6
FROM THE SHELF
DECEMBER 8�15, 2021
Celebrate the holiday season
with these 6 paperbacks (for
a friend or yourself)
By Moira Macdonald
The Seattle Times
D
ecember is a lovely time for
reading, and for thinking
about what books to buy as holi-
day gifts. (You may have heard:
Order early this year.) Here are six
fresh-minted options in paper-
back, to suit a variety of tastes.
THE CITY OF MIST:
STORIES
by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
Zafón, the Barcelona-born
author of the international
bestseller “The Shadow of the
Wind,” died last year of cancer
at age 55. This posthumous
collection of stories features
many that have never before
been published in English, re-
turning readers to the mythical
Barcelona library known as the
Cemetery of Forgotten Books
explored in “The Shadow of
the Wind” and several sequels.
Writing of “The Shadow of the
Wind,” which sold more than 15
million copies worldwide, a New
York Times reviewer described
Zafón’s style as “Gabriel García
Márquez meets Umberto Eco
meets Jorge Luis Borges for
a sprawling magic show, ex-
asperatingly tricky and mostly
wonderful.”
LEAVE THE WORLD
BEHIND
by Rumaan Alam
By bestseller and National
Book Award fi nalist Alam, this
novel throws two families —
strangers to each other — to-
gether in a remote beach house
during a blackout. Calling it a
“slippery and duplicitous marvel
of a novel,” an NPR reviewer
noted that “’Leave the World
Behind’ is atmospheric and
prescient: Its rhythms of com-
edy alternating with shock and
despair mimic so much of the
rhythms of life right now. That’s
more than enough to make it a
signature novel for this blasted
year.”
Norman (“Paul McCartney”) fol-
lows the electric guitar god from
hardscrabble Seattle boyhood
to enormous fame and his 1970
martyrdom to rock-star excess,”
according to Publishers Week-
ly’s starred review. “Norman’s
entertaining, psychedelically
tinged portrait shows why Hen-
drix made such a deep impres-
sion on rock ‘n’ roll.”
MOONFLOWER MURDERS
by Anthony Horowitz
If you, like me, fell head over
heels in love with Horowitz’s
“Magpie Murders” — a mystery
deliciously wrapped in another
mystery — you’ll be delighted to
hear of this sequel. In it, former
editor Susan Ryeland (now run-
ning a hotel on a Greek island)
gets called back into the liter-
ary world when she learns that
one of her former authors, now
deceased, based his book on a
real-life crime. If you’re in need
of a holiday gift for someone
who loves witty British myster-
ies, wrap up these two books and
prepare to be thanked.
THE SEARCHER
by Tana French
French is the author of the
wonderful Dublin Murder Squad
series, which began with the
award-winning “In the Woods” and
continued for fi ve more novels,
each told from the point of view
of a diff erent member of a Dublin
CHECKING OUT THE
WORLD OF BOOKS
HarperCollins Publishers
police department’s homicide
division. Her last two have been
stand-alone mysteries; this one
was inspired by the Irish author’s
love of Westerns. Reading it last
year, I wrote, “’The Searcher’ feels
diff erent from French’s previous
books — there’s a sparseness
to the setting that contrasts with
the bustle of the Dublin Murder
Squad, or even the gathered fam-
ily in ‘The Witch Elm’ — but is no
less addictive; the pages practi-
cally turn themselves.”
WILD THING: THE SHORT,
SPELLBINDING LIFE OF
JIMI HENDRIX
by Philip Norman
Born in Seattle 79 years ago
this month, Hendrix was only 27
when he died in London, after a
remarkable four years as a rock
star. “In this rollicking biography,
Tom Reed
Friday, December 17th @ 6:30
Zoom and in-person options. In person event will
be at Churchill Baker, proof of vaccination required.
Zoom invites will be sent via email day of the event.
Please call to be added to the invite list.
Audio & E-Books Available
THE WRITER’S LIBRARY:
THE AUTHORS YOU LOVE
ON THE BOOKS THAT
CHANGED THEIR LIVES
by Nancy Pearl and
Jeff Schwager
Seattle librarian extraordinaire
Pearl and playwright Schwager
asked 22 prominent authors
— among them Seattle’s own
Charles Johnson, plus Michael
Chabon, Donna Tartt, Luis
Alberto Urrea, Amor Towles and
Louise Erdrich — to name the
books that shaped and inspired
them. Pearl and Schwager “bring
boundless enthusiasm and curi-
osity to this eclectic and probing
book of interviews,” wrote Pub-
lishers Weekly in a starred review.
“Readers of this delightful com-
pendium will relish the chance to
fi nd many of those shared loves,
as well as discover new ones.”
As a student of Japanese arts and aesthetics, and a
student of the study of consciousness,
photographer and hypnotherapist Tom Reed is
interested in the experience of aesthetic arrest
and what he calls “shocking beauty.” (See his TEDx
presentation on that subject) Zen sensibilities pro-
foundly influence his compositions. Other major
influences on his work have been Ansel Adams,
Edgar Payne’s work in the Sierras, and the Hudson
River School of painters. Indeed he was nicknamed
“The Ansel Adams of Patagonia” after his book,
The Granite Avatars of Patagonia. His work can
be seen at
www.tomreed.com.
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