7834 SW Capitol Hwy, Portland OR, 97219 (map) 503-246-0053 Open 9 AM - 9 PM Mon - Fri, 9 AM - 6 PM Sat-Sun Mask Policy
Search for a Book:
Erin's Staff Favorites
Erin has been with Annie Bloom's since autumn 2015.
$16.95
ISBN: 9781771964111
Availability: On Our Shelves Now (updated daily)
Published: Biblioasis - June 1st, 2021
Pregnant with her third child, poet and essayist Doireann Ni Ghriofa rediscovers the beloved 18th-century Irish poem "Caoineadh Airt Ui Laoghaire" (The Lament of Art O'Leary), and this chance meeting ignites an obsession. Blending genres, part autofiction and part essay, Ni Ghriofa takes the reader on a journey to map the life of Eibhlin Dubh Ni Chonail, the Irish woman who composed the lament in the wake of the tragic loss of her husband at the hands of a British Official. Ni Ghriofa states at the beginning of her work, "This is a female text." And she deftly adds her voice and experience to the centuries-old chorus of women, while creating a unique voice for the reader's ear.
$15.95
Email or call to check availability.
Email or call to check availability.
ISBN: 9781609809584
Published: Seven Stories Press - August 18th, 2020
Nettel's latest story collection is as deeply satisfying as it is unsettling. These carefully wrought stories are fraught with a mesmerizing tension and filled with strange and occasionally disturbing situations that have an air of familiarity. Nettel is the master of the uncanny and at making the reader feel content in being uncomfortable. The stories may be brief, but they leave a long-lasting impression.
$16.99
ISBN: 9780062476708
Availability: Special Order - arrival estimates will be provided when your order is processed
Published: Harper Perennial - February 18th, 2020
As usual, spending time with Tessa Hadley's characters is as comfortable as meeting with old friends. Her latest novel is no exception in showcasing her skill as a master of domestic fiction--giving rich complexity to the ties that bind people, especially marriage and friendship. Late in the Day opens with three close-knit friends grieving the untimely death of one of their group of four, and the remaining novel is a testament to how things change and yet also remain the same. Fans of Tessa Hadley will not be disappointed.
$16.95
Email or call to check availability.
Email or call to check availability.
ISBN: 9780525434535
Published: Vintage - February 19th, 2019
At forty-five, Anne Spoerry became a member of the elite Flying Doctors Service, flying a plane solo across Africa to provide medical care to thousands of people. She was the beloved "Mama Daktari" and her bravery and compassion for those in need was legendary, but, as Hemingway reveals, her early life was deeply troubling---particularly her time at Ravensbruck, a Nazi death camp. Heminway unravels the mystery of one of the world's most celebrated "Mother Teresa" figures, and in doing so evokes humanity in all of its contradictions. In Full Flight is a riveting biography that explores the complexity of good and evil existing simultaneously in the fabric of one woman's life.
$16.95
ISBN: 9780811225946
Availability: Special Order - arrival estimates will be provided when your order is processed
Published: New Directions - September 26th, 2017
A poignant, gripping novel about the refugee crisis challenging the globe. Recently retired and suddenly finding himself adrift, Richard becomes captivated by a group of young African refugees being housed by the German government in his quiet Berlin suburb---Who are these men? What do they want? The answers seem simple, yet issues of power, humanitarian responsibility, bureaucracy, and intolerance make their lives and reality complex. Erpenbeck is a skilled novelist, and her talent as a storyteller serves as a humanizing lens on a daunting political crisis. Go, Went, Gone is imperative for us to read, discuss, and share.
$15.99
Email or call to check availability.
Email or call to check availability.
ISBN: 9780062476678
Published: Harper Perennial - January 21st, 2020
A young girl accepts a ride from a car full of restless young men. A mother wakes to find her house mysteriously in disarray. A housekeeper becomes burdened by secrets from her employer's past. A young women reads the diaries she finds while housesitting. In unexpected ways, Bad Dreams explores ordinary moments and decisions that shape and influence a person. Hadley pinpoints moments of friction between our rational brain and our animal instinct and expands on those moments. Readers of her previous books won't be disappointed, and folks new to one of Britain's acclaimed contemporary novelists will find this collection a great jumping off point.
