to collecting curiosities, a title about what comes from/goes into the objects that we gravitate towards was fascinating. –Sophie

Leaning Toward Light : Poems for Gardens and the Hands That Tend Them

edited by Tess Taylor

available in August, hardcover, Storey Publishing

Caring for plants brings comfort, solace, and joy to many. In this new poetry anthology, acclaimed poet and avid gardener Tess Taylor brings together a diverse range of contemporary voices to offer poems that celebrate that joyful connection to the natural world. Some of poetry’s stars contribute to this collection including Ross Gay, Jericho Brown, Jane Hirshfield, Ada Limón, and others accompanied by a foreword by Aimee Nezhukumatathil. This book also has reflective pauses and personal recipes from some of the contributing poets, along with original, whimsical illustrations by Melissa Castrillon.

EVENING POETRY GROUP

Meets 1st & 3rd Thursdays at 5:30pm in the Writers Corner on the Mezzanine of Village Books in Fairhaven

MORNING POETRY GROUP

Meets 1st & 3rd Tuesdays from 10:30-noon in the Readings Gallery of Village Books in Fairhaven

Tabula Rasa : Volume 1

by John McPhee

available July, hardcover, Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Over seven decades, McPhee has set a standard for literary nonfiction. Assaying mountain ranges, bark canoes, experimental aircraft, the Swiss Army, geophysical hot spots, ocean shipping, shad fishing, dissident art in the Soviet Union, and an even wider variety of other subjects, he has consistently written narrative pieces of immaculate design. Here, McPhee looks back at his career from the vantage point of his desk drawer, reflecting wryly upon projects he once planned to do but never got around to—people to profile, regions he meant to portray. There are so many examples that he plans to go on writing these vignettes, an ideal project for an old man, he says, and a “reminiscent montage” from a writing life.

Did you know that you can access the Chuckanut Reader on the go? Visit the VillageBooks.com home page and click on the link. Once there, you can peruse past issues as well!

Design Find Yourself at Home: A Conscious Approach to Shaping Your Space and Your Life

by Emily Grosvenor

available in June, hardcover, Chronicle Prism

Award-winning magazine editor Emily

Grosvenor invites us to a reality where our homes hold limitless opportunities to create meaning, shape behavior, and inspire action. Divided into chapters by aspiration—such as attraction, creativity, purpose, partnership, focus, and connection—and filled with gorgeous full-color illustrations, Find Yourself at Home presents a new way to collaborate with your living space, carry out your purpose in a changing world, and create the perfect home in which to thrive.

Art Felinity: An Anthology of Illustrated Cats from Around the World

by Victionary

available in July, hardcover, Victionary

Felinity is an ode to this beloved creature that has captured the hearts of humans since the dawn of civilization. Packed with beautiful illustrations of our equally charming and mysterious feline friends from all over the world, this book makes a purrfect gift for any lover of these precious creatures. With their fluffy fur, dainty paws, and playful demeanor, what’s not to love about cats?

Wood Working Building: A Carpenter’s Notes on Life & the Art of Good Work

by Mark Ellison

available now, hardcover, Random House

Blending his musings on work and creativity with immersive storytelling and original sketches, photos, and illustrations, Building is an insider’s guide to what really goes on in the rarefied air of high-end New York real estate, a meditation on building a life worth living, a delightful philosophical engagement with problems and solutions, and a social anthropology of the facades that we all live within and behind.

Shop

Book of Earth: A Guide to Ochre, Pigment, And Raw Color

by Heidi Gustafson

available now, hardcover, Abrams

Books

Art meets science in this guide to creating color with earth’s extraordinary pigments and exploring their fascinating uses today and throughout history. Part anthropological study, part art book, and part how-to, Book of Earth immerses you in the world of ochre, a naturally occurring mineral used to make pigment. Each chapter delves into author Heidi Gustafson’s rare pigment archive and provides a thorough exploration of natural color, while challenging our notions of the inanimate world. The book includes practical advice and techniques for creating your own pigments and applying these skills in everyday life. Called the “ochre whisperer” by American Craft, and noted as the “woman archiving the world’s ochre,” in the New York Times, her personal collection of more than 600 pigments from around the planet is a unique treasure, and her passion and field experience will captivate you from the first page to the last.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

September 22‒October 8, 2023

Ken Ludwig’s The Game’s Afoot

November 24‒December 10, 2023

Twilight Bowl

January 26‒February 11, 2024

Dinner with Friends

March 29‒April 14, 2024

Pippin

June 14‒30, 2024

TICKETS:

JOHN VAILLANT

Tueday, June 20, 6pm at Village Books in Fairhaven Fire Weather

A True Story from a Hotter World

Village Books is thrilled to welcome bestselling author John Vaillant to the Readings Gallery in Fairhaven!

Built around a blow-by-blow account of the 2016 wildfire that devastated the Canadian oil hub of Fort McMurray, and caused the largest single-day evacuation in the history of modern fire, Fire Weather traces the braided histories of petroleum, automobiles, wildfires, and climate science, mapping out the journey and drama that brought us into a new “century of fire,” in which hotter, more destructive blazes are impacting forests and human communities across the globe.

John Vaillant’s acclaimed, award-winning nonfiction books, The Golden Spruce and The Tiger, were national bestsellers. He has written forThe New Yorker, The Atlantic, and National Geographic. The event will include a Q&A and book signing.

ENVIRONMENTALISTS ANONYMOUS W RITING G ROUP

Do you enjoy being in nature and writing about it? Are you concerned about human's impact on the Earth or are you experiencing ecological grief? If so, stop by the Environmentalists Anonymous Writing Group. Meeting the 2nd & 4th Wednesdays from 12-1pm in the Writers Corner on the mezzanine level Village Books in Fairhaven, VB Writes groups are open to newcomers and drop-ins. (See page 27 and villagebooks.com for additional writing groups)

This writing group will offer opportunities for observation and self-reflection and regular prompts that center on regional flora and fauna, climate change, and ecology. Passages and poems from notable environmental writers will also be shared regularly. This group is facilitated by local poet and writer, Jessica Gigot.

Photo by Ian Hinkle

VB WRITES...

Around the Ocean in 80 Fish and other Sea Life

by Helen Scales,

illustrated by Marcel

George

available in June, hardcover, Laurence

King Publishing

This is an inspiring tour of the world’s oceans and 80 of its most notable inhabitants. Beautifully illustrated, the book includes fascinating stories of the fish, shellfish and other sea life that have somehow impacted human life—whether in our medicine, culture or folklore—in often surprising and unexpected ways.

ADVENTURES NORTHWEST

Many Things Under a Rock : The Mysteries of Octopuses

by David Scheel

available in June, hardcover, W.W. Norton

Over the course of his 25 years studying octopuses, Scheel has witnessed a sea change in what we know and are able to discover about octopus physiology and behavior. Octopuses are complex, emotional, and cognitive beings; even as Scheel unearths explanations for the key mysteries that have driven his work, he turns up many more things of wonder that lurk underneath. This is the story of what we have learned and what we are still learning about the natural history and wondrous lives of these animals.

Eight Bears : Mythic Past and Imperiled Future

by Gloria Dickie

available in July, hardcover, Norton

A wonderful look at the close relationship between bears and humans and how intertwined we have become. It’s a beautifully written story of conservation and discovery. If you have even the slightest bit of interest in bears or even wildlife in general you should check it out! You won’t be disappointed. –Maddie

The Mushroom Hunters : A Hidden World of Food, Money, and (Mostly Legal) Adventure

by Langdon Cook

available in August, paperback, Ballantine

For readers of Michael Pollan’s This is Your Mind on Plants and Merlyn Sheldrake’s Entangled Life, a renowned culinary adventurer goes into the woods with the iconoclasts and outlaws who seek the world’s most coveted ingredient . . . and one of nature’s last truly wild foods: the uncultivated, uncontrollable mushroom.

Meet the Authors!

Thursday, August 10, 6pm at Village Books in Fairhaven Ilyssa

Campfire Stories, Vol. II: Tales from America’s National Parks and Trails

by Ilyssa and Dave Kyu

available now, hardcover, Mountaineers Books

Inspired by America’s beloved national parks, Campfire Stories Volume II i s a collection of modern prose, poetry, folklore, and more, featuring works from a diverse group of writers who share a deep appreciation of the natural world. Contributors represent a range of rich and diverse voices. These new campfire stories revel in each park’s distinct landscape and imaginatively transport the reader to the warm edge of a campfire ring.

Science & Nature

Mathematics

A Divine Language : Learning Algebra, Geometry, and Calculus at the Edge of Old Age

by Alec Wilkinson

available in July, paperback, Picador Decades after struggling to understand math as a boy, Alec Wilkinson decides to embark on a journey to learn it as a middle-aged man. What begins as a personal challenge—and it is challenging—soon transforms into something greater than a belabored effort to learn math. Despite his incompetence, Wilkinson encounters a universe of unexpected questions in his pursuit of mathematical knowledge and quickly becomes fascinated; soon, his exercise in personal growth (and torture) morphs into an intellectually expansive exploration. Part memoir, part metaphysical travel book, and part journey in self-improvement, A Divine Language is one man’s second attempt at understanding the numbers in front of him and the world beyond.

