Casey's Reviews

Arthur Less is an aging, near-famous author who tries to escape the fact that his boyfriend is getting married by accepting half-baked literary invitations to conferences and teaching engagements around the world. Full of hilarity and also replete with gems of understanding of love, heartbreak, and human connection. Part David Sedaris, part Where’d You Go, Bernadette, part Man Called Ove, but completely and utterly original, this book is a perfect summer read and the newly announced winner of the Pultizer Prize for Fiction. - Casey

Don’t miss our free in-store event with Andrew Sean Greer on May 24th, 2018.

There is nothing quite so satisfying as a beautifully written, impeccably researched historical novel, especially in the capable hands of someone like Pulitzer Prize–winner Jennifer Egan. That is why Manhattan Beach ended up on almost every 2017 best of the year list. Now in paperback, even more readers will be mesmerized by the secretive underworld that Egan creates among the World War II era of mafia deals, nightclubs, and the New York City docks. But it is the protagonist Anna—the first female diver to repair ships in New York’s harbor—who blends that underworld with her own journey through a complex family life that gives this book its deep emotional heart. - Casey

Meet Jennifer Egan at our off-site book talk & signing for the paperback release of Manhattan Beach on June 7th, 2018.

I didn’t want to lead this review with the fact that the author of this book is serving a life sentence for murder, because there is so much more to this book than that. However, it is precisely his perspective from the “inside” that makes this collection of short stories so raw and powerful. This debut is a tour de force, helping the reader understand unseen and painful realities through its lens of humor, insight, and common humanity. - Casey

I have to admit that I have a weakness for family epics. There is something so powerful about connecting to characters’ lives in the place that is most emotional, complex, and personal. So when I read The House of Broken Angels I was not surprised that I fell in love with the extended cast of characters of the Las Cruzes family, but little did I know that their feelings of belonging, loyalty, and forgiveness would deeply permeate and change my own view of humanity. Dave Eggers says that it is “one of the most vivid and engrossing family epics of the last twenty years” and I agree. - Casey

Roddy Doyle is best known for the engaging dialogue that permeates the pages of his perfect Irish novels. Smile, his latest novel, is no exception. Except with this work, the playful Irish banter not only serves to transport you to the Irish pubs where recently divorced Victor Forde finds himself confronting his adolescence and current sense of belonging, it also leads you to question everything you just read once you turn the last page. - Casey                              

It is hard to imagine Ng outdoing herself after the success of her first novel, Everything I Never Told You, but she’s up to the task with the exquisite Little Fires Everywhere. Each member of the Richardson family, living in the rigidly structured suburban Shakers Heights community, is inexplicitly drawn two new freewheeling residents, the artist Mia and her teenage daughter Pearl. Ng’s mastery is in her ability to develop characters in many layers and then, with perfect pace and nuance, remove each layer to reveal an emotionally resonant understanding around themes of family, identity, and community. This book is on the top of my best-of-the-year list. - Casey, Bookshop Santa Cruz Owner

When teenager Lucinda Hayes is found murdered in her suburban town, all eyes shift to her quiet and decidedly different neighbor, Cameron Whitley. But in this perfectly-paced, suspenseful novel, the reader is kept guessing of the true nature of their connection and helps us realize that what we see on the surface might not always be the truth.  Danya Kukafka’s breakout debut will grab you early on and propel you to the finish where you just want to re-read it all over again. - Casey

In a small town along the Mississippi coast, one American family struggles with the ebbs and flows of a roller-coaster life grappling with addiction, connection, imprisonment, belonging and multi-generational strife. Jesmyn Ward, author of National Book Award winner Salvage the Bones, writes with gloriously, lyrical prose – a true mix of magical realism and honest observation of human nature which fully demonstrates that she is one of the greatest American authors writing today. - Casey

It came as no surprise that Evicted was this year’s recipient for the Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction. The power of its storytelling—following landlords and their tenants who are embroiled in a pattern of eviction and subsequent poverty in Milwaukee—is about as flawless as can be and immediately pulls the reader into the many challenges facing low-income communities across America. Is the struggle in our communities due to a failure of personal responsibility or to the systematic racial and economic injustices that place the tenants at the mercy of our policies? Getting a small glimpse in how this plays out in the lives of real people facing these issues is breathtaking. It is truly one of the best books I’ve read in the last decade. - Casey

“The four of us together weren’t something they understood. They understood girls alone, folding their arms across their breasts, praying for invisibility,” says Jacqueline Woodson’s character, August, as she embarks upon her transformation from girlhood to womanhood with a cohort of friends in 1970’s Brooklyn. It is the poetic voice of these girls, bound and yet alone, that grounds the reader in the neighborhood, and in the class, race, and religious dynamics of that time and place but that ultimately speaks to all women whose memory of their youth continuously folds and unfolds into their identity. A powerful, beautiful novel. - Casey