Happy 15th Birthday Shelf Awareness, Queen Anne Book Company, Scotland's Armchair Books Delivers, In Pieces by Sally Field, The Witch's Kind by Louisa Morgan, The Ghosts of Sherwood by Carrie Vaughn, and Big Summer by Jennifer Weiner

Happy 15^th Birthday Shelf Awareness, practicing love in the time of Coronavirus! I love you guys/gals! Thanks for all the glorious book news and tidbits over the past 15 years, I appreciate it more than you know!

Here's how the Shelf will help: we will continue to be the best community newspaper we can be, keeping everyone connected. We will continue to report on and highlight how everyone is doing business now. We will keep everyone informed about new ways to keep our businesses strong. We will continue to highlight BIPOC authors to our growing audiences, which so many of you have entrusted to us. We will continue to innovate, creating new products that help our indies and our publishers sell more books. And, most importantly, now more than ever: we will listen and ask how we can do even better. Have thoughts or ideas? Send them to our publisher, Jenn Risko.

In the meantime, hydrate. Prioritize sleep. If you lose your way, watch this video, Times Like These, to rally.

Heed Mary Oliver's words, which is what we try to do every day at the Shelf:

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.

We hope to remain your ritual daily read, and we thank you to the moon and back for letting us do something that, 15 years later, we still feel especially lucky and astonished about every single day.

Stores are gradually trying to reopen, and I am glad that they're taking every precaution, though with some crazy people not wearing masks, I don't know how effective this will be. Still, it's heartening that some independent bookstores will survive the pandemic and thrive, despite the economic downturn.

In Seattle, Wash., Queen Anne Book Company http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz44752913 has yet to reopen for browsing, and manager and co-owner Janis Segress reported that the store is continuing to do a brisk business through web, e-mail and phone orders, front door pick-up and free home delivery in the Queen Anne neighborhood. The plan is slowly to allow customers back in the store by offering "book appointments." Customers will be able to go to the store's website and schedule an appointment with a QABC bookseller. Segress said they'll do this for however long it feels necessary before eventually opening up at with reduced occupancy.

Once QABC starts offering appointment shopping, masks will be required and hand sanitizer stations will be set up throughout the store. Segress and her staff will use tape to illustrate six-foot spacing, the store will accept payment only by credit card, and furniture will be removed to allow for more space. Bathrooms will be open only to staff. Generally speaking, Segress added, her community seems to be on board with wearing face masks and following social distancing guidelines, at least based on the customers who have come by to pick up orders.

Segress said the store has seen a massive amount of orders for titles such as How to Be an Antiracist, White Fragility and The New Jim Crow since late May, and in early June the store sent out a customer e-mail with a "Justice and Change" reading list. They also set up a full window display featuring those titles, and they've been heartened to see customers continuing to take pictures of it.

LOL on this delightful way of book delivery in Scotland. Yet another reason Scotland is on my bucket list!

Absolutely 'Metal' Bicycle Book Deliveries in Edinburgh's Old Town

Posted on Facebook by Scottish bookseller Armchair Books http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz44782914, Edinburgh: "Absolutely nothing--but NOTHING--is more metal than doing bicycle deliveries down Edinburgh's Old Town closes. Will you find the right door? Will you be eaten by a mighty dragon? Will you find the right door but then have to earn the begrudging respect of the guard dragon through the cunning use of gladiatorial poetry recitation? The answers are: eventually, maybe, and BYO sonnets.

"Amazon and Waterstones couldn't do this for you, pals. They wouldn't even know where to start. Spontaneous dragon poetry slams? That's all Armchair Books, my dudes. Happy #indiebookshopweek! Books straight to your face, by bicycle (or by post, if you have the nerve to live more than 2 miles from our shop)."

 I think that it's great that this local (Seattle) publisher has decided to expand by offering a YA imprint. I'm very fond of YA novels, and I look forward to seeing what they come up with for their fall catalog!

Sasquatch Books Launches YA Imprint

Seattle publisher Sasquatch Books has launched a new imprint called

Spruce Books, with Sharyn Rosart as publisher. Spruce Books will publish nonfiction titles for young adults meant to "encourage self-expression and personal growth in teens and tweens," with its first three titles due out this summer and fall.

The imprint's first title, Anti-Racism: Powerful Voices, Inspiring Ideas, will appear in July and features a collection of quotes compiled by activist and journalist Kenrya Rankin. In September, Spruce Books will release the guided journal Best Worst Grateful, and in October the imprint will publish Write It! 100 Poetry Prompts to Inspire, from poets Jessica Jacobs and Nickole Brown.