Life Sciences

In Light-Years There’s No Hurry: Cosmic Perspective on Everyday Life

by Marjolijn van Heemstra, translated by Jonathan Reeder available

in June, hardcover, W.W. Norton

One stifling summer night, van Heemstra lay awake, feeling anxious and alienated. Amid the suffocating stream of daily obligations, the clamor of notifications and increasingly dismal headlines, she longed for a renewed sense of meaning and connection. Then she learned about the overview effect—a permanent shift in consciousness many astronauts experience when beholding Earth from outside the atmosphere. Compared with the complexity of the universe, daily life on Earth begins to seem more manageable, while understanding the improbability of our collective existence. The grand rhythms of light-years and eons become a source of restoration and relief—a comforting, necessary reminder to slow down and zoom out.

Ways of Being: Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for a Planetary Intelligence

by James Bridle

available in June, paperback,

Picador

What does it mean to be intelligent? Is it something unique to humans or shared with other beings—beings of flesh, wood, stone, and silicon? The last few years have seen rapid advances in “artificial” intelligence. But rather than a friend or companion, AI increasingly appears to be something stranger than we ever imagined, an alien invention that threatens to decenter and supplant us. At the same time, we’re only just becoming aware of the other intelligences that have been with us all along, even if we’ve failed to recognize or acknowledge them. These others—the animals, plants, and natural systems that surround us—are slowly revealing their complexity, agency, and knowledge, just as the technologies we’ve built to sustain ourselves are threatening to cause their extinction and ours. What can we learn from them, and how can we change ourselves, our technologies, our societies, and our politics to live better and more equitably with one another and the nonhuman world?

How to Live in a Chaotic Climate : 10 Steps to Reconnect With Ourselves, Our Communities, and Our Planet

by Laura Schmidt, Aimee Lewis Reau, Chelsie Rivera

available in August, paperback, Shambhala

Eco-distress is real. How to Live in a Chaotic Climate is here to help you rediscover meaning, joy, and connection as the tumult around us increases. Based on the Good Grief Network’s acclaimed 10 Steps to Resilience and Empowerment in a Chaotic Climate program, this book unpacks the social, political, and spiritual nuances of the climate emergency, step by step.

The Parrot and the Igloo: Climate and the Science of Denial

by David Lipsky

available in July, hardcover, W.W. Norton

In 1956, the New York Times prophesied that once global warming really kicked in, we could see parrots in the Antarctic. In 2010, when science deniers had control of the climate story, Senator James Inhofe and his family built an igloo on the Washington Mall. In The Parrot and the Igloo, best-selling author David Lipsky tells the astonishing story of how we moved from one extreme (the correct one) to the other. Featuring an indelible cast of heroes and villains, mavericks and swindlers, it delivers a real-life tragicomedy—one that captures the extraordinary dance of science, money, and the American character.

Join

Chuckanut The

Lyanda Lynn Haupt

Wednesday, June 21, 7pm (doors 6:30pm)

at the Hotel Leo - 1224 Cornwall Ave., Bellingham

Join us in the Crystal Ballroom of the Hotel Leo for an evening of music, poetry, comedy, and literature. Award-winning writer Lyanda Lynn Haupt will discuss her highly personal new book— a brilliant invitation to live with the earth in both simple and profound ways. A Washington State Book Award-winner, her other writings include Mozart’s Starling, and Crow Planet. She will be interviewed by Bec Detrich, Executive Director of North Cascades Institute!

Watch For Our July Radio Hour!

Thursday, September 14 - Save the Date!

David B. Williams

Naturalist, author, and educator David B. Williams will be joined by bestselling author Erica Bauermeister—an event you won’t want to miss!

Performed live and recorded for radio, each Radio Hour includes a guest author, live music, performance poetry by Kevin Murphy, and an episode of "As the Ham Turns" serial radio comedy. Hosts Paul Hanson and Kelly Evert are joined by announcer Rich Donnelly for an evening of entertainment. Register to attend at villagebooks.com. Seating is limited so don't delay. We'll see you there!

$5 Entrance Fee can be used towards the purchase of the featured book or other merchandise offered at that show!

A HUGE thanks to our amazing sponsors!

Money, Power, Respect : How Women in Sports Are Shaping the Future of Feminism

by Macaela MacKenzie

available in June, hardcover, Seal Press

Women athletes face the same sexist barriers found in all career fields: the motherhood penalty, transphobia, misogynoir, underpromotion, and more. But women in sports are fighting back, debunking myths that women aren’t as skilled, competitive, or capable of generating revenue as men. Drawing on exclusive interviews with prominent athletes—including Allyson Felix, Megan Rapinoe, and Billie Jean King—journalist Macaela Mackenzie shows how women are using sports as a platform for change.

Slow AF Run Club: The Ultimate Guide for Anyone Who Wants to Run

by Martinus Evans

available in June, paperback, Avery

This book is a blueprint for those who may not fit the image of a “traditional” runner—that is, someone who is larger in size, less athletic, out of shape, or dealing with any kind of health issue that slows them down—to feel empowered to lace up their shoes and embrace the body they have right now.

More than movies.

Bellingham's

community cinema For

Day Hiking Central Cascades, 2nd Edition:

Stevens Pass , Glacier Peak Wilderness, Lakes Wenatchee & Chelan

by Craig Romano

available now, paperback, Mountaineers Books

Hiking Guide!

With some of the largest tracts of wilderness to be found in the Pacific Northwest, the Central Cascades are packed with wildlife, geological diversity, and opportunity for adventure. Now in full color, this updated edition features 136 hikes and covers everything from leisurely strolls close to town to all-day treks (with overnight backpacking options.) There are hikes that are well known and popular, hikes that are a bit more obscure and remote, and hikes that are perfect to explore with kids or dogs. Romano has selected his favorite trails for escaping crowds, spotting wildlife, and getting the best bang for your boot.

in Fairhaven and Lynden! FIND WALDO LOCAL

July 1 - 31, 2023

All Ages!

Have You Seen Waldo?

He's an elusive fellow, but rumor has it that he'll be hanging around Whatcom County again this summer. If you look carefully, you might just spot him. Yes, you read that right: “Find Waldo Local” is back in July!

As we've done in the past, multipal local businesses in Fairhaven and Downtown Lynden will participate in a scavenger hunt all month long.

Do you think YOU can find Waldo? Pick up a passport from either location of Village Books and Paper Dreams or one of the other participating merchants, then look for the guy in stripes. He'll be hiding somewhere in each of the businesses listed on the passport. If you can find Waldo in 10 different stores, you can come back to Village Books for a cool Waldo sticker (while supplies last). If you find Waldo in all the participating stores, you'll be entered in a raffle for the chance to win all sorts of great prizes! Fairhaven and Lynden will each have their own list of participating businesses.

PARTIES!

Join

Monday, July 31, 2pm

Stop by either store for games, treats, and the prize drawing for scavenger hunt participants. Come in your red stripes and glasses!

We hope you'll join us as we search for Waldo all around Fairhaven and Downtown Lynden in July!

YOUNG READERS Their Families &

Educators

Picture Books

In the Night Garden

by Carin Berger

available in July, hardcover, Neal

Porter

The story is lovely of course but, my gosh, these illustrations are STUNNING. I want a print of every one of these on my wall because they are so concrete and bold but so evocative of wonder and joy that I smile every time I look at this book. Perfect for bedtime or anytime with your littles.

–Sarah

Simon and the Better Bone

by Corey R. Tabor

available now, hardcover, Balzer + Bray

One day, down by the pond, Simon meets another dog just like him. And that dog has a bone just like his, only better! How will Simon ever get him to trade, when the other pup knows all the same tricks…? Using the same innovative format as his Caldecott Honor winner Mel Fell, Corey R. Tabor reimagines Aesop’s “The Dog and His Reflection” in a clever, charming tale of empathy and generosity.

If You Get Lost

Bunny & Tree

by Balint Zsako

available now, hardcover, Enchanted Lion Books

Bunny and Tree first meet when the tree observes a ferocious wolf threatening the bunny and comes to its protection. From that moment on, there is a bond of trust between the two, which flowers not only into friendship, but amazingly, into a road trip adventure, when Bunny convinces Tree that it’s time to uproot and see the world. This gorgeous wordless adventure story about a surprising friendship is incredibly moving.

I Touched the Sun

by Leah Hayes

available in June, hardcover, Enchanted Lion Books

Warm and kindly, the Sun shows the boy the world from her perspective: her friends the clouds, the beaches upon which she shines down, the trees she’s grown, the rainbows she creates. In return, the boy shares with her some of his dreams, fears, hopes, and uncertainties—complexities of the human condition that the Sun, as a cosmic force of constant light, has never experienced. In this way, the boy begins to understand something about the pattern of light and shadow that makes up every human life.

