Kat's Reviews

Aimee Bender meets Harry Potter in this smart, spectacular novel about magic and star-crossed love. Just about every bookseller who works here has read and adored this book. It’s the ultimate beach, train, plane, picnic or roadtrip read – no matter where you are or what you’re doing, you won’t be able to put it down. Read it, get yourself a red scarf, and join the ranks of the rêveurs.

This book is just stunning; it got under my skin in a big way. Francisco Goldman was vacationing in Mexico with his wife, Aura, when she was fatally injured in a bodysurfing accident. The autobiographical novel that he wrote in the years following is many things: a manifestation of his searing love and grief for Aura, an interrogation of his own role in her life and death, and a futile attempt to understand a random and terrible event. Highly recommended, and well worth any tears.

Barnes’ slim masterpiece is well worthy of the Booker it won, and your hard-fought reading time as well. The narrator, Anthony, is an erudite man who has lived a life of calm introspection and is now retired. But his story is perhaps not as straightforward as he might have you believe, particularly his remembrance of an old love affair, and the consequences that he is just now beginning to see. Powerful and surprising.

Told with a confessional tone in small, page-long chapters, With My Body is the story of a transformative first love that cannot be forgotten. The narrator is a married mother of three when she begins writing about her younger self, unearthing memories of a more passionate time that she is desperate but unable to return to. Raw, enthralling and at times brutally honest, this is a sexy literary read that is difficult to set aside.

Nick and Amy are unhappily married, and when Amy disappears on their fifth wedding anniversary, leaving behind a string of clues and signs of a struggle, suspicion falls on Nick. As days go by and a tabloid frenzy grows, Nick appears more and more guilty…almost too guilty. A book of masterful twists, uncomfortably real characters and moody wit—I can’t imagine a better beach read.

If you’re a fan of Tana French or Kate Atkinson, then you need to know about Erin Kelly. Her debut mystery, The Poison Tree, is a character-driven story with high psychological stakes, the kind of book that lures you in with its moody setting and atmosphere, and then chooses just the right moment to pounce. Compelling, literary, and very surprising—you may think you have it figured out, but trust me, you don’t.

This is one of the most lushly imagined books I’ve read in a long time, and it also happens to be one of the best love stories I've read in awhile as well. It’s about a tortured young woman named Briony who is convinced that she is a witch, and that she was somehow responsible for her stepmother’s untimely death. The language is an incredible blend of old-world English and modern-day poetry.

Brooke Gladstone, of public radio’s outstanding On the Media, is a bit obsessed with all things media related, and her new graphic nonfiction book, The Influencing Machine, is a clear, entertaining, and sharply articulated look at the subject she loves best. Her central thesis is that we are the media, and our beliefs, choices, and prejudices are responsible for its construction. This raises an interesting question: How do we approach a media that is as messy, contradictory, and confusing as we are? Read on and find out.

I love that the subtitle of this book is “The Story,” because that’s really how this book reads. David Maraniss has written a thorough, lyrical, and very literary biography of our 44th president, a book that includes hundreds of interviews (including some with the president himself), as well as letters, journals, and other documents. The result is a fascinating, un-put-downable narrative that circles the globe and lands in the White House.

This book takes a close look at an incredible story that happened right in our area. In 2008, a series of lightning strikes ignited hundreds of fires across California, and one of those fires threatened the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center in Big Sur, a place accessible by a single unpaved road and particularly vulnerable to fire. The story of how the Center was saved by those who lived and worked there will leave you on the edge of your seat, as well as teach you about the many ways that Zen teachings can prepare you for a wildfire.