The Sunday Question

If you could live in one book, which book would it be?

First, I must apologize for last week -- I did post a Sunday Question, but I had saved it as a draft and it posted on the date I began it, May 10th. So, if you'd like to weigh in on your favorite books of the Oughts, please read my post for May 10th.

Now, on to this week's question: which one book would you choose to live in? I kicked this one around a little with Odyssey staff and friends.

Marika's choice was brilliant. She would choose one of Jasper Fforde's books. If you're not familiar with him, he writes clever literary/fantasy whodunits featuring sleuth Thursday Next, who solves such puzzles as why Jane Eyre fled, well, Jane Eyre, and how she might be persuaded to return to her book. That way, Marika figures she can live in many books at once.

My friend Aimee is leaning toward The Underneath, a wonderfully evocative children's book by Kathi Appelt, a Newbery Honor book for 2008, I believe.

Nieves said she'd like to live in Kafka's Metamorphosis.

At first I thought she said she would not like to live in it, but I was wrong. Turns out, she can't see living in a book that would present her with the same (or similar) old grind, and waking up to find oneself turned into a large insect would at least be different.

Mine would be National Velvet, Enid Bagnold's gorgeously written paean to childhood, horses, and the English downs. I'd ride lovely horses every day, although being in a butcher's family, I'd probably have to eat offal. It would be worth it, though.

Tell us yours!

~ Chrysler

A Ballad for Bikes

When I go biking, I repeat a mantra of the day's sensations: bright sun, blue sky, warm breeze, blue jay's call, ice melting and so on. This helps me transcend the traffic, ignore the clamorings of work, leave all the mind theaters behind and focus on nature instead. I still must abide by the rules of the road, of biking, of gravity. But I am mentally far away from civilization. The world is breaking someone else's heart. ~Diane Ackerman
Romanticizing riding a bicycle is a myth easily dispelled by the act of actually riding a bike. The grease, the grit, the grind, the rude motorists who honk as they pass, because goodness knows you can't hear a large piece of metal on wheels coming from behind at 30+ miles faster than you... but I digress.

Riding a bike also has its merits. The euphoria of climbing a hill, feeling the breeze against your cheek, the endorphins after a long ride. Plus you get to trade stories with fellow bikers, which is tantamount to fishermen swapping tales.
-How big was it [fish/hill]?
-This big!

While I only ride my bike in the spring and summer, to commute to work (a non-romantic 20 miles, uphill both ways I might add), there are those whose whole lifestyle is built around commuting on bikes. My hats off to the real road warriors.

Including the creator of the BikeSnobNYC blog. BikeSnob has just had his blog restructured as a book and it is one of the best blog to book creations. It is beautifully illustrated by Christopher Koelle.



Bike Snob
BikeSnobNYC
Chronicle Books
16.95

The book is a wonderful chronicle of the history of bicycling and what it means to bicycle in the modern age. Koelle's artwork beautifully captures the essence of bikesnob's writing, making this book a must have for the shelf of both bike elites and non bikers alike!

Paz
~Nieves

Ode to Independent Bookstores

Today's Shelf Awareness, a daily e-newsletter for people in the book industry, published an excerpt of an essay from the writer Ann Patchett. I had the pleasure of meeting Patchett on several occasions whilst working at Lemuria Bookstore in Jackson, MS. Not only is she a fine novelist, she is warm, witty and generous, and a dog-lover to boot! Here's the link to her entire essay on independent bookstores (well, actually, one in particular in the northern part of the southern peninsula of Michigan) and the pleasures with which one is rewarded when making the effort to travel off the beaten path. I hope y'all enjoy reading it as much as I did!


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/t-magazine/23talk-michigan-t.html?pagewanted=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1274450407-Q6pfADcc831S9djzkycuaw

~Emily Crowe

Fresh Food, Fresh Books

Tis the season for fresh fruits and vegetables, farmers markets and road stands. I am in love with local produce!

I can't wait for the first South Hadley Farmers Market. Last year we had some really great vendors. (Including bread from El Jardin, vegetables and herbs from Farmacy Gardens, meat from Leyden Glen Farm, and more!)

While I have to wait until June 3rd for the first South Hadley Farmers Market I am flipping through a few of the best cook books that pay homage to eating local. These books have some great recipes that I can't wait to try out on my fresh produce!

Edible

By Tracey Ryder and Carole Topalian

John Wiley & Sons

$29.95

"This book is a feast for the eyes, mind and palate." - Publisher's Weekly.