Nikki Loftin, illustrated by Deborah Marcero available in July, hardcover, Anne Schwartz Books

by

“If you get lost, and you might get lost....” In simple language that speaks directly to us, a magical and soothing story unfolds. A little girl accidentally drops her stuffed bunny out the car window, and the bunny—which has quietly come alive—feels scared. Searching up, down, in, out, and between, it soon finds itself among a group of friendly forest animals, who accompany it on its journey. Together they frolic through the woods and over a stream until the bunny finds itself safely back where it belongs, in the little girl’s arms.

The Skull : A Tyrolean Folktale

by Jon Klassen

available in July, hardcover, Candlewick

A new title from Jon Klassen inspired by an Austrian tale that is a bit macabre, funny, and mysterious. It illustrates the empowerment of a young girl who takes the trajectory of her life into her own hands and isn’t afraid to confront the darkness she encounters. Its even kind and perhaps sweet? Scary stories are also a good resource for kids to temporarily explore topics of grief, loneliness, and other big feelings while still being in a safe and secure place.

Picture Books

Night Owl Night

by Susan Edwards Richmond, illustrated by Maribel Lechuga available in August, hardcover, Charlesbridge Sova’s mother is a scientist who studies birds and their migratory patterns. Each night she goes into the woods to conduct research, and finally Sova is old enough to join her. Securing headlamps, Sova and her mother head into the woods to capture, measure, and release saw-whet owls. Through the quiet night, Sova learns about the patience, persistence, and excitement that comes with conservation efforts and scientific research. This heartwarming mother-daughter story is the perfect primer to conservation, science, and amazing owls!

Boop!

by Bea Birdsong, illustrated by Linzie Hunter available in June, hardcover, Harper Collins

There are so many snoots to boop! Snoots attached to big dogs and little dogs and dogs with beards and those without. Are you ready to boop ALL the snoots? With interactive illustrations, this charming, playful, fun, and interactive picture book invites kids to boop all the snoots they see. Perfect for dog lovers of all ages!

Bitsy Bat, School Star

by Kaz Windness

available in June, hardcover, Simon & Schuster

Bitsy is a little bat with big star dreams of making friends at her new school. But when she arrives, Bitsy doesn’t feel like she fits in. The other kids sit on their chairs, but sitting upright makes Bitsy dizzy. The other kids paint with their fingers, but Bitsy would rather use her toes. Everyone tells Bitsy she’s doing things wrong-wrong-wrong, so she tries harder…and ends up having a five-star meltdown. Now Bitsy feels like a very small star and doesn’t want to go back to school. But with help from her family, Bitsy musters her courage, comes up with a new plan, and discovers that being a good friend is just one of the ways she shines bright!

A Funny Thing Happened After School . . .

by Davide Cali, illustrated by Benjamin Chaud available in July, hardcover, Chronicle Books

It’s a race to do homework—in space! But first, there’s a spaceship jam. Then there’s the moon detour, the Mars alien exploration, and a stop on the gravity-defying International Space Station. And that’s just the beginning!

Henry and Ali want to get their homework done—they really do! But how are they supposed to study the solar system when they seem to be swept up in an endless series of interstellar surprises?

See page 36 for a line-up of fun and varied story times taking place at our store in Lynden!

Village Books Publishing Top Selling Children’s Books

May 2022-2023

At Village Books, we believe that writers who publish themselves shouldn’t have to face the challenge alone. Our Publishing Program brings together flexible project management, on-demand book production, and the expertise of local professionals, all with the unified goal of getting your book in print. We support various types of projects—from short-scale batches for friends and family, to long-term printing for readers and retailers, to bulk orders in the hundreds or thousands. Throughout the process, our authors enjoy personalized support and total editorial control.

Many of the titles we help get to press end up for sale on our own bookshelves. We’re excited to share this list of top selling children’s books created with the help of the Village Books publishing program. Enjoy!

1) My Family Your Family (Mi Familia Tu Familia) by Samantha Tura Probadora

2) What Makes You Smile as Big as The Moon by Margie Kimberly

3) Moments In Nature From Around the World by Brenda Dodson

4) Rohan Makes Friends by Eris Beson

5) Beamer: An Oyster Dog by Diana Warner

6) Friends Without Borders by Hui-Ying Lesage

7) Sir Frederique Von Turtlestein by Amanda Geers

8) Shrinking the Worry Monster by Sally Baird

9) Ella the Funny Gorilla by Edi Hesseln

10) Whimsy Park: Poems for the Whole Family by Papa Bean Green

To submit your work for consideration, please fill out the Publishing Services Submission Form found at villagebooks.com (click on “Writers Corner”). For other questions about our publishing services, please contact our publishing team by email: publishing@villagebooks.com.

Celebrate Dad

Father's Day is June 18, 2023

Surprise Dad and Grandpa with something fun and different - they deserve it!

Stylish Kavu shirts and wallets, fun socks, local hats

VB Writes...

CHILDREN’S PICTURE BOOK CRITIQUE Writing Group

Plus cards, t-shirts, treats, guides, journals, stickers, and more!

Check out the Village Books

Motherhood By the Book

Book Group

Led by Claire–mother, step-mother, grandmother, and book lover extraordinaire– Motherhood by the Book meets on the second Sunday of most months at 2pm in the Fairhaven Readings Gallery for an hour of spirited discussion of books that celebrate the trials, tribulations, and rewards of motherhood. This group is by no means exclusive to moms with kids still at home. We read fiction and non-fiction, older and newer titles, all with the theme of motherhood. Check out the next titles we're discussing on page 78 including our June 11 read, The Color Purple by Alice Walker. Authors do not usually attend. Check villagebooks.com to confirm meeting dates.

New this year, this group is for writers of Children’s Picture Books who want to grow as writers and receive objective feedback about their material. There will be guidelines for writers and reviewers so each person can improve their craft in a collaborative setting. A valued group member will produce written work on a regular basis, thoughtfully critique the work of others, and contribute positive energy and insights. This group meets on 1st and 3rd Wednesdays from 6:00-7:30pm in the Writers Corner on the mezzanine level of VIllage Books in Fairhaven.

Non-Fiction Picture Books

Senses & Sensation Invisible Things

by Andy J. Pizza, Sophie Miller

available in July, hardcover, Chronicle

This book is a great tool for children and adults to connect with the things we may not see but experience nonetheless. Its illustrations and encouragement really helps you to connect with the things around you and within you. It can be used as a guide to start some important conversations about feelings and senses . –Kendra

Science & Nature From

Shore to Ocean Floor: The Human Journey to the Deep

by

Gill Arbuthnott,

illustrated by Christopher Nielsen available now, hardcover, Big Picture Press

Seen from space, Earth is a swirl of blue and white. The blue is Earth’s oceans, which cover 70% of its surface. Yet the ocean is the most unexplored region of our planet. From Shore to Ocean Floor is the story of how humans went from building the first boats to discovering the secrets of the deep. Marvel at incredible scientific discoveries, be dazzled by some of the most exciting new species, and admire the incredible people who took the very first steps below the surface.

The Simple Joys of SUMMER

Treat yourself to a cool retro libation!

For ALL Ages!

Foxtail Sport

The Original 90s Throw and Catch Outdoor Game

Kikkerland

3D Wooden Puzzles

A Challenging & creative way to pass the time.

Flingo Launch Balls

Twice As Far With Ease

Road Trip Bingo Travel Game

See the world, not a screen.

Plus a Great Selection of Activity Books, Travel Games, Crafts, STEM Kits, and more!

Let’s Stick! Bluey Sticker Stories

Penguin Young Readers Licenses

Have a horsey wedding, go on a market trip, host a sleepover, and more! With over 200 stickers and 12 sticker scenes, this activity book is perfect for Bluey fans!

LET’S DO THIS!

Magical Water Painting Amazing Dinosaurs

from Insight Kids

A no-mess art activity kids can do again and again at home or on the go! Like magic, these Jurassic scenes come to colorful life when painted with the included water-filled brush! As the water dries, the color disappears and the pages can be painted again and again! Each page also includes search and find challenges that support literacy-building skills.

Watercolor Postcards

by Klutz

Send a kind note with watercolor!

This on-the-go art kit includes everything you need to personalize postcards. Learn the basics of watercolor painting and letter writing, then fill in ready-to-mail postcards with paint. (Simply add a stamp!)

Fun Summer ACTIVITIES for

the car, plane, or quiet days at home

The Big Science Activity Book : Fun, Fact-filled STEM

Puzzles

for Kids to Complete

by Damara Strong, illustrated by Georgie Fearns

Buster Books

Part of Buster’s ‘Big Activity Book’ series and packed with over 100 puzzles and games, The Big Science Activity Book is bursting with fun and fact-filled activities for budding young scientists.

Lego Gear Bots: Create 8 Machines

by Klutz

Build your own automata with punchout paper shapes and LEGOs! Easy, step-by-step instructions guide kids along as they fold the unique paper characters and connect them to the LEGO gears, axles, cams, and cranks. Turn the cranks and watch as the mechanical movements bring them to life! Real engineering becomes playful art with the LEGO Gear Bots kit.