"Today's young adults are empathetic, motivated, and committed to self-knowledge," said Rosart. "Despite their eagerness for books, they are an underserved readership, sandwiched between children and adults."

In Pieces by Sally Field is the ebook that my library book group is reading for July. Though I am not a fan of ebooks, it's currently the only way that the KCLS libraries can get books to book groups, because most branches haven't opened their doors since March, when they closed due to the coronavirus pandemic. This memoir was brutally honest and often painful to read, especially the parts about Field's sexual abuse at the hands of her stepfather, plus the rape and abortion that happens a bit later in the book. Field's mother, whom she calls "Baa" seems like a particularly pathetic and stupid woman who feels her relationship with the stepfather are far more important than the safety and health of her daughters. That said, I believe Baa was a product of her time, and had bad parenting herself to deal with, not that this lets her off the hook for not believing her daughters cries for help against the pedophilic child molester stepfather. Here's the blurb:  Sally Field is one of the most celebrated, beloved and enduring actors of our time, and now she tells her story for the first time in this intimate and haunting literary memoir. In her own words, she writes about a challenging and lonely childhood, the craft that helped her find her voice, and a powerful emotional legacy that shaped her journey as a daughter and a mother.

Sally Field has an infectious charm that has captivated audiences for more than five decades, beginning with her first television role at the age of 17. From Gidget’s sweet-faced ‘girl next door’ to the dazzling complexity of Sybil to the Academy Award-winning ferocity and depth of her role in Norma Rae and Mary Todd Lincoln, Field has stunned audiences time and time again with her artistic range and emotional acuity. Yet there is one character who always remained hidden: the shy and anxious little girl within.
With raw honesty and the fresh, pitch-perfect prose of a natural-born writer, and with all the humility and authenticity her fans have come to expect, Field brings readers behind the scenes for not only the highs and lows of her star-studded early career in Hollywood, but deep into the truth of her lifelong relationships including, most importantly, her complicated love for her own mother.
Powerful and unforgettable, In Pieces is an inspiring and important account of life as a woman in the second half of the twentieth century.

I agree that the prose is beautifully rendered here, especially considering the heartbreaking subject matter. Despite that, I found the constant complaining about every aspect of her life, and Field's poor choices in men, to be tiresome by the end. She seems to only be happy, or close to it, when acting, inhabiting a character that is far from herself and the inner pain that she wants to avoid dealing with. I'd give this book a B+ and recommend it to those who enjoy learning more about the background of their favorite actor/actress.

The Witch's Kind by Louisa Morgan is not as much about actual "witches" as the title would suggest. This story is more about a woman who made a lot of bad choices with the men in her life, and eventually has to grow up enough to realize that defending herself and her adopted child is part and parcel of being an adult and dealing with the consequences of her bad choices in men. (She was rather shallow and fell for a good looking, charming man who is abusive and a controlling liar, willing to do anything for money). Its also something of a WWII story, both in the years before the war and the years following it. There's a sprinkling of "magic" in that the protagonist, Barrie, has some of the precognitive skills passed down to her by her grandmother, and the Aunt who raised her, Charlotte, who is a lesbian. They get their premonitions through touching water, and its implied that they have some kind of selkie/magical connection to the sea, via the Puget Sound area of Washington state. Here's the blurb:

In the aftermath of World War II, two women with unusual gifts must protect a mysterious baby in a poignant tale of family, sacrifice and magic.

Barrie Anne Blythe and her aunt Charlotte have always known that the other residents of their small coastal community find them peculiar -- two women living alone on the outskirts of town. It is the price of concealing their strange and dangerous family secret.

But two events threaten to upend their lives forever. The first is the arrival of a mysterious abandoned baby with a hint of power like their own. The second is the sudden reappearance of Barrie Anne's long-lost husband -- who is not quite the man she thought she married.

Together, Barrie Anne and Charlotte must decide how far they are willing to go to protect themselves -- and the child they think of as their own -- from suspicious neighbors, the government, and even their own family.

I couldn't understand Barrie's desperation for a so-called "normal" life of a husband and children in a perfect looking home where nothing ever happens. That kind of life is BORING AF, and nothing like reality, or real love, which is always messy and complicated. I loved that the foundling baby has gills and is, again, likened to a selkie or other magical water creature, but I found the addition of the men in black government goons looking for evidence of aliens to be an unnessesary red herring. Still, the prose was clean and clear and engaging, and along with the fast-paced plot made for a real page-turner of a novel. I'd give it an A- and recommend it to anyone who enjoys stories of women in the aftermath of WWII with a sprinkling of magic thrown in for good measure.