Morning Glory Farm

By Tom Dunlop

Photos by Alison Shaw

Vineyard Stories

$24.95

This book is about one of the most famous farms on Martha's Vineyard. It is sure to become a family treasure and classic with it's wonderful pictures and simple yet delicious recipes. Definately a cookbook every New Englander should keep on their shelf!

Eating Local
by Janet Fletcher & Sur La Table
Andrews McMeel
$35.00

This beautiful cookbook has over 150 recipes inside and 10 stories about CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farms across the country. Including the area's own Red Fire Farm, in Granby, Mass.

I hope that reading these books will inspire you to not only seek local food but to savor some really awesome recipes as well!

See you at the next farmers market!

Paz,

~Nieves

May is National Short Story Month!

It's been a bit too long since my last blogpost--but I couldn't let National Short Story Month pass us by without telling you about two of my favorite short story collections!


I don't read very much short fiction, as I prefer to really sink my teeth into a book and get absorbed by its world. However, if all short stories were as good as Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt's collection, The Most Beautiful Book in the World, I would have to change my reading habits. These stories are exquisite, elegant, and enchanting--perfect little gems of literature that explore the nature of happiness across age, gender, and class boundaries. Each story left me with a sigh of satisfaction and contentment.


When I was on the WAMC Rountable for book discussion, I jokingly referred to Daniyal Mueenuddin's In Other Rooms, Other Wonders as "the best book you probably haven't heard of" from 2009. Not only has it been shortlisted for the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the Commonwealth Award, and been named winner for the 2009 Story Prize Award, it has appeared on the Top 10 list of publications as varied as The Economist, The Guardian, Publishers Weekly, and Time. Yet when I handsell it to customers, they inevitably say, "Who?" This brilliant debut is a collection of interrelated stories set mostly in around the town of Lahore, Pakistan. The book takes an unflinching look at the class system, but there is also a real delicacy of detail and a rich sense of place. We get stories about servants and the wealthy, the virtuous and the wicked, young lovers and bickering siblings--and all in a direct language that speaks to both the heart and the mind.

~Emily Crowe

Great Gifts for Grads!

If you are looking for a great picture book gift for graduates we have some excellent choices below!



Instructions
by Neil Gaiman, Illustrated by Charles Vess
Harper Collins
$14.99

A "New York Times"-bestselling author, Newbery Medalist, and an award-winning illustrator of lushly imagined fairy-tale landscapes offer instructions for traveling through lands unknown and yet strangely familiar. An ideal gift for graduates of any age. Full color. -From the Publisher's website.

Leaf
By Stephen Michael King
Macmillan
$14.95

As a little boy runs in a panic from a haircut, a bird drops a single seed right on top of the boy's head. Time passes and a leaf soon grows. Instead of trying to rid himself of his new living hairstyle, the boy learns how to make the leaf grow and winds up growing himself. Full color. -From the Publisher's website.



Dream
By Susam V. Bosak
TCP press
$17.95

Bosak's (Something to Remember Me By) inspirational gift book urges children to go ahead and dream, and tells them how. The narrator says that dreams are living things-"Dreams grow like seeds./ They need to take root, / then stretch toward the sun./ They grow slowly./ They must be tended to"-and details the strength that each stage of human life brings to bear on the process. "To grow a dream/ .../ You need/ the Believe of childhood, / the Do of youth, / and the Think of experience."-From Publisher's Weekly

And of course there is the classic Dr. Seuss book Oh the Places You'll Go!

Oh the Places You'll Go!
By Dr. Seuss
Random House
$17.99

And as Marika, the new Children's department manager pointed out to me we also have several editions of this book, including a pop up edition, and a graduation set!

Best luck to all Grads!

Paz,

~Nieves

Monsters minus Monsters

There have been a whole slew of "newly released" classics with a monster twist.


I am willing to admit that I am a real fan of the monster/classic mash up. The revitalization of classic literature with some blood and gory glory is a wonderful thing! But there is something to be said for classics that just don't need an extra monster or two.

Yes that is right. There are authors who were weird enough the first time around.

Enter Franz Kafka's 1915 masterpiece Metamorphosis.

If you haven't read this existential masterpiece of literature, originally published in 1915, then you should definitely put this on your summer reading list. I know that this is not your typical beach read, but is also the kind of classic that will stand the test of time and I believe needs no extra vampires, sea serpents, or what have you.