Teens & Adults!

Sticker by Number Nature

from Lodi Publishing

Get lost in nature with these 12 sensational sticker puzzles. From a mountain top to flowers in bloom, match the numbers on the images with those on the sticker sheets and create your masterpieces. You’ll love this relaxing activity! Challenging! A wonderful gift for the teen, adult, or elderly person in your life!

Science Puzzles for Clever Kids

by Dr. Gareth Moore and Damara Strong, illustrated by Chris Dickason Buster Brain Games

This book is brimming with games to test children’s knowledge of STEM subjects—from science and technology to engineering and mathematics.

Summer

Reading Challenge Take the Village Books

Hey Kids!

Join us in celebrating summer with one of our favorite activities—READING! Pick up a Summer Reading Challenge form at either our Fairhaven or Lynden location or download one at villagebooks.com then read your way to rewards. You’ll even get to write a review card telling us about their favorite book of the summer which we’ll hang in the store!

Rewards you say? Return your completed challenge by Wednesday, August 31st and receive a $5 gift certificate to Village Books and Paper Dreams PLUS a delicious cookie from our good friends at the Colophon Café in Fairhaven or Avenue Bread in Lynden.

BONUS: We will hold a drawing in early September from the completed forms and if we draw your name, Village Books will donate a $100 gift certificate to YOUR SCHOOL LIBRARY! If a homeschooler wins, we will donate to an appropriate charity of their choice.

Happy Reading!

Something for Everyone!

A Summer Reading Challenge for Teens and Adults

Village Books Teen & Adult Summer Reading

Why let the kids have all the fun? Village Books Summer Reading Bingo Challenge for teens and adults is back. Grab a bingo sheet and track your summer reading. Fill the board and we'll enter you in drawing to win a Village Books & Paper Dreams gift card! Join in the fun.

Middle Readers

The Legend of Greyhallow

by Summer Rachel Short

available in July, hardcover, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

My son fielded this one for me and reports: This book is about very brave siblings, on a quest to find the secrets of Mr. Ripley, the previous owner of their new house and a famous director of the well-known Greyhallow movies. The story is rich with surprises and plot twists, and from sirens to sorcerers, there’s a bit of everything in this book. –Erin

The Labors of Hercules Beal

by Gary D. Schmidt

available now, hardcover, Clarion Books

From award-winning author Gary D. Schmidt, a warm and witty novel in the tradition of The Wednesday Wars, in which a seventh-grader has to figure out how to fulfill an assignment to perform the Twelve Labors of Hercules in real life—and makes discoveries about friendship, community, and himself along the way.

Falling Out of Time : Running Out of Time Book 2

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

available now, hardcover, Katherine Tegen Books

What would you do if you found out you weren’t really living in 2023? Zola finds herself in a similar situation, except in 2193. Haddix writes time travel like no other. In fact, her newest title transported me right back to reading the Missing series in my elementary school library. –Sophie

Tessa Miyata is No Hero

by Julie Abe

available in August,, hardcover, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Graphic Novel Out There

by Seaerra Miller

available in June, paperback, Little, Brown Ink

When a festival commemorating the 75th anniversary of the infamous UFO crash in New Mexico rolls around, Julia turns down a dream vacation to Hawaii with her best friend, Sara, to join her dad for a weekend trip to Roswell, where he expects the aliens to make contact.

There Flies the Witch

by Mayonn Paasewe-Valchev

available now, hardcover, Greenwillow Books

Red tells us her story, about living a life she thinks she loves. Until she doesn’t. Sometimes our familiarity with our current environment keeps us from experiencing something more. The writing style used by author Mayonn Paasewe-Valchev allows the story to flow like a poem rather than a normal chapter book. If you are a fan of spoken word, I would highly recommend this read and especially to anyone looking for a sense of belonging. –Anna

Code Red

by Joy McCullough

available in June, hardcover, Atheneum Books for Young Readers

In the spirit of Judy Blume, this empowering and heartfelt middle grade novel celebrates finding yourself, making new friends, and standing up for what’s right as a girl becomes involved in menstrual activism.

When Tessa Miyata and her two sisters are told that they will be staying at their grandparents in Japan, Tessa is thrilled. A summer in Japan could be her chance to go on an adventure worthy of impressing her classmates back home. But when she breaks the Miyata family’s precious heirloom, accidentally releases the malicious samurai god Taira Masakado. She discovers a hidden part of the city where gods and mythological creatures walk among humans—including their new companion, a mischievous mythical nine-tailed fox who may be more trouble than he is help.

Hummingbird Sticker by Francis Dick, Kwakwaka’wakw Native Northwest

Middle Readers

LGBTQIA+ From the World of Percy Jackson : The Sun and the Star

by Rick Riordan and Mark Oshiro

available now, hardcover, Disney

Hyperion

A book written by two of my favorite authors that takes place in the world of Percy Jackson. You should read the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series before starting this story. This story follows the son of Hades, Nico, and Will, the son of Apollo. -Kendra

Horror

The Bellwoods Game

by Celia Krampien

available in July, hardcover, Atheneum Books for Young Readers

Perfect for fans of Small Spaces and Doll Bones, this spooky, highly illustrated middle grade novel follows a girl who hopes to fix her outcast status through a game in the haunted woods, only to discover that some legends shouldn’t be played with.

Be Social

Spellbinders : The Not-So-Chosen One

by Andrew Auseon

available in June, hardcover, Labyrinth Road

Ben doesn’t feel chosen by anybody—not by his friends, who haven’t kept in touch since he moved after his parents’ divorce, or by his mom, who’s so busy he barely sees her. He spends all his time living in fantasy worlds and writing extensively planned adventure campaigns in his role-playing-game notebook. So when Niara, a character who could be right out of one of his favorite games, shows up and tells him he’s destined to save her realm (like, foretoldby-a-prophecy destined), Ben has two possible moves: tell her the truth or play along. He’s tired of feeling left behind, so his choice is clear—game on. For fans of Dungeons & Dragons or any RPGs!

Out of Range

by Heidi Lang

available in June, paperback, Margaret K.

McElderry Books

No cell phones . . three sisters stuck in the Idaho wilderness together must end their feud and trust each other if they’re going to make it back safely. This is a thrilling story for readers who love stories like I Survived, Hatchet, or Alone. –Kendra

Never Miss Out!

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Read with PRIDE

 Educate Reflect • Accept Celebrate!

 

At Village Books, we believe in acceptance, inclusion, and respect for the diversity of human life. We strive to promote and advocate for equal rights. In honor of National Pride Month, you'll find throughout our store displays and shelftalkers highlighting books that explore themes of gender, sexuality, queerness, and communities. With these titles, our hope is to help expand visions of love, family, and selfhood in order to cultivate a safe and healthy space for LGBTQ+ community members to live, work, and thrive. Join us as we embrace and celebrate pride throughout our community.

Picture Book

My Mommies Built

a Treehouse

by Gareth Peter, illustrated by Izzy Evans available now, hardcover, Lantana Publishing

Building a treehouse is a big project. But when your mommies are there to help you, there’s nothing that can stop you! Ages 4-7

Middle Grade Fiction Obie Is Man Enough

by Schuyler Bailar

available now, paperback, Yearling

A coming-of-age story about Obie, a competitive swimmer and transgender tween who didn’t think being himself would cause such a splash. Author Schuyler Bailar is an internationally renowned inspirational speaker, inclusion advocate, and diversity advisor. He holds a degree in cognitive neuroscience and evolutionary psychology from Harvard University, where he was also the first transgender athlete to compete in any sport on an NCAA Division I men’s team.

Camp QUILTBAG

by Nicole Melleby and A. J. Sass

available now, hardcover, Algonquin Young Readers

Now in paperback! From the acclaimed authors of Hurricane Season and Ana on the Edge, an unforgettable story about the importance of and joy in finding a community. For fans of Alex Gino and Ashley Herring-Blake. Ages 8-12.

Educational and Fun Reads for Everyone!

Middle Grade Non-Fiction

Gender Identity for Kids : A Book About Finding Yourself, Understanding Others, and Respecting Everybody!

by Andy Passchier

available in June, hardcover, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Help kids make sense of who they are and how they feel with this illustrated guide to understanding and answering questions about gender. Ages 7-10.

Different Kinds of Fruit

by Kyle Lukoff

available now, paperback, Dial Books

In this funny and hugely heartfelt novel from the Newbery Honor-winning author of Too Bright to See, a sixth-grader’s life is turned upside down when she learns her dad is trans. Ages 10-14

Short Story Anthology

This Is Our Rainbow:

16 Stories of Her, Him, Them, and Us

edited by Katherine Locke and Nicole Melleby

available now, paperback, Yearling

The first LGBTQA+ anthology for middlegraders featuring stories for every letter of the acronym, including realistic, fantasy, and sci-fi stories by authors like Justina Ireland, Marieke Nijkamp, Alex Gino, and more! Ages 8-12.

Be a rainbow in someone else's cloud.

