Made-Up Books

Perhaps you know Julien Temple's mostly terrible '80s movie-musical adaptation, or perhaps you know the Jam's wonderful 1981 hit single by the same name. If you grew up in the UK at a certain time, yo... (Tom)

Generations of Northwest kids have been raised on Doris Burn's classic picture book, Andrew's Meadow, but until recently I didn't know about this other gem of hers. Burn, who lived most of her long li... (Tom)

Cory Doctorow wears so many hats—tech activist, anti-corporate theorist, pioneering blogger, tireless Tweeter—that you might forget that he's also a pretty great storyteller. His specialty has been in... (Tom)

I meant to read this when it came out last year in hardcover, I swear. It had great reviews and an even better premise—marine biologists of the near future discover that a deep-water octopus species h... (James)

In the two decades since this debut novel came out, Chee has been ever-present as an essayist, a teacher, and a general literary citizen, but he's only published one other novel (2016's The Queen of N... (Tom)

I’m discovering that, even more than historical fiction, I love reading stories written during the particular era in which they are set. The combination of the author’s first-hand knowledge and the re... (Liz)

We here all identify strongly with the young hero of this story, a girl just trying to read a book, or eat a cookie, or do somersaults by herself when a friend shows up. Sometimes it's nice to be alon... (Tom)

Erica Bauermeister was one of my favorite local authors even before I began working with her daughter-in-law at Phinney Books. The author of The Scent Keeper (one of my favorite novels ever) and House... (Doree)

On Frank's home planet of Xob, everybody looks the same: green and boxy. So he sets out to find something different and ends up on a planet full of strange creatures that all look different: ours! Wha... (Tom)

This is one of my very favorite books, but it took me a hundred months to get up the gumption to send it out to our Phinney by Post subscribers. Why? For one thing, it's a book-length poem. For anothe... (Tom)

In her assured debut, Winn accomplishes the mission of historical fiction with wide-ranging research, emotional depth, and a dash of derring-do. WWI buffs will recognize details and themes, all presen... (Liz)

White Cat, Black Dog is Kelly Link's first book since winning a MacArthur "genius" grant in 2018, and it is well worth the wait. The seven short stories in this collection are loosely inspired by fair... (Haley)

One of the minor pleasures of following American literature is the moment when a former outsider, like Shirley Jackson or Octavia Butler or Philip K. Dick, is ushered into our national pantheon via th... (Tom)

After publishing five novels in the '40s and '50s (and spending eight years in prison in the '30s), Himes finally found a wide audience after he moved to Paris and started writing hard-boiled crime ta... (Tom)

It's a very good thing if the main character in a novel blurts. It can set all kinds of mayhem in motion. You would think, in Greta's situation—she is a professional transcriber for a sex therapist in... (Tom)

"The adventure will begin the minute we step through the gate." Three friends make a springtime outing to the modest fort they've built on the other side of a meadow: they get a little lost in the tal... (Tom)

There are some graphic novels that use illustration simply to tell a story and others where every panel is a work of art. The Moth Keeper is definitely in the latter category, full of sumptuous orange... (Haley)

What praise is left for me to shower on Roy Jacobsen? I've called his writing a "document for the ages," said of it that "I don't think I've ever read anything that better touched the essential truth... (Tom)

Turtle Diary has been a favorite book of so many people in my life—and I love Hoban's Frances and Captain Najork books so preposterously much—that I half-felt like I had read it already myself, but, u... (Tom)

Are you familiar with the Weedle, which "has such dainty little ways of pulling up potatos"? Or the Boddles, which "screams and eats candles and soap"? (I hope not.) Or the Ding, which "is so happy. I... (Tom)

How Tom Beat Captain Najork and His Hired Sportsmen by Russell Hoban and Quentin Blake I knew how great Russell Hoban was, and I knew, vaguely, that he had written a kids' book with the thrillingly... (Tom)

I’m fine with all sorts of grim reading material but apocalypse stories are just TOO stressful. That said, if it’s set in an English village and written by the author of The Fortnight in September, I’... (Liz)

Post-burnout, a 36-year-old woman moves back in with her parents and attempts to find employment that won't demand so much of her. With the help of an agency, she tries on five different menial jobs,... (Anika)

It's a rare kids nonfiction book that is well-written and beautifully illustrated enough to make a bedtime book that kids and grownups will both enjoy, but Seattle's Kuo achieves a lovely balance betw... (Tom)

Sometimes, though rarely, I will read a book and feel like I'm watching a movie as I read. Reflecting on this beautiful funny sweet melancholy moving book, I experienced something rarer still: feeling... (Anika)