The Plot:
Gregor Sampson, an average Joe, becomes a venomous, dangerous bug overnight, and of course his life is forever changed. Kafka was a master at looking at the outsider and the way in which society dealt with alienated pariahs. And yet a giant monster bug taking over a man's body is so 2010.

Let me just say:

Metamorphosis is as weird now as it was in 1915!

*Extra zombies, vampires, and monsters unnecessary not included.

~Nieves

The Sunday Question

What was your most memorable literary pilgrimage?

In a previous life, I worked part-time at the Old Creamery Grocery in Cummington, MA to support my writing habit. While there, I instituted a few fun, quirky diversions for customers. The most popular and long-lived was The Sunday Question. I would choose a (hopefully) thought-provoking question, and ask everyone who came up to the register for their answer, then record and post them as a matter of interest. I tried to alternate the serious with the nostalgic with the downright silly. I asked customers to name the best gift they’d ever received, one thing they would do to save the world, the kitchen utensil they couldn’t live without. After people got used to being asked to actually think and speak when they came up to the register, it was a hit. People would come in just to weigh in on the Sunday Question.

So, in the same spirit, I’d like to begin asking you all a literary Sunday Question every week.

Today, I write from a hotel in North Adams, MA, where my beau Sparky and I are having a weekend mini-break, going to museums (MassMoca, the Clark) when we are not eating, sleeping or reading. Driving through Pittsfield yesterday afternoon, we went by Herman Melville’s farmhouse, Arrowhead, and I started musing about all the literary pilgrimages I’ve taken. And this morning, I open up the New York Times to pull out all the fun sections, and the first thing I see is a photo of Emily Dickinson’s Homestead in Amherst shot in the gloaming, light blazing from her second floor aerie. I take it as a sign. My first Sunday Question will be: What was your most memorable literary pilgrimage?

Of course, in western Massachusetts we are particularly blessed. You can hardly set your foot where some writer has not stepped before you. I live in Wilbraham,which is usually only known as the home of Friendly Ice Cream, and even there, H. P. Lovecraft visited for extended periods of time in the 1920’s. He suposedly set one of his most famous stories, The Dunwich Horror, on Wilbraham Mountain. Amherst has the Emily Dickinson Homestead and Robert Frost Trail. Great Barrington can claim the W.E.B. Dubois boyhood home. Melville and Hawthorne first met on a picnic in Stockbridge, where Hawthorne rented a cottage (I think sadly lost to time, or at least not open to the public). The aforementioned Arrowhead, set amongst the whale-backed hills near Greylock, was where Melville wrote Moby Dick. I’ve written in Edith Wharton’s bedroom at The Mount, had tea overlooking her extensive gardens. A little further afield in Hartford, CT is the Mark Twain and Harriet Beecher Stowe compound. And in Brattleboro, VT, Rudyard Kipling wrote The Jungle Book. His home, Naulakha, is owned by the National Trust of Britain, and can be rented by the week.

I think my best literary pilgrimage, though, was in England. First, to the British Library where I wandered around ogling hand-written manuscripts. Ulysses was big and very messy, I remember, but Jane Eyre was tiny and beautiful, looking like the words flowed from Charlotte Bronte’s pen without a blotch or stain. (It amazes me in this world of easy cut and paste that writers copied their work over and over until they got it right. It amazes me that any books got written at all.)

After London, I took trains then buses up to Yorkshire, to the tiny cobblestoned town of Haworth, and the Bronte’s Parsonage. It was a revelation. The beauty of the moors on the lovely stretch of spring days I wandered there. The isolation. The parsonage itself with gravestones nearly leaning against it like broken teeth.The black leather sofa where Emily breathed her last. And all the young Japanese girls, swooning everywhere. Charlotte, particularly, was a cult figure in Japan. You’d be lightly tripping o’er the moors and come upon signs in Japanese, tasteful signs, but even so. There were no signs in English. I guess native English speakers were just supposed to know whereTop Withins is (the inspiration for the Earnshaw farm in Wuthering Heights).

Altogether, it was an incredibly inspiring trip. Oh, and for your info, I just checked out the Bronte Parsonage Museum website, www.bronte.info/ and they’re having

a writing contest -- poetry, short story, or essay inspired by the Bronte’s lives. The deadline is January 2011. I think I’ll go for it.