Young Adult Reads

A Little Bit Country

by Brian D. Kennedy

available now, paperback, Balzer + Bray Dumplin’ meets Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda in this heartfelt and funny LGBTQ+ contemporary romance about two teen boys who fall in love against the backdrop of a fictional Dollywood-esque amusement park—from debut author Brian D. Kennedy.

So This Is Ever After

by F.T. Lukens

available now, paperback, Margaret K. McElderry Books

Carry On meets Arthurian legend in this subversive, “delightfully original and whimsical” (Kirkus Reviews) young adult fantasy about what happens after the chosen one wins the kingdom and has to get married to keep it…and to stay alive.

Always the Almost

by Edward Underhill

available now, hardcover, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

A trans pianist makes a New Year’s resolution on a frozen Wisconsin night to win regionals and win back his ex, but a new boy complicates things in this heartfelt debut YA rom-dram.

What a Desi Girl Wants

by Sabina Khan

available in July, hardcover, Scholastic

JUNE is Pride Month

Nick and Charlie : A Heartstopper Novella

by Alice Oseman

available now, paperback, Scholastic Press Absence makes the heart grow fonder... right? From the mega-bestselling creator of Heartstopper, a must-have novella in which Heartstopper’s lead characters, Nick and Charlie, face one of their biggest challenges yet.

Margo Zimmerman Gets the Girl

by Sara Waxelbaum and Brianna Shrum

available now, hardcover, Inkyard Press Margo Zimmerman is gay, but she didn’t know until now. An overachiever at heart, Margo is determined to ace her newly discovered gayness. All she needs is the right tutor. Abbie Sokoloff has her own gayness down to a science. But a flunking grade in US History is threatening her acceptance to her dream school. All she needs is the right tutor. Margo agrees to help Abbie get her history grade up in exchange for “Queer 101” lessons. But as they spend more and more time together, Margo realizes she doesn’t want just any girl—she wants “the” girl.

Get a Gift with your Pre-Order

The romance of Becky Albertalli meets the nuanced family dynamics of Darius the Great is Not Okay in this YA novel from acclaimed author Sabina Khan. Mehar hasn’t visited her father, her grandmother, her family, or the home where she grew up in India since she and her mother moved away when she was only four. But Mehar reluctantly agrees to return for her father’s wedding. While in India,Mehar meets Sufiya, her grandmother’s assistant, and one of the most grounded, thoughtful, kind people she’s ever met! Though they come from totally different worlds, their friendship slowly starts to blossom into something more . . . Mehar thinks.

–Maya Angelou

Young Adult

Things I’ll Never Say

by Cassandra Newbould

available in June, hardcover, Peach Tree

Ten years ago, the Scar Squad promised each other nothing would tear them apart. Even when Casey Jones Caruso lost her twin brother Sammy to an overdose, and their foursome became a threesome, the squad picked each other up. But when Casey’s feelings for the remaining members—Francesca and Benjamin—develop into romantic attraction, she worries the truth will dissolve them. See what it means to crush on your two best friends at the same time.

Romance Something More

by Jackie Khalilieh

available in June, hardcover, Tundra Books

A contemporary teen romance novel featuring a Palestinian-Canadian girl trying to hide her autism diagnosis while navigating her first year of high school, for fans of Jenny Han and Samira Ahmed.

Give Me a Sign

by Anna Sortino

available in July, hardcover, G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers

Lilah is stuck in the middle. At least, that’s what having a hearing loss seems like sometimes— when you don’t feel “deaf enough” to identify as Deaf or hearing enough to meet the world’s expectations. But this summer, Lilah is ready for a change. With her new job as a camp counselor, she discovers community and experiences very different than what she’s used to. Check out this big-hearted YA debut about first love and Deaf pride at summer camp.

Mystery Take

by Jennifer Bradbury

available in June, hardcover, Atheneum/Caitlyn Dloughy Books

Two teens uncover a secret hidden in the Cascade Mountains that spans generations, stringing together family skeletons, lost stories, and a discovery of love and self in this tense and emotional young adult thriller. The author is from Burlington, WA!

Thriller Some Shall Break

by

Ellie Marney

available in June, hardcover, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

This electrifying, chilling sequel to the New York Times bestselling thriller None Shall Sleep focuses on junior FBI consultants Travis Bell and Emma Lewis with a new case that may unravel everything they’ve been working for.

Dark Fantasy

Foxglove

by Adalyn Grace

available in August, hardcover, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

The captivating sequel to the New York Times bestselling, Gothic-infused Belladonna, in which Signa and Death face a supernatural foe determined to tear them apart. A duke has been murdered. The lord of Thorn Grove has been framed. And Fate, the elusive brother of Death, has taken up residence in a sumptuous palace nearby. He’s hell-bent on revenge after Death took the life of the woman he loved many years ago...and now he’s determined to have Signa for himself, no matter the cost.

Thriller

The King Is Dead

by

Benjamin Dean

available in July, hardcover, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Heavy is the crown James has been born to wear, especially as the first Black heir to the British throne. But with his father’s recent passing, and with a new boyfriend to hide, James is woefully unprepared for the sudden shine of public scrutiny. When his secrets come spilling forth across tabloid pages and the man he thought he loved has suddenly disappeared, James finds himself on the precipice of ruin. As every detail of his life becomes public knowledge, his sense of safety is shattered and the people he trusts the most become the likeliest suspects.What dangers lurk behind the palace walls—and will the new king find out before it’s too late?

Butterflies - Sticker Eugene Isaac, Kwakwaka’wakw Native Northwest

Friday, June 23, 6pm at Village Books in Fairhaven in Conversation with Tim

McHugh

Join us in the Readings Gallery as James L. Sutter presents his new YA novel! He’ll be joined by local musician Tim McHugh and together, they will perform the song that is featured in Darkhearts. Don’t miss this unique event!

Perfect for fans of Red, White, & Royal Blue and Perks of Being a Wallflower, Darkhearts is a hilarious, heartfelt novel about fame, romance, and what happens when the two collide.

James L. Sutter is a co-creator of the best-selling PATHFINDER and STARFINDER roleplaying games. He’s the author of the fantasy novels Death’s Heretic and The Redemption Engine. James lives in Seattle, where he’s performed with musical acts ranging from metalcore to musical theater.

Darkhearts

available in June, hardcover, St. Martin’s Press

When David quit his band, he missed his shot at fame, trapped in an ordinary high school life while his ex–best friend, Chance, became the hottest teen pop star in America. Then tragedy throws David and Chance back into contact. As old wounds break open, the boys find themselves trading frenemy status for a confusing, secret romance—one that could be David’s ticket back into the band and the spotlight. As the mixture of business and pleasure becomes a powder keg, David will have to choose: Is this his second chance at glory? Or his second chance at Chance? Check out this hilarious, heartfelt, enemies-to-lovers romance about love, celebrity, and what happens when the two collide.

Reserve

Want a signed edition of the book but can’t make it to the event? Order through our website or over the phone, and write your request for a signature or personalization in the comments field at checkout. Please call if you’re placing your order within 24 hours of the event.

The vision of the WDRC is for Whatcom County to be a community in which people approach conflict in creative and healthy ways.

2 0 2 3

Y O U T H

partnering with:

submissions are now OPEN!

P E A C E P O E T R Y C O N T E S T

X requirements: ages 4-18, living in Whatcom County

X formats: rap, stories, poems, songs, etc

X submit poems by visiting whatcomdrc.org/youth-peace-poetrycontest

submissions due by:

s e p t e m b e r 2 1s t

Young Adult

Firekeeper’s Daughter

by Angeline Boulley

available now, paperback, Square Fish

The best young adult thriller I’ve read is now out in paperback! Boulley does an incredible job of presenting heavier subject matter in an accessible way. The plot is exciting and the writing is so engaging. I cannot recommend this book enough, to young adults and adults too! –Kiana

LGBTQ+ Romance I Like Me Better

by Robby Weber

available now, hardcover, Inkyard Press

Robby Weber, author of If You Change Your Mind, shares another amazing story!

Zack Martin has a moral dilemma...one that wasn’t his to begin with. The choice that Zack makes changes all the plans he had for an amazing summer, in more ways than one. The book has the perfect amount of drama, romance, and humor and the lighthearted and youthful energy this story carries is more than enough to keep you wanting more! –Anna

Reflect Accept

Queer Ducks : (and Other Animals): The Natural World of Animal Sexuality

by Elliot Schrefer, illustrated by Jules Zuckerberg available in June, paperback, Harper Collins

If you like non-fiction that is not only informative but also funny then this is the book for you! The research within this book proves the point that queer behavior has never been “unnatural.” The book itself follows relationship dynamics and sexuality surrounding many members of the animal kingdom.

