Annie Bloom's Books

Patrick Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind is some of the very best writing I have encountered in the fantasy genre. Rothfuss presents the first installment in the tale of Krothe, my new favorite main character. -Ben

Paul Neilan's Apathy and Other Small Victories is so cynical and a little bit sweet. This story involves salt shakers, police detectives, sign language, affairs, and plenty more. This book is high energy from beginning to end. -Matt

In A Gate at the Stairs, Lorrie Moore turns her eye on the anxiety and disconnection of post-9/11 America, the insidiousness of racism, and the recklessness thrust on others in the name of love. A Midwestern college girl takes a job as a nanny with a mysterious and glamorous family. As the years pass, she feels less and less connected to her own family, and as life and love unravel dramatically, she is forever changed.

Now out in paperback, Marilynne Robinson's Home is a retelling of the prodigal son parable, set at the same moment and in the same Iowa town as her previous novel, Gilead. The Reverend Boughton's hell-raising son, Jack, has come home after twenty years away. As Jack tries to make peace with his father, he begins to forge an intense bond with his sister Glory, herself returning home with a broken heart and turbulent past.

E. L. Doctorow's Homer & Langley is an imaginative rendering of the lives of New York's fabled Collyer brothers. Homer and Langley live as recluses in their once grand Fifth Avenue mansion, while history seems to pass through their cluttered house in the persons of prostitutes, gangsters, and jazz musicians. Their housebound lives are fraught with Odyssean peril as they struggle to survive and create meaning for themselves.

Anita Diamant's Day After Night is based on the extraordinary true story of the October 1945 rescue of more than two hundred prisoners from the Atlit internment camp, a prison for "illegal" immigrants run by the British military near the Mediterranean coast north of Haifa. The story is told through the eyes of four young women at the camp as they confront the challenge of re-creating themselves in a strange new country.

In True Compass, Teddy Kennedy tells his extraordinary personal story -- of his legendary family, politics, and fifty years at the center of national events. He describes his work in the Senate on the major issues of our time -- civil rights, Vietnam, Watergate -- and the cause of his life: improved health care for all Americans.

In Strength in What Remains, Tracy Kidder gives us the superb story of a hero for our time. Deo escapes the genocide of Burundi and arrives in America to start a new life. Kidder's book follows his path from homelessness in Central Park, through Columbia University and medical school, and to his life as a devoted healer.

In Natureshock: New Thinking about Children, award-winning science journalists Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman argue that when it comes to children, parents have mistaken good intentions for good ideas. The authors demonstrate that many of modern society's strategies for nurturing children are in fact backfiring.

With Bicycle Diaries, former Talking Heads singer David Byrne presents his behind-the-handlebars views on cities from Istanbul to New York. Byrne also records his thoughts on world music, urban planning, fashion, architecture, cultural dislocation, and much more, all conveyed with a highly personal mixture of humor, curiosity, and humility.

Children's Picture Book Staff Favorites

In Mircea Catusano's fun counting story with kooky illustrations, The Strange Case of the Missing Sheep, Doug the Super Sheep Dog searches for the members of his missing flock. Liz Garton Scanlon's All the World follows a circle of family and friends through the course of a day, affirming the importance of all things great and small in our world. In Billy Twitters and His Blue Whale Problem, Billy's mom threatens to buy him a blue whale if he doesn't clean his room ... now Billy's really got his hands full!

The Latest for Grade Schoolers

In Kate DiCamillo's The Magician's Elephant, an orphan boy asks a fortune teller if his sister is still alive and is told an elephant will lead him to her, setting off a remarkable chain of events. Pseudonymous Bosch's second "Secret" book is If You're Reading This, It's Too Late, and Cass and Max-Ernest are having new adventures. In Gennifer Choldenko's Al Capone Shines My Shoes, the son of an Alcatraz prison guard owes Al Capone a favor.

New for Tweens 'n' Teens

Kristin Cashore's Graceling is just out in paperback! Kasta is graced with combat skills, but she's forced to work as the king's thug. Dangerous Minds author Louanne Johnson's Muchacho is about a juvenile delinquent who's also a poet and his determination to fight his circumstances and shape his own destiny. In Mary E. Pearson's The Adoration of Jenna Fox, a 17-year-old girl wakes from a year-long coma with amnesia. She's shown home movies to stimulate her memory, but Jenna begins to wonder what really happened to her.

Basketball superstar LeBron James and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Buzz Bissinger worked together to write Shooting Stars, a tale of the power of teamwork to transform young lives, including James's own. The Shooting Stars were a bunch of kids from Akron, Ohio, who first met on a youth basketball team and stayed together through high school as they pursued a national championship. This story is perfect for adults and teens, too.

One of the biggest stars in tennis, Serena Williams has captured all four major titles and won Olympic gold medals. On the Line chronicles her life, from growing up in the hardscrabble neighborhood of Compton, California to becoming the top women's player in the world. Serena takes an empowering look at her extraordinary life and what is still to come.

In We Might As Well Win, John Bruyneel reveals the planning, training, strategy, and tactics that led to a record seven Tour de France victories with Lance Armstrong and an eighth with Alberto Contador. Through thrilling stories of his own racing career and those of the cyclists he has guided during his extraordinary career, Bruyneel reveals the keys to victory both in cycling and in life.

Growing up in a doomed hometown with a missing father and a single mother, Nicholas Dawidoff listened to baseball every night on his bedside radio, the professional ballplayers gradually becoming the men in his life. The Crowd Sounds Happy is a portrait of a childhood shaped by a stoical, enterprising mother, a disturbed, dangerous father, the private world of baseball, and the awkwardness of first love.

You've bent all the rules with sewing, so now what? It's high time you made your own fashions even more "you" with Amy Karol's next craft revolution: Bend the Rules with Fabric. You'll learn everything you need to know to turn a plain piece of fabric or a garment into the perfect showcase for your personality.

Creative Crafts for Kids will help you stimulate your child's creative talent and imagination with fun crafts for two- to ten-year-olds. There are novel ideas for cards, gifts, decorations and accessories, attractive ways to jazz up a T shirt or create a costume, and delicious recipes for fancy cakes and other edible treats.

Mandy Moore's Yarn Bombing is the definitive guidebook to covert textile street art. "Knit graffiti" is an international guerrilla movement that started underground and is now embraced by crochet and knitting artists of all ages, nationalities, and genders. Its practitioners create stunning works of art out of yarn, then "donate" them to public spaces as part of a plan for world yarn domination.

With Generation T: Beyond Fashion, Megan Nicolay explores new ways to slash a tee, scrunch a tee, and sew a tee. Featuring 120 projects for every occasion, she takes the humble yet ever-malleable tee in dozens of new directions -- from baby gifts to pet accessories, stuff for the home, the car, the road, the boyfriend. The rallying cry is: Don't buy; DIY!

The remastered Beatles CDs are here! It's been 22 years since the Beatles catalog was slapped onto CD for the first time. Digital mastering technology has improved tremendously since then. These meticulously enhanced CDs are warmer, punchier, clearer, and a little louder, too. Plus, the packaging is beautiful. Come into Annie Bloom's to get your remastered copies of Rubber Soul, Sgt. Pepper's, The White Album, and more!