What about you all? Write a comment describing your fave literary pilgrimage site. John Steinbeck’s Salinas? Hemingway’s Paris? Eudora Welty’s Jackson? Let us know...

~ Chrysler

Repost: The "Good Guys" of YA Literature

This is a "repost", similar to a "retweet" on Twitter (follow me @rebf). Emily's Reading Room had an inspiring post recognizing the "good guys" of young adult fiction, as opposed to those moody, smoldering, dangerous "bad boys" everyone seems to fall for.

Some of Emily's top favorites included Gilbert Blythe from L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, Mr. Darcy from Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice, Laurie from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, and Peeta from Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games.

Obviously this made me question who my own top "good guys" of YA lit are, and these are a few names I came up with:

1. Philip Ammon from Gene Stratton-Porter's A Girl of the Limberlost, one of my top 5, all-time, desert island, favorite books. He's engaged to Edith, but he tries so hard to be a good guy and do the right thing to be worthy of loving Elnora. And of course, if I'm thinking of Philip, I have to put in Freckles, the title character from GSP's Freckles, and the Harvester, the title character from GSP's The Harvester. Really, all of her men are worthy "good guys".

2. Bookish Mac over fast and lose Charlie in Louisa May Alcott's Eight Cousins and A Rose in Bloom finally wins Rose's much-deserved love. And yes, I have a soft spot, in part, due to his bookish nature.

3. T. C. Keller from My Most Excellent Year by Steve Kruger. He loves baseball, has a great relationship with his dad, recites a standing address at the high school talent show to impress the girl, and he's cute to boot.

4. Poor Arthur Dent in A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. He didn't know what hit him when his planet was blorwn up, and he's dragged back and forth between one end of the universe to the other. What a relief when he finds a love interest. He deserves it after being such a good sport.

Who are your favorite good guys?

-Rebecca

Click here to see this post on my personal blog.

Monsters, Classics and Alumnae... oh my!

While it might not seem like the above three things would go hand in hand down a yellow brick road, they actually all come together, quite nicely, in one book.


Jane Slayre
By Charlotte Bronte and
Sherri Browning Erwin
Simon & Schuster
$15.00


Jane Slayre, is another monster spin off of a classic book (think Pride, Prejudice and Zombies, Little Women and Werewolves, Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters).


Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre is re-imagined as Jane Slayre, an orphan who shuns her vampire family, and becomes a governess for the charge of the mysterious Mr. Rochester. Who she, (surprise, surprise) falls madly in love with.

Spoiler Alert!!: Trouble comes in the form of Mr. Rochester's first wife, who just also happens to be a werewolf in his attic.

Jane Slayre also happens to be written by Mount Holyoke Alumna, Sherri Browning Erwin.

On a related note I've discovered another fun spinoff inspired by the Bronte sisters.


The Original Jane Eyre was pretty revolutionary for it's time.
The fact that it was written by a woman even more so. Click on these fun related pictures to watch a video inspired by Charlotte and her sisters Emily and Anne! I wish I could have these action figures for real!!




To reserve/order your copy of Jane Slayre, click here.

To check out more stuff from the publisher's website click on the link.

Paz,
~Nieves

Ode to the Long-necked Herbivore

A lot of giraffe-themed books have been popping up lately. Thanks to Laura at Tampa Bookworm for a giraffe book recommendation that sparked this post.

I admit I have a soft spot for giraffes. Polar bears, giraffes, and lobsters are my top three favorite non-domesticated animals. Okay, add elephant in there. My four top favorite non-domesticated animals. Maybe I'll post sometime in the future about books for the others, but today it's all giraffes, all the time.

Laura recommended The Giraffe Who Was Afraid of Heights by David Ufer, illustrated by Kirsten Carlson (9781934359051, Sylvan Dell Publishing, $8.95). I haven't read it yet, but I always appreciate the recommendation.

In my recent Spring 2010 Picturebook Highlights: Marshall Cavendish post, I mentioned A Giraffe Goes to Paris by Mary Tavener Holmes and John Harris, illustrated by Jon Cannell (9780761455950, $17.99)

When Lulu Went to the Zoo
by Andy Ellis
9780761354994, Andersen Press USA, $16.95
Though not primarily about a giraffe, this book does feature a giraffe on the cover. This is a sweet book about a little girl who doesn't like seeing the caged animals, so she frees them and takes them all home to live with her, with some funny results.

