Catherine's Picks

Staff Pick Badge
The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe By Matthew Gabriele, David M. Perry Cover Image
$29.99
Email or call for price
ISBN: 9780062980892
Published: Harper - December 7th, 2021

Were the middles ages really "dark"? Perhaps they weren't as bad as we were taught.


Staff Pick Badge
Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout By Philip Connors Cover Image
$17.99
ISBN: 9780061859373
Availability: On Our Shelves Now

Published: Ecco - February 28th, 2012

For five months each year Philip Connors climbs a tower atop a peak in the wilderness of southern New Mexico to watch for fires. It's a fine tradition for writers. Abbey, Snyder, and even Jack Kerouac were fire lookouts. The job must breed brilliance in writing. This is a lovely book, one fans of Desert Solitaire and Garlic Testament will enjoy.


Staff Pick Badge
How High We Go in the Dark: A Novel By Sequoia Nagamatsu Cover Image
$27.99
Email or call for price
ISBN: 9780063072640
Published: William Morrow - January 18th, 2022

How High We Go in the Dark has been favorably compared to Cloud Atlas. Though its narrative structure and time travel recall that book, How High We Go in the Dark is its own book, a novel about global society following a terrible plague that changes the world forever more. From antarctica to a theme park for dying children to funerary skyscrapers and a mission to a new world, Nagamatu's narrative explores often untenable seeming situations that are of humanity's own making and that challenge the characters' own human-ness. Grief, loss, alienation, and hope saturate the pages of this well crafted novel.


Staff Pick Badge
Matrix: A Novel By Lauren Groff Cover Image
$28.00
Email or call for price
ISBN: 9781594634499
Published: Riverhead Books - September 7th, 2021

The story of an unmangageable woman sent away to a convent is an old one. Groff's tale of a woman who is too big in too many ways being sent to manage a 12th century convent by her unrequited love is just as big and bold as its visionary protagonist.


Staff Pick Badge
Memoirs of a Polar Bear By Yoko Tawada, Susan Bernofsky (Translated by) Cover Image
By Yoko Tawada, Susan Bernofsky (Translated by)
$16.95
ISBN: 9780811225786
Availability: On Our Shelves Now

Published: New Directions - November 8th, 2016

Deeply and magically strange.


Staff Pick Badge
On Trails: An Exploration By Robert Moor Cover Image
$17.00
ISBN: 9781476739236
Availability: On Our Shelves Now

Published: Simon & Schuster - July 4th, 2017

From ant trails along the edge of Richard Feynman's bathtub to the information superhighway, Robert Moor's book provides a deep, engaging investigation of the very animal need to create established pathways for travel. An experienced through-hiker of hte Appalachian Trail, Moor's natural history is a must read for hikers and nature lovers.


Staff Pick Badge
Walkaway: A Novel By Cory Doctorow Cover Image
$20.99
ISBN: 9780765392770
Availability: On Our Shelves Now

Published: Tor Books - May 22nd, 2018

Doctorow's science fiction shows us positive ways we can evolve, not ways our world can continue to devolve. Walkaway is a book that can give a jaded reader hope.