Home › Staff Recommendations

Roxie's Recommendations


I Hotel (Paperback)

By Karen Tei Yamashita, Leland Wong, Sina Grace
$19.95
ISBN-13: 9781566892391
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Coffee House Press, 5/2010
Other Editions of this Title
I Hotel is a fictional account of the lives of Asian-American activists in the late 60s and early 70s. Mirroring the fearless experimentalism of the time, Yamashita tells the story using a mix of narrative, drama, and real and fictionalized documentary passages; the writing is consistently energetic, unexpected, and compelling. The story, based in many instances on actual incidents, traces the intertwined lives of a generation of Chinese, Japanese, Pilipino, and Korean revolutionaries, in their contradictions and complexities, their elegant hipness, their naivete, their courage. She brings to light intriguing parallels between the then-emerging Black Power movement and the Asian activists. For those who remember these years, the revolutionary rhetoric will bring back an era now lost. A refreshing change from the usual mainstream offerings.

Wolf Hall (Paperback)

By Hilary Mantel
$16.00
ISBN-13: 9780312429980
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Picador, 8/2010
Other Editions of this Title
Terse, fast-paced, and smart, Wolf Hall chronicles the rise of Thomas Cromwell, a shrewd man of affairs who made himself indispensable first to Cardinal Wolsey and then to Henry VIII himself. He witnessed, and in some cases brought about, some pivotal events in English history: the fall of Wolsey, King Henry’s contested marriage to Anne Boleyn, and the execution of Sir Thomas More. In this subtly-shaded, morally complex narrative, Cromwell emerges as likeable, unflappable, and ruthless, a consummate backroom player on whom nothing is lost.

The Glass Room (Paperback)

By Simon Mawer
$15.95
ISBN-13: 9781590513965
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Other Press, 10/2009
Other Editions of this Title
The Glass Room begins as a newly-married couple hire a forward-thinking architect to build them a house that will look toward the future and not the past. The result is a gem of Modernist architecture, all light and rationality, with a downstairs room enclosed entirely by glass, located just outside of Vienna. But the political storm clouds are gathering, and the couple are forced to flee and abandon the house. The novel traces the fortunes of the house under the Nazis and later under the Soviets. Exquisitely written, this is a novel that will make you think about the connections and contradictions between aesthetic ideals and political reality, and about time and history.

The Gift of Rain (Paperback)

By Tan Twan Eng
$16.99
ISBN-13: 9781602860742
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Weinstein Books, 5/2009
Other Editions of this Title
Permeated with the sounds and scents of Malaya, with its jumble of Chinese, British and Malay cultures, this extraordinary novel is narrated by Philip Hutton, half English and half Chinese. It's set in the late thirties, when Japan is invading China and working its way toward Malaya.  Endo-san, an enigmatic  Japanese teacher of aikido, comes to inhabit an island near Philip's home, and he instructs Philip in aikido and its spiritual discipline. A strong bond of friendship grows up between the two.  But when Japan invades his country, Philip's close relationship to a Japanese endangers his prominent family, causing painfully divided loyalties. The novel combines sensuous specificity with a calm clarity that may owe something to the spirit of aikido that pervades the narrative. And you'll remember the friedship between Philip and the mysterious and highly attractive Endo-san long after you close the book.

Wise Children (Paperback)

By Angela Carter
$15.00
ISBN-13: 9780374530945
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 12/2007
Other Editions of this Title
If you want a smart novel that's not depressing, overflows with verbal energy, impish wit, and a Shakespearean embrace of life, Wise Children is your book. Told in the sprightly voice of an aging song-and-dance trouper, it's a snappy comedy about an English show-biz family (from both sides of the blanket) and its several sets of twins. Along the way, Angela Carter (the late, great, and incomparable) has shrewd things to say about class divisions and family ties. Outrageous coincidences and plot reversals abound--but then, when your model is Shakespearean comedy, you have a certain license.

The Quiet Girl (Paperback)

By Peter Høeg
$15.00
ISBN-13: 9780312427771
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Picador, 9/2008
Other Editions of this Title
The protagonist of this compelling novel is the nationally famous Danish clown Kasper Krone, who is blessed with the ability to "hear" the vibrations of personalities (as well as with an outrageous amount of sheer cool under pressure.) He undertakes to rescue an extraordinary young girl named KlaraMaria, who shares Krone's abilities and is wanted by the Danish government. The Quiet Girl combines the airily cerebral with the elegantly violent, and is sprinkled with nimble wit, Kierkegaardian philosophical musings, and Mission-Impossible effects.

The Cave (Paperback)

By Jose Saramago, Margaret Jull Costa
$14.00
ISBN-13: 9780156028790
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Mariner Books, 10/2003
This is the story of Cipriano Algor, a simple potter, his daughter Marta and her husband. Deprived of his usual livelihood by a decree from the Center, the slightly mysterious commercial and administrative complex which used to buy his goods, Cipriano and his family embark on a new career--making ceramic dolls. How this changes their relationship to the Center begins to become clearer as mysterious sounds of digging come from beneath their apartment, and what they find transforms the family's life. This book is deeply memorable,not only for its haunting, allegorical quality that teases the intellect, but also for the profound affection one develops for its characters.
  • del.icio.us
  • Digg
  • Facebook
  • Furl
  • Google
  • Icerocket
  • Magnoliacom
  • Newsvine
  • Propeller
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati
  • Yahoo