Raf
by Anke de Vries & Charlotte Dematons
9781590787496, Boyds Mill Press, $16.95
Raf is short for Giraffe, Ben's favorite stuffed toy. Sort of like the traveling gnome from the Travelocity commercials, when Ben loses Raf, Raf starts sending Ben postcards from his travels with the people who found him. But the real question is, will Raf make it back to Ben in time for Ben's birthday?

Giraffes Can't Dance
by Giles Andreae & Guy Parker-Rees
9780439287197, Scholastic, $16.99
Gerald is my favorite name for a giraffe, and this book is about a Gerald. The animals make fun of Gerald's awkward dancing at a jungle party. Gerald mopes away in shame, but a special friend helps Gerald see there's a type of music out there for everyone to dance to.

Last but not least, don't miss out on the finger puppet book Little Giraffe by Klaartje van der Put (9780811867870, Chronicle, $6.99) and the Melissa & Doug, large, stuffed giraffe ($99.99).

-Rebecca

View this post on my personal blog.

New in Paperback!

This just out in paperback, my favorite novel from 2009!

A Great Summer Read for the whole family!

The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet
By Reif Larson
$16.00
Penguin Putnam, Inc.

If you are looking forward to a modern day adventure equaling classics like Tom Sawyer, or Huckleberry Finn, then look no further than Reif Larson’s new in paperback novel.

T.S. (short for Tecumsah Sparrow) is not your typical 12-year-old Montana rancher’s son. He has a knack for drawing maps and writes articles published by the Smithsonian and other scientific journals. Not knowing that T.S. is merely a pre-teen protégé the Smithsonian offers him an award for his work in cartography.

The catch, T.S.’s parents know nothing about his work and he has to travel from Montana to Washington D.C. to receive it. As T.S. travels across the country via sneaking aboard a train he maps out his journey and the world around him as he understands it.



Additionally this book is a highly illustrated piece! Larson initially wrote the book minus any illustrations but went back and drew pictures as though T.S. were drawing them. The result is that you have a beautiful work of art along with a great adventure read.

While this book was written for an adult audience there is nothing inappropriate for a young adult or teen to read. It is a beautiful story about family, loss and finding one’s place in an inconstant world. You will not be disappointed with T.S. or the journey Larson takes you on. Ages 14 & up.

~Nieves

To reserve and/order your copy click here.

To check out the author's very cool website click on the link.

The Sunday Question

What were your favorite books of the Oughts?

This month marks the 10th anniversary of O magazine, and in it Oprah has listed her 10 favorite books of the Oughts. Now, you may love Oprah, despise her, or be totally indifferent to her, but she’s been incredibly influential in getting readers and non-readers alike to crack open all kinds of books. Books they might otherwise never have known about. She’s given huge boosts to the careers of many writers. Apart from J.K. Rowling and Stephanie Meyer, she has gotten more people to walk into a bookstore than anyone else in history.

So, in her honor, I am asking you which were your favorite books of the Oughts? Now, I don’t mean the books you think are worthy, that have the most literary merit. What were the books that you devoured whole? The books you loved best? The books that you will re-read until they fall apart? Oprah's faves include books published during the Oughts as well as classics she read during the Oughts, like John Steinbeck's East of Eden. There are no rules. Write a comment. Let us know your faves.

Here are mine, in no particular order:

On Writing, by Stephen King, 2000. As a writer and writing coach, I am always on the lookout for great writing books, and this is one of the best. It also turned me on to Stephen King in general, who I’d always pretty much written off as a ‘commercial’ writer, churning out formulaic pot-boiler bestsellers. What a huge mistake!

Atonement, by Ian McEwan, 2001. A gorgeously written, twisty, provocative novel about the complexities of adolescence, betrayal, love and war.

I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence by Amy Sedaris, 2006. A quirky entertaining, recipe and strange craft book. Amy’s more famous brother David has nothing on her for funky oddness.

Close Range, by Annie Proulx, 1999. I am a HUGE Annie Proulx fan, have even read her books on cider and wine making, but I am not a constant reader of short story collections. I thought Ms. Proulx’s earlier collection, Heartsongs was good, but...I hemmed and hawed and procrastinated, then when I read this collection was I stunned. Pretty much by every story. And I think "Brokeback Mountain" is probably the finest story I’ve ever read. The movie was pretty good, but read the story. Really.