Welcome to my 1990s, which you can now purchase in a single package for $49.95. I came to Eightball midway through its run, walking down to Fallout Comics to catch up on an early issue or—happy day!—f... (Tom)

I picked up Lonely Castle in the Mirror knowing nothing beyond the back-cover copy, and I think that's the best way to approach this puzzle of a fantasy novel. Thirteen-yea- old Kokoro spends her days... (Haley)

If you've ever seen the 1950 Kirk Douglas movie based on this book, please forget that you did: the book is so much better. It's the story of a rootless, almost anonymous boy who finds himself in musi... (Tom)

The ruined farmhouse on a property Sophie Blackall moved to in upstate New York could not have fallen into better hands than the Caldecott-winning author of Hello Lighthouse. Layering actual materials... (Tom)

You might read this little book, as I did, loving almost every page, and not be sure at the end what actually happened. What happens, more or less, is the narrator—this is not a memoir, she says, but... (Tom)

Singer Distance by Ethan Chatagnier is not a sci-fi novel, despite the presence of crop circles and the fact that scientists of Earth have been communicating with Mars for nearly a century. Instead, t... (Doree)

A Career in Books is a real treat: a substantial graphic novel full of wisdom, heart, and humor. The story centers on three best friends, fresh out of college and living together in New York. Each roo... (Haley)

This work of historical fiction, set in Quebec in 1697-98, is a quiet charmer. By that time, the early, renowned explorers, fur traders, and missionaries were passing away and their deeds spun into th... (Liz)

The English Understand Wool This little book is a delight every bit as scrumptious—though perhaps not quite as sweet—as the slices of Wayne Thiebaud cake on its cover. Helen DeWitt is, for my money, t... (Tom)

For a fat book that covers half a decade (as the title implies), Five Decembers moves at the speed of a drag-race sprint. Published by the self-conscious throwback wizards at Hard Case Crime, it's a t... (Tom)

Book lovers everywhere will adore this sweet picture book in the rhyming style of Goodnight Moon. We travel around a cozy bookstore saying goodnight to the bookstore cat, customers' forgotten items, a... (Haley)

As a newlywed who showed a screening of the horror comedy Ready or Not at my wedding reception, I couldn't read this one fast enough. Set in a dystopian near future where the wedding industrial comple... (Anika)

Two twin girls, one blanket, which they've shared since they were babies. But now they are five, and ready for their own beds. Who gets the blanket? This lovely picture book is twice as old as the gir... (Tom)

While Kate Beaton was first creating the goofily hilarious history comics that made Hark! A Vagrant such a hoot, her day job was in the oil fields of Alberta, trying to make money quickly, like so man... (Tom)

While reading O Caledonia, I thought an apt subtitle would be: Portrait of the Spinster as a Young Girl, even though our protagonist is found murdered—at age 16—on the first page. Janet definitely has... (Liz)

Think: Jeff Vandermeer's Annihilation, but sapphic and romantic. Leah returns home to her wife, Miri, from a deep-sea research mission that was only supposed to last three weeks. But after six agonizi... (Anika)

“One morning Anders, a white man, woke up to find he had turned a deep and undeniable brown.” Kafkaesque from its opening line, Hamid's novel feels simultaneously fantastical and familiar. In this wo... (Anika)

In her long and well-traveled life, Han Suyin, the physician daughter of a Chinese father and a Belgian mother, wrote mostly about Asia, but in 1955 she published this very British gem of a novel, tel... (Tom)

"Courage," "Hate," "Longing," "Trust": I don't whether these feelings translate exactly from their Polish equivalents, but, judging from the irrepressible and distinctive personalities of Aleksandra Z... (Tom)

One of the challenges for a writer of short stories is to resist the tidiness that their compact form seems to demand, and evoke the full messiness of life while still telling a tale. Messy is somethi... (Tom)

I made the mistake of beginning The Wall on the first day of a trip, and throughout the week my mind was constantly drawn back to thinking about the book and wondering what was going to happen next. O... (Haley)

Little Witch Hazel's year starts with spring, but its four seasonal tales circle 'round and can be read in any direction. The Bellingham-based Wahl's lush and cheery illustrations are quickly making h... (Tom)

You just need to pick up this book of poetry, Hill's sixteenth or so collection, to see what it is and whether you might like it. The poems are tiny—two or four or six lines long—grouped in series abo... (Tom)

My glib line on this novel is, "Like Rachel Cusk, if she liked people," but that doesn't really do this book (or the great Cusk) justice. Like Cusk, Govinden, a British novelist hardly known over here... (Tom)

Told from dual perspectives—from Benny and from "the Book" itself—young Benny's story begins when his father is killed in a senseless accident and he begins hearing the voices of inanimate objects. Mu... (Anika)