         Staff Picks Michael's
Picks
Toast should be a real downer--the story of a young boy who loses his mother and is forced to compete for his father's attention with the new housekeeper--but it is so much more. Slater's competition takes the form of attempts to outdo the housekeeper in the kitchen. The story is told in chapters, each about a different recipe. Slater is droll, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, and always spot-on in his recollections of a boyhood growing up in less than wonderful circumstances.
Pelecanos introduces a new character in The Cut: a veteran of the Iraq war, now working as a private investigator. Pelecanos has an incredible eye for the telling detail. You can really feel the neighborhood as its characters pass through. Fans of the TV series The Wire will recognize his fine work.
Grandpa Green Grandpa Green is Lane Smith's best book to date. The book tells the story of a boy and his grandfather through beautiful, quiet pictures of topiary. Memory, love, and all of life are manifest in these incredible illustrations. This is a book to treasure.
Not only is this fun book set in Walla Walla, it is also double fun to read aloud over and over. Tongue twisters and puns galore.
If summer ever shows up, here is a great beach read. In The Fifth Witness, Connelly brings back Mickey Haller of Lincoln Lawyer fame for another adventure. Connelly has what it takes, his characters staw fresh, and the plot twists are believable.
This is a worthy first novel, a study of the horror of war set before, during, and after World War I. Krivak doesn't scrimp at the horrors of war, and his prose is both immediate and distant. This is a book that has grown on me since I finished it. The author has succeeded in creating a haunting and evocative work.
In a world where it seems every chef has written a book, Gabrielle Hamilton stands apart. She is one hell of a writer, and her story -- of her bohemian childhood, her troubled adolescence, and her roundabout way in learning the world of professional cookery -- is wonderfully told. This is a great book for anyone who loves great writing and good food.
I love first novels; discovering new talented writers is always a pleasure, and Urban Waite is the real deal. His novel set in the Pacific Northwest is a new take on the noir. His prose is compelling and his characters are fresh. You follow them with dread but you're unable to stop reading.
If you have always thought of maps as mere geography, think again. In The Map As Art Katherine Harmon has expanded the definition of maps exponentially. She has gathered maps that chart visionary topographies and imaginary geographies. From Seattle neighborhoods on woodblock prints to the Caspain Sea on plywood, it is all here. These maps will change the way you think. In a good way.
This is a book that grabs you in the first few pages and doesn't release you until the end. The comparisons to Cormac McCarthy are easy. The sense of place and unforgettable characters are similar to McCarthy but Machart is his own man. This is a story you haven't read before and won't easily forget. Part Greek tragedy and all Western, this is one of the best first novels to come along this year.
One of, if not the best cookbooks you will encounter. Beard grew up in Portland and spent summers at the Oregon coast and provides an admiration of the Northwest that is complimented by fascinating anecdotes about America's early history of cooking and cuisine. Not only comprehensive in recipes, but so interesting and well written that it will grab you and won't let go until you look up to see that an hour has passed and your work is overcooked.
Before Henning Mankell or Jo Nesbo or Steig Larsson, the husband and wife team of Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo created the template for the Scandinavian mystery novels. The Martin Beck series is superb. Read the first and you will be hooked for all of them.
 Road
Dogs Elmore Leonard In Road Dogs, Leonard proves that he is still one of, if not the best writers of crime fiction. Unforgettable characters and laugh-out-loud dialogue and situations provide some of the best entertainment you will find this summer. I read it in one sitting.
This is one of the best historical novels I have read and that it is a first novel is even more impressive. Sweeping in scope, yet intimate in detail, Fisher has created an unforgetable tale of love and loss, bravery and foolishness, sacrifice and understanding.
The Clearing is set in the bayou county of Lousisana just after WWI. Moody, steamy and feverish are a few of the adjectives I would mention. This is a book that burrows into you and haunts for a long time.
Train is Pete Dexter's take on the noir. Train is a young, black golf phenomena and Miller Packard is the enigmatic white detective who makes Train his protege. Set in Los Angeles in the '50s, Train explores both race and sexuality in fast-moving, unforgettable prose.
In Zeitoun Dave Eggers checks his famous ego and lets Eggers the writer
tell the story of Katrina and the nightmare of Abdulrahman Zeitoun. Heart-breaking
and rage-making, this is a book you won't be able to put down and one you
will never forget.
This is one of the best mysteries of all time. Crumley nails it on every page and the opening paragraph is one of the truly great openers of any book -- ever!
Filled with fun, funny and catchy poems that beg to be read aloud and reread
again and again, the true stars of this book are the wonderful illustrations
by Petra Mathers, fun to look at the first time, subsequent viewings reveal
another world.
This is one of the best, most unusual novels I have read in the last 20 years.
The main character is the Pacific Northwest during the early years of white
settlement. You will come away with a new appreciation of the Northwest and
awe at Dillard's accomplishment.
Trust me, you haven't read this story before, and seldom have read a story told with such exquisite grace. Telling the plot is unfair to the next reader. This book haunted me long after I finished it.
This is the best first novel I have read. Michael Chabon's assured, beautiful prose limns the coming of age of a group of slackers in Pittsburgh. Unforgettable characters, not the least of which is Pittsburgh itself. This is the harbinger of the great novels that followed.
I loved this book - from the first sentence I was swept up in the life of Edgar and his dogs. Beautifully written with sentences that beg to be reread, this is a book to treasure. One of the best books of this year. |
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Toast
The Cut 
Double Trouble in Walla Walla
The Fifth Witness 
The Sojourn 
Blood, Bones & Butter
The Terror of Living 
The Map as Art
The Wake of Forgiveness
James Beard's American Cookery
Roseanna
Train 
Zeitoun
Last
Good Kiss 
Frogs
Wore Red Suspenders 
The
Living Annie Dillard 
The
Story of a Marriage 
The
Mysteries of Pittsburgh 