The Given Day, by Dennis Lehane, 2009. A sweeping, gritty, intense historical novel set (mostly) in 1918-19 Boston, during the time of the Spanish Influenza pandemic, the policeman’s strike, and the molasses flood. A departure for crime writer Lehane, but in a good way.

Bag of Bones, by Stephen King, 1998. I love books that incorporate historical scenes which illuminate the present. In this one, Stephen King writes about an African-American woman blues singer from the 20’s really scarily haunting a Maine lake town, and a blocked mystery writer who’s haunted by his own past. Stephen King is also one of the best writers writing about the process of writing fiction. He perfectly describes what it feels like when you’re in the zone, and how terrifying it is when you can’t write a word.

Julie and Julia, by Julie Powell, 2005. 365 days, 500-odd recipes. Julie Powell cooking her way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking, trying not to have a cow and kill herself or her benighted husband every day. Spawn of her famed blog, and inspiration for the movie with Meryl as Julia Child. Something you’d never think will work, but does.

The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse, by Louise Erdrich, 2002. The best first 50 pages ever written, in my opinion. And the rest isn’t too shabby either.

The Ladies’ No. 1 Detective Agency series, by Alexander McCall Smith, one pumped out practically every year of the Oughts. The wise and infinitely kind Mma Ramotswe, Botswana’s first and only lady detective, gently leads us and her clients through the intricacies of life. My current go-to books for comfort on a bad day.

A Dog Year, by Jon Katz, 2003. I have to admit prejudice here. Jon Katz writes non-fiction books mostly having to do with Border Collies, his dog o’choice and mine. I’m on my third Border boy right now. That said, this is the perfect book for dog lovers, a hilarious tear-jerker about Mr. Katz’s relationship with a pathetic, panicky, abused Border named Orson. A cathartic book that made me laugh and cry out loud.

The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet, by Reif Larsen, 2009. Yes, I know this is #11, but I can’t help myself. T.S. Spivet is one of those unforgettable, beautiful characters that should be on everyone’s list. A twelve year old cartographical (is there such a word?) prodigy, his maps have won a prize from the Smithsonian, and he runs away from his Montana home to claim it, hopping a freight and having many adventures along the way. Part road book, part historical novel, and illustrated by the author. Unique and lovely.

That’s my ten (or rather, eleven). Tell us yours.

~Chrysler

By Way Of An Introduction

You may have noticed a new face behind the counter (mine) if you’ve come into the store of late, so I wanted to introduce myself here in cyberspace, as well as in person. My name is Chrysler Szarlan. I am a fiction writer and a creative writing coach. I write novels and offer classes and workshops at my studio in the Indian Orchard Mills, and now am a part-time bookseller at the Odyssey. I have been a fan of the bookshop for years, and a regular at the many author events. I am an eclectic and fairly indiscriminate reader. I read a little of everything: literary novels primarily, but also poetry, horror, classics, travel writing, mystery, chick lit, cookbooks. If it involves the printed word, I’ll take a stab at it. I’ve been known to read tombstones if nothing else is in the offing. My guilty pleasures are cozy mysteries (with recipes, of course) and very glossy home, food, and self-improvement magazines.

I feel very lucky to be here at the Odyssey, and hope to be able to steer you to some of your future favorite books.

A Season of Sequels!

I just love finding a great read or a new author. Tantamount to finding a great read is knowing that there is or will be more to come. A few new reads that are sequels to books that we have loved at the odyssey before are Alan Bradley's The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag.

Fans of Flavia De Luce rejoice for she is back better than ever in Bradley’s sequel to Sweetness at the bottom of the Pie. This time around Bradley brings back the set of characters that made Bishop’s Lacey so enduring ; The mysterious murder of a traveling puppeteer is enough to attract Flavia’s attention away from chemistry and back to solving crimes. Fans of the first book are sure to be just as charmed with the second of hopefully a long running series!
Another book, which I have to admit that I have not yet read, but am really looking forward to reading is Gail Carriger's sequel to Soulless, called Changeless.
My co-worker Rebecca has read it and I have made her promise to keep mum until I get a chance to lay my grubby little hands on a copy!

And here are a few more books by authors we are pretty big fans of! While these next few are not sequels per se, there are much anticipated books none the less !


The Red Pyramid
By Rick Roirdan
Harper Collins
17.99

The Singers Gun
By Emily St. John Mandel
Unbridled Books
24.95

While I am certain that my fellow booksellers will have more to say about these great titles. That is all I have for now!

To order or reserve your copy through the Odyssey please click here.