The Ghosts of Sherwood by Carrie Vaughn is a delightful, albeit slender novella that  posits what happened to the famous Robin Hood in the nearly 20 years after he married Lady Marian and disbanded the Merry Men of Sherwood Forest. Robin of Locksley and Marian are married and the parents of three lively children, two girls and a boy. Mary, the eldest, is a teenager, followed by John and the youngest, mute Eleanor. All three children have been taught woodcraft and how to use a bow and arrow by their famous father, to varying degrees of success. Meanwhile, though he has an uneasy truce with King John, Robin knows that enemies lurk in the Kings Court. Here's the blurb: Carrie Vaughn's The Ghosts of Sherwood revisits the Robin Hood legend with a story of the famed archer's children.

Everything about Father is stories.
Robin of Locksley and his one true love, Marian, are married. It has been close on two decades since they beat the Sheriff of Nottingham with the help of a diverse band of talented friends. King John is now on the throne, and Robin has sworn fealty in order to further protect not just his family, but those of the lords and barons who look up to him – and, by extension, the villagers they protect.

There is a truce. An uneasy one, to be sure, but a truce, nonetheless.
But when the Locksley children are stolen away by persons unknown, Robin and Marian are going to need the help of everyone they’ve ever known, perhaps even the ghosts that are said to reside deep within Sherwood.
And the Locksley children, despite appearances to the contrary, are not without tricks of their own.

I loved this beautifully written tale of three very smart children who basically rescue themselves from a dangerous situation. The plot is swift and you can finish this slender volume within a couple of hours in an afternoon. I'd give it an A, and recommend it to anyone who is interested in the Robin Hood stories.

Big Summer by Jennifer Weiner is being touted as a "frothy" summer beach read. I found it much deeper than a fluffy and fun romantic beach novel, myself, but then I haven't been to a beach for decades, so it could be that this is the kind of novel that passes for fun these days. Here's the blurb: Six years after the fight that ended their friendship, Daphne Berg is shocked when Drue Cavanaugh walks back into her life, looking as lovely and successful as ever, with a massive favor to ask. Daphne hasn’t spoken one word to Drue in all this time—she doesn’t even hate-follow her ex-best friend on social media—so when Drue asks if she will be her maid-of-honor at the society wedding of the summer, Daphne is rightfully speechless.

Drue was always the one who had everything—except the ability to hold onto friends. Meanwhile, Daphne’s no longer the same self-effacing sidekick she was back in high school. She’s built a life that she loves, including a growing career as a plus-size Instagram influencer. Letting glamorous, seductive Drue back into her life is risky, but it comes with an invitation to spend a weekend in a waterfront Cape Cod mansion. When Drue begs and pleads and dangles the prospect of cute single guys, Daphne finds herself powerless as ever to resist her friend’s siren song.

A sparkling novel about the complexities of female relationships, the pitfalls of living out loud and online, and the resilience of the human heart, Big Summer is a witty, moving story about family, friendship, and figuring out what matters most.
Because Daphne is a larger person, I was hoping that there would be more moments of self acceptance and that Daphne would have grown beyond the ridiculous and pathetic need to have a friend who is gorgeous, glamorous and thin, but also a complete narcissistic jerk, almost to the point of manic depressive, bipolar disorder. Drue consistently treats Daphne like crap, but Daphne keeps forgiving her, believing her lies and coming back for more abuse, which is stupid. But of course Drue is portrayed as a poor little rich girl with horrible, cruel parents and few friends because that's the only sympathetic trope for trust fund idiots, is that their parents are cold monsters, so of course they can't be anything but messed up because all mommy and daddy ever gave them was fancy cars and private schools and no love or affection...boo freaking hoo. So they're somehow forgiven for being shallow asshats, while our protagonist Daphne has had a wonderful childhood (because she's from a poor to middle class family) and yet still yearns for this glamorous and glitzy perfect-seeming world that Drue inhabits, which makes her almost as shallow and empty as her supposed friend. Though the prose is sparkling and pretty and the plot fairly straight-forward, I can't give this book more than a B+. I feel like Weiner could have gone far beyond the tropes for dieting/exercising fat women and the "perfect" models that society tells all of us we must aspire to be, and shown Daphne to be the kind of person who invests in herself and doesn't let shallow celebs entangle her in their messes, or allow society to dictate how she conducts her life.  Therefore I'd recommend this to those who are secure in themselves and find celebrity culture irresistible.