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Category: Washington Reads

Washington State Library joins forces with the Seattle Public Library to promote reading and literacy statewide through Center for the book

Washington State Library joins forces with the Seattle Public Library to promote reading and literacy statewide through Center for the book

The Washington State Library has joined forces with The Seattle Public Library to lead the work of the Washington Center for the Book. The Seattle Public Library was designated as the home for the Washington State Center for the Book by the U.S. Library of Congress back in 1989. The mission of the Washington Center of the Book is to promote Washington’s literary heritage and the importance of books, reading, literacy and libraries. There is a Center for the Book…

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The Sea Runners: A Novel, by Ivan Doig.

The Sea Runners: A Novel, by Ivan Doig.

The Sea Runners: A Novel. By Ivan Doig. (New York: Atheneum, 1982. 279 pp. Map.) Recommendation submitted by: Will Stuivenga, Cooperative Projects Manager, Washington State Library, Tumwater, WA. There exists an actual letter-to-the-editor published in the Oregon Weekly Times, mentioning three Scandinavians who had managed to travel by canoe from Russian Alaska to Shoalwater (now named Willapa) Bay in 1852/53. Doig’s novel imagines what their trek must have been like, full of trepidations and tribulations, all the way up to and including…

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Another facet of the Green River Killer story unfolds as a graphic novel

Another facet of the Green River Killer story unfolds as a graphic novel

From the desk of Sean Lanksbury. PNW & Special Collections Librarian Green River Killer: A True Detective Story. By Jeff Jensen; Illustrated by Jonathan Case; Lettering by Nake Piekos. (Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse Books, 2011. 233 pp. Illustrations, map.) Recommendation by PNW & Special Collections This graphic novel provides an often neglected perspective to the Green River Killer investigation by recounting the ordeal that his father, King County Detective Tom Jensen,  endured since 1984, when he was assigned to the investigation, through to the 188…

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Beautiful Ruins: A Novel. By Jess Walter.

Beautiful Ruins: A Novel. By Jess Walter.

Beautiful Ruins: A Novel. By Jess Walter. (New York: Harper, 2012. 337 pp.) Recommendation submitted by: Will Stuivenga, Cooperative Projects Manager, Washington State Library, Tumwater, WA. In 1962, a young American movie actress shows up at the remote, obscure, Italian “Hotel Adequate View” thinking that she is dying of cancer. Pasquale, the hotelier, naturally falls in love with her. 50 years later, Pasquale travels to Hollywood, in hopes of finding her again. That’s the story in a nutshell, but there’s so much more!…

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Unattended Death, by Victoria Jenkins.

Unattended Death, by Victoria Jenkins.

An Unattended Death. By Victoria Jenkins. (Sag Harbor, NY: The Permanent Press, c2012. 214 pp.) Recommendation submitted by: Carolyn Petersen, Assistant Program Manager, Library Development Set in Shelton, WA, the first book, in what may be a new police procedural series, does a good job of capturing the ambiance of this lumber mill town. When a body is found floating in the Puget Sound slough the investigation of an “unattended death” falls to Irene Chavez. Irene had moved back to Shelton…

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Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist, by Sunil Yapa.

Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist, by Sunil Yapa.

Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist. By Sunil Yapa. (New York, NY: Lee Boudreaux Books/Little, Brown and Company/Hachette Book Group, 2016. 312 pp.) Recommendation submitted by: Will Stuivenga, Cooperative Projects Manager, Washington State Library, Tumwater, WA. This is not a nice book. This is not a pleasant book. But it may be an important one. Parts of it are quite horrific, just plain awful. The descriptions of police brutality will curdle your blood, at least they did mine. This…

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Portlandtown by Robb De Borde

Portlandtown by Robb De Borde

Portlandtown: A Tale of the Oregon Wyldes. By Robb De Borde. (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2012. 375 pp.) Recommendation by Carolyn Petersen, Assistant Program Manager, Library Development What does a reader get when a writer combines gunfights, zombies, circus freaks, and a Portland pioneer family named the Wyldes?  The reader is rewarded with a crackling good read—if the reader’s brain is able to blend westerns, steampunk, sci-fi and historical fiction.  This story begins in 19th century Astoria when Joseph Wylde goes…

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My Sister’s Grave by Robert Dugoni

My Sister’s Grave by Robert Dugoni

My Sister’s Grave. By Robert Dugoni. (Seattle: Thomas & Mercer, 2014. 410 pp.) Recommendation by Carolyn Petersen, Assistant Program Manager, Library Development Tracey Crosswhite became a detective with the Seattle Police Department as a result of her younger sister’s murder. Tracey never was convinced that the man convicted and serving time for her sister’s murder was the true perpetrator. When Sarah’s remains are at last discovered, Tracey thought justice would be served at last.  Instead the repercussions for the small town…

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Wilderness, by Lance Weller

Wilderness, by Lance Weller

Wilderness: A Novel. By Lance Weller. (New York: Bloomsbury, 2012. 293pp.) Recommendation by PNW & Special Collections April 9, 1865 was the day that General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia at the McLean House in the village of Appomattox Court House. This is often cited as the official date of the end of the Civil War between the Confederate and Union States, but when Brigadier General Stand Watie of the Trans-Mississippi Department surrendered his Confederate Indian battalion, a mix of Creek, Seminole, Cherokee, and…

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The Impersonator, by Mary Miley

The Impersonator, by Mary Miley

The Impersonator: A Mystery. By Mary Miley. (New York: Minotaur Books, 2014. 320 pp.) (A Roaring Twenties Mystery, Book 1) Recommendation by: Carolyn Petersen, Assistant Program Manager, Library Development, Tumwater, WA. Mary Miley’s Impersonator deserved to win the Minotaur Books/Mystery writers’ of America First Crime Novel competition.  The murder mystery begins with the heroine of the book, vaudevillian Leah Randall approached by a man who greets her as his long lost niece, heiress to a timber fortune. Beckett invites her to impersonate his niece…

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