I Must Betray You

by Ruta Sepetys

available now, paperback, Philomel Books

It’s 1989, and a revolution is brewing. Romania has been under the repressive regime of Nicolae Ceaușescu for too long, and people are hankering for change. When Cristian Florescu becomes enmeshed with the Securitate, he must become a spy or break his family. Determined not to betray his country in the process, Cristian is led straight into the heart of the revolution. As always, Ruta Sepetys brings history to life, engaging readers of all ages. –Tova

LGBTQ+ Romance Kiss & Tell

by Adib Khorram

available now, paperback, Dial Books

Kiss & Tell is the addictively compelling coming-of-age story of Hunter Drake, a member of one of the hottest boy bands, who is also openly gay. Witness Hunter attempting to navigate the tricky waters of being famous and gay in an unforgiving industry while falling in love again after heartbreak against the backdrop of the band’s North American tour. The perfect read for anyone who has ever been obsessed with One Direction or BTS! –Tova

NON-FICTION LGBTQ+

We Are Not Broken

by George M. Johnson

available now, paperback, Little, Brown for Young Readers

George M. Johnson is an award-winning Black nonbinary writer, author, and activist based in the New York City area and the author of memoir We Are Not Broken and bestseller All Boys Aren’t Blue. This is the vibrant story of George, Garrett, Rall, and Rasul—four children raised by Nanny, their fiercely devoted grandmother. The boys hold one another close through early brushes with racism, memorable experiences at the family barbershop, and first loves and losses. And with Nanny at their center, they are never broken.

AMAZON TAKES MONEY OUT OF THE LOCAL ECONOMY

Shoppers spent $367 billion at Amazon in 2021- that’s $367 billion that could have gone to local business owners and back into their communities through their vendors, employees, donations, and local sales taxes.

AMAZON HURTS WORKERS

In 2021, Amazon displaced 1.7 million retail workers - a net loss of 800,000 retail jobs - and an additional 70,000 distribution-related jobs.

AMAZON CONTRIBUTES TO SUBURBAN SPRAWL

Amazon builds its warehouses on the peripheries of communities, displacing economic activity from the commercial districts that help American cities and towns thrive.

AMAZON USES GOVERNMENT RESOURCES

Amazon’s use of government subsidies and publicly-funded infrastructure costs communities.

AMAZON DISPLACES COMMUNITY RETAIL SHOPS

In 2021, Amazon displaced 136,000 retail shops - that’s 1.1 billion square feet of retail space.

Of Endings and Beginnings

All good things may, one day, come to an end. Our long-time Events Coordinator, Claire McElroy, is moving on. Claire first came to Village Books and Paper Dreams in 1994 as a frontline salesperson and soon moved into the role as Assistant Bookkeeper. She left us to focus on her glass art, owning a business, and raising her family, returning to us as a bookseller in 2010. Since then, she’s served in a number of capacities and has contributed greatly every step of the way. Though there are too many to list here, we are extremely grateful for Claire’s many gifts and contributions since she took the role in 2016—including helping us to successfully navigate hosting events through the pandemic. We will miss her being here under our roof—both professionally and personally.

BUT, she’s not going far! Look for her in her new role as the Adult Programming Coordinator at Whatcom County Library System! Since we have a close partnership with WCLS—including working together on Whatcom READS—we look forward to continuing to work with her in her new position. We’re all pretty darned excited for her and extend our deepest gratitude and congratulations. She’ll continue hosting the Motherhood by the Book Book Group that she founded many years ago, so you’ll still see her here now and then. Claire says, “Village Books is my favorite place. I am taking so many wonderful memories with me and so many friendships.”

Please Welcome Our New Events Coordinator, Hanna Buehrer!

Hanna comes to us from Sunnyland Elementary where she’s taught and recently served as librarian. (As you can see, bookstores and libraries have more in common than just books!) Another midwest transplant, we’re excited to welcome Hanna’s energy and talent to Village Books and Paper Dreams. We appreciate everyone’s help and support as she ramps up on the many systems, community connections, and dynamic programming that we have to offer.

“I am thrilled to be joining the fantastic team at Village Books! This community is truly wonderful and I feel an immense privilege at being invited to come in and be a part of the special things that happen here. I look forward to helping continue the legacy of amazing events and experiences you have come to love, and I can’t wait to connect with you, readers!” -

Hanna Buehrer

Literature LIVE! EVENTS

The Village Books Literary Events Program

Additions and changes to this schedule will occur so check out VillageBooks.com

to stay updated – or even better, let us come to you! Register for the Village Books eNewsletter!

JUNE 2023

BOOK LAUNCH!

Saturday, June 3, 4pm

PETER VAN DER VEEN and MARJOLEIN VAN DER VEEN

–The Linguist’s Family

In 1916, Peter’s parents accepted a contract with the Dutch Bible Society and moved to Tana Toraja, in what was then called the Dutch East Indies. Dr. Hendrik van der Veen, a linguist specializing in Indonesian languages, and his wife Louise, a talented nurse, found there a warm, generous, and deeply spiritual people.

The van der Veen family was confined to internment in camps run by the Japanese military. Peter survived six camps, and work on the Tjitjalengka railroad, but the family suffered irreparable losses. Spanning 1916-1956, this story tells of Indigenous life, colonial conflict, internment by Japan in WWII, and the national revolution. Marjolein van der Veen, Peter’s daughter, joins him as researcher and co-author to tell this story of an atypical Dutch family who were supporters of Indonesian independence.

Sunday, June 4, 4pm

ALIX CHRISTIE

in conversation with

Candace Wellman

–The Shining Mountains

Don’t miss this conversation between two talented authors as they discuss Alix Christie’s latest novel. The Shining Mountains is an epic true story of the American Northwest and the marriage of the fur trade and indigenous worlds, based on the author’s own family. Alix Christie is the direct descendant of Angus McDonald’s brother Duncan. She consulted extensively with her Nez Perce and Salish-Pend d’Oreille cousins to research their blended family history, receiving official support for the project from the cultural committees of both tribes. Candace Wellman is the author of two national award-winning books, Peace Weavers and Interwoven Lives. Her new biography, Man of Treacherous Charm, is about E.C. Fitzhugh, Sehome Coal Mine manager who was appointed to the territorial supreme and district courts in 1858 while under indictment for murder.

Unless Otherwise noted, events take place at Village Books in Fairhaven. Registration to save your seat is required for most events. When a $5 fee applies, you will receive a voucher for that amount to use at the event!

Tickets may be available at the door.

Details at VILLAGEBOOKS.COM

Saturday, June 10, 6pm

KATY ELLIS with Kami Westhoff

–Home Water, Home Land: A Prose Poem

Home Water, Home Land is a novel-length prose poem set in the Pacific Northwest, where the narrative crosses borders and waterways to Vancouver Island and explores the interior landscape and transitions a young woman must navigate to break from her family’s patriarchal belief system. Katy E. Ellis is the author of the novel-length prose poem Home Water, Home Land and three chapbooks, including Night Watch, winner of the 2017 Floating Bridge Press chapbook competition. Kami Westhoff is the author of the short story collection The Criteria, and poetry chapbooks Cloudbound, Sleepwalker, and Your Body a Bullet, co-written with Elizabeth Vignali.

Sunday, June 11, 4pm

Red Wheelbarrow

Writers Group Reading –Spring and All Anthology

The Red Wheelbarrow Writers are at it again and have published another gorgeous anthology inspired by the iconic 1923 poem by William Carlos Williams.

One hundred years later, the Red Wheelbarrow Writers’ Spring and All 2023 anthology takes up its challenge: “Profound change” lies at the heart of each piece. Some authors write with raffish humor, some with wry nostalgia, some with elegiac undercurrents. These authors display a dazzling array of poetry and prose: art seeking to articulate insight.

“At Red Wheelbarrow Writers, we believe that so much depends upon community. We are a loose affiliation of working writers who produce independently, and who join together to support, encourage, and sustain one another.”

Tuesday, June 13, 6pm

Chuckanut Sandstone Writers Theater Open Mic

Chuckanut Sandstone Writers Theater

(CSWT) Open Mic is held at Village Books in Fairhaven and on Zoom on the second Tuesday of the month from 6-8 pm. Our CSWT emcee is Carla Shafer, who founded Bellingham’s first continuous Open Mic in Bellingham in 1991. Pre-registration to read is encouraged a so whether you plan to read in person or on Zoom, please email Carla Shafer at chuckanutsandstone@gmail.com to secure your spot!

Congratulations, Graduates!

Keep turning for more events

Chuckanut Sandstone Writers Theater

Friday, June 16, 6pm

SKYE BURN

–Living High : An Unconventional Biography

Join us in the Readings Gallery to hear the amazing story of Skye Burn’s grandparents, June & Farrar. Living High is the remarkable story of June & Farrar, their trust in life and courage to be unconventional offer inspiration and a compass for today’s world. Skye Burn will read from the new edition of Living High and share previously unseen photographs, original recordings of Farrar’s songs, and an introduction to the June & Farrar Project. (Note: Skye will also present in Lynden on June 24!)

Sunday, June 19

Happy Father’s Day!

Celebrating all fathers and father-figures in our lives.

Tuesday, June 20, 6pm

JOHN VAILLANT

–Fire Weather :

A True Story from a Hotter World

Join us in the Readings Gallery for an evening with the bestselling author of the acclaimed, award-winning nonfiction books, The Tiger and The Golden Spruce!