$15.95
ISBN: 9781941040492
Availability: Special Order - arrival estimates will be provided when your order is processed
Published: Tin House Books - January 24th, 2017
Gilligan brilliantly weaves together three seemingly disparate lives into a rich tapestry that blends the past and present. At the beginning of the twentieth century, a Lithuanian family immigrating west mistakenly disembarks in Ireland. A young boy in 1950s Dublin forms an unlikely friendship with an older gentlemen who is obsessed with recounting the stories of his youth. And in present day London a young romance is fraught with religious tension. I won't soon forget these rich characters, the fascinating glimpse of a rarely told Irish history, nor the haunting feeling that the past is never really truly behind us.
$17.00
ISBN: 9781101971185
Availability: Special Order - arrival estimates will be provided when your order is processed
Published: Vintage - June 13th, 2017
Barnes employs the famous modernist Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich as his protagonist in his new novel. In stunning, crisp, methodical prose, The Noise of Time is divided into three sections, each focusing on a defining moment in Shostakovich's life--the first in 1936 after he finds himself denounced by Stalin, and the final in the 1960s, as he reflects on the relative time of peace in Russia and his appointment to the Chairmanship of the Russian Federation Union of Composers. Barnes charts Shostakovich's turbulent career, falling in and out of favor with Stalin, forced to balance the whims of a dictator while staying true to his art. A disquieting, beautiful, atmospheric novel, this powerful book will have you pondering the role of art and artist long after you've put it down.
$17.95
ISBN: 9781590177716
Availability: Special Order - arrival estimates will be provided when your order is processed
Published: NYRB Classics - January 27th, 2015
The relationship between the narrator, a Hungarian writer, and her mysterious elderly housekeeper is bewitching. I wish more of Szabo's work were available in English.
$17.00
ISBN: 9781250081544
Availability: Special Order - arrival estimates will be provided when your order is processed
Published: Picador - February 9th, 2016
An apt title for Cusk's elliptical novel about a writer traveling to Athens for a writer's conference. Cusk reveals little about the narrator, but creates an outline of who she is from the stories she is told by the people she meets. Memory, creativity, and the mystery of human connection are at the heart of this slim book.
$16.95
ISBN: 9781609807511
Availability: Backordered - availability and arrival estimates will be provided when your order is processed
Published: Seven Stories Press - July 25th, 2017
$15.00
ISBN: 9781555977658
Availability: Special Order - arrival estimates will be provided when your order is processed
Published: Graywolf Press - December 6th, 2016
A quick, captivating book. Manguso is a master of the personal essay. Confronting her diary that she has kept for over twenty-five years, Ongoingness is a meditative contemporary memoir well-suited in its brevity and impressive in its scope. Without bogging down the reader with personal details of her life, Manguso's essay is instead a philosophical investigation of time, existence, and the impulse to document a life. Recommended for readers who enjoy Jenny Offill, Heidi Julavits, or Maggie Nelson.
— Erin
Email or call for price
ISBN: 9781931883399
Availability: Out of Print - Not Available
Published: Two Lines Press - November 11th, 2014
When asked to write her memoir, award-winning French novelist Marie NDiaye produced, quite literally, a portrait of the color green. Green carefully, symbolically embodies women in NDiaye's life: green women haunt her memoir and they manifest as distant memories. In this beautiful, novella-length memoir the real mingles with the imagined, defying genre, and captivates the reader.
— Erin
$16.95
ISBN: 9780811225137
Availability: Special Order - arrival estimates will be provided when your order is processed
Published: New Directions - February 8th, 2016
How could it have all gone differently? In each of the five intermezzos punctuating this novel, award-winning German novelist, Jenny Erpenbeck, asks the reader to re-imagine the ending of a woman's life. The result is a beautiful, inventive novel about fate and contingency, as well as a unique chronicling of twentieth-century Europe. One of my favorite books of the year.
— Erin
$12.95
Email or call to check availability.
Email or call to check availability.
ISBN: 9781609806057
Published: Seven Stories Press - June 16th, 2015
Nettel explores our relationships with the natural world in ways that are haunting, unexpected, and fascinating. She deftly creates full-bodied characters and poignant plots in just a few pages. One of the most original short story collections I've read
— Erin
$18.00
Email or call to check availability.
Email or call to check availability.
ISBN: 9780143127789
Published: Penguin Books - September 1st, 2015
Blending literary criticism and memoir, Nafisi's open and honest dialogue about the state of Liberal Arts in the United States is engaging to the very last page. Her argument is compelling and important: In order to foster creativity and imagination, fundamental components of our republic, we should be returning to key American novels. This book will stay with me for some time.
— Erin
$15.95
Email or call to check availability.
Email or call to check availability.