Built around a blow-by-blow account of the 2016 wildfire that devastated the Canadian oil hub of Fort McMurray, and caused the largest single-day evacuation in the history of modern fire, Fire Weather traces the braided histories of petroleum, automobiles, wildfires, and climate science, mapping out the journey and drama that brought us into a new “century of fire,” in which hotter, more destructive blazes are impacting forests and human communities across the globe. John Vaillant has received the Governor General’s Literary Award, British Columbia’s National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize, and the Pearson Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction. He has written for, among others, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, National Geographic, and The Walrus. He lives in Vancouver.

Wednesday, June 21, 7pm

The Chuckanut Radio Hour featuring LYANDA LYNN HAUPT in the Crystal Ballroom of the Hotel Leo –Rooted: Life at the Crossroads of Science, Nature, and Spirit

Literature LIVE!

Note: Changes to this schedule WILL occur so watch our website – or even better, let us come to you! Register for the Village Books weekly eNewsletter!

Saturday, June 24 & Sunday, June 25

Village Books and Paper Dreams

43rd Anniversary Sale in Lynden & Fairhaven!

VillageBooks Presents The Chuckanut

Join us in the Crystal Ballroom of the Hotel Leo for an evening of music, poetry, comedy, and literature. Award-winning writer Lyanda Lynn Haupt’s highly personal new book is a brilliant invitation to live with the earth in both simple and profound ways—from walking barefoot in the woods and reimagining our relationship with animals and trees, to examining the very language we use to describe and think about nature. She invokes rootedness as a way of being in concert with the wilderness—and wildness—that sustains humans and all of life.

Lyanda Lynn Haupt is a naturalist, eco-philosopher, and author of many books including Mozart’s Starling, and Crow Planet. A winner of the Washington State Book Award and the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award, she lives in Seattle. Haupt will be interviewed by Bec Detrich, Executive Director of North Cascades Institute!

Village Books is celebrating FORTY-THREE years as your community bookstore with our annual store wide sale! Take advantage of 20% off most merchandise throughout both stores! Some restrictions do apply so please ask one of our booksellers for details. This sale DOES include phone and online orders that are placed and paid for during sale days. Online orders—use code VB1980. Due to extra volume, you can expect delays in processing those orders. Thanks for celebrating with us!

43 Years Ago1980

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer RUBIK'S CUBE debuts

PAC-MAN

The first Pac-Man arcade cabinets were released in October 1980.

THE WORLD WHEN VILLAGE BOOKS WAS BORN

Oscar for Best Picture Kramer vs. Kramer

Thursday, June 22, 6pm JEAN WAIGHT –The River Beyond the Dam : Shooting the Rapids of Progressive Christianity

A modern, ex-Christian, tree-hugging woman comes up against a strange wish for church—but only if it could be radically different from what she’s known. Join Jean Waight for an hour of lighthearted stories of canoeing and church, with themed refreshments and more. Expect to come away with hope for bridging some of our worst social divisions.

“Having tried to pretzel herself to fit inherited Christian teachings and then rejecting the lot in disgust, Jean Waight unexpectedly finds treasure behind door number three—inclusive, non-patriarchal, and liberating. Weaving an astonishing tapestry of canoeing, scholarship, mountaintop experience, and a very human set of fellow travelers, she brings us on her adventure forging a new identity. And a new understanding of Christianity emerges: that there is always a place for God in a rapidly changing world as long as we accept that we are continual works in progress.”

–Cami Ostman, author of Second Wind: One Woman’s Midlife Quest to Run Seven Marathons on Seven Continents

Jean Waight is a local memoirist. A prizewinner in the Pacific Northwest Writers Association 2021 literary contest, her work has appeared in anthologies and in Cirque: A Literary Journal for the North Pacific Rim. Her sociology M.A. research is in Research in Social Stratification and Mobility. She lives among conifers and rhododendrons in Bellingham, canoes every chance she gets, attends First Congregational Church of Bellingham, and is a fan of baseball and cooking for a small planet.

Sustain our LitLive! author series by purchasing a copy of the featured books!

Friday, June 23, 6pm Young Adult Fiction!

JAMES L. SUTTER in conversation with Tim McHugh

–Darkhearts: A Novel

Join us in the Readings Gallery as James L. Sutter presents his new YA novel! He’ll be joined by local musician Tim McHugh and together, they will perform the song that is featured in Darkhearts! Don’t miss this unique event! Perfect for fans of Red, White, & Royal Blue and Perks of Being a Wallflower, Darkhearts is a hilarious, heartfelt novel about fame, romance, and what happens when the two collide.

James L. Sutter is a co-creator of the bestselling Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games. He’s the author of the fantasy novels Death’s Heretic and The Redemption Engine. James lives in Seattle, where he’s performed with musical acts ranging from metalcore to musical theater.

Tim McHugh is a local musician, composer, and high school English teacher, as well as the author of Ivan: A Pound Dog’s View on Life, Love and Leashes.

Unless otherwise noted, events take place in the Readings Gallery at VIllage Books in Fairhaven

Literature LIVE!

Saturday, June 24, 2pm at Village Books in LYNDEN

SKYE BURN

–Living High: An Unconventional Biography

Join us in the Lynden to hear the amazing story of Skye Burn’s grandparents —June & Farrar Burn. Their trust in life and courage to be unconventional offer inspiration and a compass for today’s world. First published in 1941, Living High has remained in print through decades. This new 7th edition includes previously unseen photographs and an expanded epilogue by Skye Burn. Can’t make this date? Skye Burn will speak at Village Books in Fairhaven on Friday, June 16 at 6pm.

Saturday, June 24, 4pm Local Author!

SAMANTHA FERRARO

–One-Pot Mediterranean : 70+ Simple Recipes for Healthy and Flavorful Weeknight Cooking

Grab your Dutch oven and dive into the most wholesome, flavor-packed recipes the Mediterranean has to offer. Whip up dishes that are packed with seasonal vegetables, tender meats and healthy grains, all slow-cooked in classic Mediterranean spices--and in just one pot! A bonus chapter of vibrant, crisp salads will complete your Mediterranean meal with that perfect pop of freshness. Samantha Ferraro is the author of The Weeknight Mediterranean Kitchen and founder of the food blog The Little Ferraro Kitchen. Her recipes have been featured in The Huffington Post, The Washington Pos t and others. Samantha lives in Bellingham, Washington.

Saturday, June 24

Fairhaven Outdoor Cinema Summer Series Kick Off!

The tradition continues! The Fairhaven Association is excited to invite you to spend your Saturday evenings on the Fairhaven Village Green this summer. Enjoy live entertainment and a great line-up of movies. Find a schedule and details on page 4.

Sunday, June 25, 4pm

CANDACE WELLMAN

–Man of Treacherous Charm :

Territorial Justice Edmund C. Fitzhugh

Appointed to Washington Territory’s District and Supreme Courts in 1857 despite being under indictment for murder and only marginally qualified for the position, Edmund C. Fitzhugh’s biography offers unique insights into the people, personalities, politics, and practices of the territory and the 19th century American West. Candace Wellman’s Peace Weavers won the 2018 WILLA literary award for scholarly nonfiction from Women Writing the West, and her book Interwoven Lives was a 2020 finalist. This is her third title with WSU Press. Note: She will also speak iat Village Books in Lynden on July 1 at 2pm. Keep turning for more events

Monday, June 26, 6pm

Open Mic with Seán Dwyer

Village Books invites everyone to enjoy local talents as they share their own stories, poems and essays. Published and unpublished writers are encouraged to attend and enjoy a welcoming audience. Our regular emcee and celebrated local author, Seán Dwyer, will host as he does every month. Pre-registration to read is required and spaces are limited so whether you plan to read in person or on Zoom, please email Seán at sean@seandwyerauthor.com to secure your spot!

JULY

Saturday, July 1, 2pm in LYNDEN

CANDACE WELLMAN

–Man of Treacherous Charm : Territorial Justice Edmund C. Fitzhugh

Appointed to Washington Territory’s District and Supreme Courts in 1857 despite being under indictment for murder and only marginally qualified for the position, Edmund C. Fitzhugh’s biography offers unique insights into the people, personalities, politics, and practices of the territory and the 19th century American West. Candace Wellman’s Peace Weavers won the 2018 WILLA literary award for scholarly nonfiction from Women Writing the West, and her Interwoven Lives was a 2020 finalist. This is her third title with WSU Press. Note: She will also speak iat Village Books n Fairhaven June 25, 4pm.

Tuesday, July 4 - Special Hours

Happy 4th of July

Have fun, be safe, and thanks for always celebrating your local Independents! Please note our altered hours for the day:

• FAIRHAVEN: OPEN 9am-5pm

• LYNDEN: Village Books and Paper Dreams will CLOSED for the day.

VB READS

Book Groups

Village Books hosts multiple book groups who read and discuss a variety of genres. See page 78 for to find a group that works for you! Watch villagebooks.com for meeting times and reading selections. All are welcome!

VB WRITES Writing Groups

Village Books is excited to host a variety of writing groups—each with a unique focus. Turn to page 27 for a full list and meeting times then see villagebooks.com for descriptions. Be sure to sign up for our Just Write! eNewsletter, a monthly publication highlighting current classes, tips and tricks, writing book reviews and the like!

Tuesday, July 11, 6pm

Chuckanut Sandstone

Writers Theater Open Mic

Chuckanut Sandstone Writers Theater

Chuckanut Sandstone Writers Theater

(CSWT) Open Mic is held at Village Books on the second Tuesday of the month from 6-8pm. Our CSWT emcee is Carla Shafer, who founded Bellingham’s first continuous Open Mic in Bellingham in 1991. Everyone is welcome to read their own original writings (poems, prose, essays, plays) for 1 to 7 minutes to an enthusiastic audience. Pre-registration to read is encouraged as spaces are limited so whether you plan to read in person or on Zoom, please email Carla Shafer at chuckanutsandstone@gmail.com to secure your spot!

Sunday, July 16, 4pm

CAROL MCMILLAN

–Scriptless: A Memoir

Scriptless recounts Carol McMillan’s journey of a sheltered suburban white girl who ventures out to try marijuana and dance to Janis Joplin during the Summer of Love in the Bay Area. Carol goes on an entomology camping expedition across Africa and has a spiritual epiphany about the Oneness of the Universe. As her childhood foundations are rocked, Carol is shocked to realize the depths of injustice of the world, the nefarious workings of her own government, and the extent of racism—even in her own liberal family. Carol McMillan is an award-winning writer whose work has been published in several anthologies and scientific journals. She is the author of White Water, Red Walls, a memoir in poems, paintings, and photos of her rafting trip through the Grand Canyon.

Monday, July 31, 2pm

Two Find Waldo Celebrations

In Fairhaven AND In Lynden

We're having parties at BOTH of our stores - in Fairhaven AND in Lynden! Join us at either Village Books in Lynden OR Fairhaven for a celebration to wrap up our Fairhaven “Find Waldo Local” program. We’ll play games, give out prizes to those who participated in the multistore search, eat treats, and find Waldo hiding in our store! Come in your red stripes and glasses, and ready to have a good time!

Monday, July 31, 6pm

Open Mic with Seán Dwyer

Village Books invites everyone to enjoy local talents as they share their own stories, poems and essays. Published and unpublished writers are encouraged to attend and enjoy a welcoming audience. Our regular emcee and celebrated local author, Seán Dwyer, will host as he does every month. Pre-registration to read is required and spaces are limited so whether you plan to read in person or on Zoom, please email Seán at sean@seandwyerauthor.com to secure your spot!

For additional event details, registration information, and to buy the books, see our

Events Calendar

at villagebooks.com

STORY TIMES for Kids

SEPTEMBER

Saturday, September 2

Fairhaven Annual Sidewalk Sale

Head into Fairhaven and find deals galore during the annual neighborhood sidewalk sale! Stop by Village Books and Paper Dreams and check out our tables full of treasures.

Save the Date!

AUGUST

Tuesday, August 8, 6pm

Chuckanut Sandstone Writers Theater Open Mic

Chuckanut Sandstone Writers Theater

(CSWT) Open Mic is held at Village Books on the second Tuesday of the month from 6-8 PM Pacific time. Our CSWT emcee is Carla Shafer, who founded Bellingham’s first continuous Open Mic in Bellingham in 1991. The Chuckanut Sandstone Writers Theater is named after the local rock which looks hard at first but breaks open easily and like all great writing has grit.

Thursday, August 10, 6pm

Ilyssa and Dave Kyu

–Campfire Stories, vol. II : Tales from America’s National Parks and Trails

Join us at the peak of camping season for a great event that celebrates our park system and getting outside! Inspired by America’s beloved national parks, Campfire Stories Volume II is a collection of modern prose, poetry, folklore, and more, featuring works from a diverse group of writers who share a deep appreciation of the natural world. Contributors represent a range of rich and diverse voices, including from the BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities. These new campfire stories revel in each park’s distinct landscape and imaginatively transport the reader to the warm edge of a campfire ring.

Ilyssa Kyu is a design researcher focused on inclusion at frog design, a global creative consultancy, and the founder of Amble, a sabbatical program for creative professionals to take time away with purpose in support of nature conservancies. Dave Kyu is a socially engaged artist, writer, and arts administrator. Born in Seoul, South Korea, and raised in the United States, he explores the creative tensions of identity, community, and public space in his work.

Thursday, September 14 THE CHUCKANUT RADIO HOUR featuring DAVID B. WILLIAMS with Erica Bauermeister –Homewaters: A Human and Natural History of Puget Sound Watch villagebooks.com for details.

Note: Additions and changes to this schedule WILL occur so watch our website—or even better, let us come to you!

Receive VB Email Updates

Every week, Village Books sends out an email newsletter packed full of store and book information including our upcoming Literature Live events. Twice each week, you'll receive the popular Shelf Awareness for Readers book reviews. Sign up in the store or at villagebooks.com today!

Chuckanut Sandstone Writers Theater

VillageBooks

BOOK GROUPS

VB Reads...

Motherhood by the Book

Join Claire for an hour of spirited discussion of books that celebrate the trials, tribulations, and rewards of motherhood—both fiction and non-fiction. By no means exclusive to moms with kids still at home, this group meets on the second Sunday of the month at 2pm in the Readings Gallery of Village Books in Fairhaven.

June 11 –The Color Purple by Alice Walker

July 9 – Paula: A Memoir by Isable Allende

August 13 –Kaikeyi: A Novel by Vaishnavi Patel

VB Reads...

Armchair

Historians

Find additional book group information and reading under the Readers Corner tab at villagebooks.com.

VB Reads...

Lynden Front Streeters

"Variety is the spice of life!" Join Gaye from Village Books, Lynden, and the Front Streeters book group as they discuss books from a variety of genres. They meet in the conference room of the Inn at Lynden the third Wednesday of each month at 7pm.

June 28* –The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow (*special date)

See more Front Streeters reading selections on page 34.

*Watch villagebooks.com for meeting details, changes, and updates.

VB Reads...

Afternoon Book Chat

Let's chat, discuss, and dissect the most current and interesting history being written. We meet in the Readings Gallery at Village Books in Fairhaven the second Monday of the month at 6pm.

June 12 –The Great Dissenter: The Story of John Marshall Harlan, America’s Judicial Hero by Peter S. Canellos

July 17 –Peace Weavers: Uniting the Salish Coast Through Cross-Cultural Marriages by Candace Wellman

(Note: Author, Candace Wellman, WILL be in attendance)

August 21 –King Leopold’s Ghost:: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild

Participants receive 15% off all book group reading selections. Just mention the group when paying!

Join Sittrea in the Readings Gallery on the second Wednesday of the month at 1pm for a lively early afternoon book chat. Everyone welcome.

June 14 –The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

July 12 –The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn

August 9 –The Sea Runners by Ivan Doig

Climate Action Book Club

Meeting three times a year, Village Books is excited to join with Sustainable Connections in presenting this exciting book group. Both virtual and in-person options are available. Next meeting: Thursday, June 15, 8am –Afterglow, Climage Fiction of Future Ancestors Watch sustainableconnections.org/events/ for details.

Unless otherwise noted, authors do not attend VB Reads.

Village Books both hosts and co-sponsors a variety of lively book groups and YOU are invited to join in! All are welcome.

ROUND IT UP

Children of the Setting Sun

Children of the Setting Sun is an Indigenous-led production company based in Bellingham that collects and shares Salmon People stories. These are stories about working families with deep spiritual life connection to the natural world that amplify the fight to save salmon from extinction, free rivers and protect the environment, helping ensure the Indigenous way of life is passed on to future generations—fusing the requirements of mind and heart into a collective, enabling transformation. Our films, art, narratives and gatherings showcase this way of life and serve as a catalyst for the change in values needed for continued human existence.

The Salmon People pathway is about gratitude, generosity, respect, and the urgent need to give back to Mother Earth. CSSP is a proud contributor to the Pacific Northwest arts community.

“KEEP

MY FIRES BURNING!”

“In the 1930’s my Great Grandfather, Frank Hillaire formed a Lummi song and dance troupe named, “Children of the Setting Sun.” Before passing, my great grandfather left these instructions to his descendants, “Keep My Fires Burning!” As my grandparents and parents before me, we continue to follow these instructions.”

–Darrell Hillaire, Executive Director, Founder

settingsunproductions.org

Available NOW at Village Book!

Jesintel: Living Wisdom from Coast Salish Elders

by Children of the Setting Sun Productions, edited by Darrell Hillaire and Natasha Frey

Round It Up, our amazingly simple giving program, was designed to support local non-profits. Join Village Books and Paper Dreams customers who are supporting our community by rounding up your next purchase to

Nineteen elders from Coast Salish communities in the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia offer a portrait of their perspectives on language, revitalization, and Coast Salish family values. Topics include naming practices, salmon, canoe journeys and storytelling. Jesintel reminds us of the importance of maintaining relations and traditions in the face of ongoing struggles.