ISBN: 9781590518403
Published: Other Press - February 28th, 2017
Goran Rosenberg's memoir is a testament to the relationship between fathers and sons and to the enduring presence of the past. Setting out to explore his own childhood, Rosenberg discovers that his story cannot be told without first telling his father's--a man whose life inhabits two worlds, the before and after, born from the dark events of twentieth-century Europe. Rosenberg's writing is stunning and unsparing; while he addresses his father directly--the book is deftly written in the second person--A Brief Stop On the Road From Auschwitz addresses us all, making this truly an unforgettable and important book that should be read widely.
— Erin
$16.00
ISBN: 9780802122940
Availability: Special Order - arrival estimates will be provided when your order is processed
Published: Grove Press - November 11th, 2014
Stepping into the mind of an obsessive literary introvert, who has devoted seventy years to building intimate relationships with books rather than with people, is not as claustrophobic of a reading experience as one might imagine. Instead, Aaliya's single-minded passion serves as a lens through which we experience the evolution of a city and her life as a Beiruti. Alameddine's novel is a delicate rendering of a reader's soul--a rumination on how art and literature function in our lives. For readers who appreciate books about books.
— Erin
$16.95
Email or call to check availability.
Email or call to check availability.
ISBN: 9780345802507
Published: Vintage - January 6th, 2015
$18.00
ISBN: 9781609450786
Availability: On Our Shelves Now (updated daily)
Published: Europa Editions - September 25th, 2012
Please forgive the 1980s soap opera-esque cover designs, as Elena Ferrante's four Neapolitan novels are literary masterpieces. Stunning in scope and execution, Ferrante renders the lives of two Neapolitan women with precision, care, and complete honesty. Following Lena and Lila's friendship from their 1950s girlhood to their old age, she simultaneously tells the story about the transformation of a friendship, a neighborhood, and a nation.
— Erin
$16.00
Email or call to check availability.
Email or call to check availability.
ISBN: 9781594633959
Published: Riverhead Books - January 19th, 2016
Armed with a head full of fairy tales, the young narrator in Eliza Granville's first novel navigates the rocky political terrain of mid-twentieth-century Austria. Adult readers shold not be deterred by such a young narrative voice, Granville's mastery at weaving stories within stories is the mark of a true storyteller, and her work is a beautiful rumination on the power of imagination and the stories we tell ourselves. For readers who enjoyed Anthony Doerr's "All the Light We Cannot See."
— Erin
$17.00
Email or call to check availability.
Email or call to check availability.
ISBN: 9781101903438
Published: Hogarth - June 9th, 2015
McBride's inventive style that builds on the Joycean stream of consciousness and her fearless prose, jolt the reader into a challenging yet rewarding reading experience. A psychologically unsparing, chilling Bildungsroman from a brilliant Irish novelist. Not for the faint of heart.
— Erin
$19.95
ISBN: 9781590173466
Availability: Special Order - arrival estimates will be provided when your order is processed
Published: NYRB Classics - July 6th, 2010
An epic tale of Vikings written in the enchanting tone of an old Norse saga. Bengtsson is a well versed historian and delivers an historical, candid nod to our Viking ancestors. An incredibly enjoyable read.
— Erin
$16.00
ISBN: 9780802124739
Availability: Special Order - arrival estimates will be provided when your order is processed
Published: Grove Press - March 8th, 2016
$17.00
ISBN: 9781451643367
Availability: Special Order - arrival estimates will be provided when your order is processed
Published: Scribner - November 6th, 2012
These perfectly crafted short stories - both in length and character development--complement each other with their thoughtful traces of self-discovery and reflections on the natural world. Bergman captures the surprising and uncanny moments when the pull of our biology becomes evident, for better or worse.
— Erin
$16.95
Email or call to check availability.
Email or call to check availability.
ISBN: 9781782270423
Published: Pushkin Press - October 28th, 2014
Maxim Leo is (well, was) a third generation East German citizen whose relatives were the inspired men and women who formed the GDR. His approachable and engrossing memoir not only reveals a human side to the invasive political machine, but charts the rise and fall of the East German state. An excellent book.
— Erin
$17.00
ISBN: 9781400034413
Availability: Special Order - arrival estimates will be provided when your order is processed
Published: Vintage - March 8th, 2005
Although hesitant to embark on the undertaking, the Emissary of the Bishop of Iceland becomes a keen observer of subtle absurdities happening at the the Snaefells Glacier, which become highly entertaining. I laughed out loud while reading this book; the cast of clergymen set on a frigid theater of the absurd is a wonderful mixture of intellect, philosophy, fairy tale, and down right good humor. It is fun, engaing, and a great introduction to Laxness's incredible body of work (which is slowly becoming available in English).
— Erin