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Independent since 1974 · Phone: 413-645-3256 · CURBSIDE HOURS: Mon-Fri 10-6 · Sat 10-5 · Closed Sun · Contact Us
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Pam became the owner of The Bookloft in May, 2016. She reads and recommends many genres, from literary fiction to suspense to YA and cookbooks.
See more of my Staff Picks here!
Bookseller: Pam
Title: Rules for Being DeadUnlike anything I've read before, this is a strange combination of heartbreak, comedy, and utter charm. A boy struggles to come to terms with the sudden death of his mother, while from "the other side," his mother's ghost tries to figure out how and why she died.
Bookseller: Pam
Title: ValentineComments: A story of a loosely connected group of women and girls in Odessa near the oil fields of west Texas, but so much more. It's a story of how people can be pushed to the edge of sanity and reason; how a violent crime can shake a town to its roots; how a victim becomes a survivor; how a mother can become a warrior; how to exist through grief that overwhelms. Elizabeth Wetmore writes so well even while describing the most painful things. You may cry from sadness, from her eloquence, or both.
Bookseller: Pam
Title: Hidden Valley RoadComments: A fascinating look into both an extraordinary family and the history of psychology and its treatment of mental illness in general and schizophrenia, in particular. The Galvin family had twelve children between 1945 and 1965. Of those twelve, six of the boys developed schizophrenia and were treated (some mistreated) over decades. During that same period that same period and into the 2000s, some remarkable advancements have been made in how schizophrenia is viewed, why it originates (genetics), and how it is treated. This book is for any who are interested in medical history and who can stand the raw pain and devastation of a family living through constant illness, violence, sexual abuse, and more.
Bookseller: Pam
Title: PrivilegeComments: An exploration of the complexities of sexual assault from the points of view of three women in different roles: the victim, an advocate for the perpetrator, and a woman who believes in the perpetrator over the victim. All the characters feel very real, the main characters as well as those on the periphery of the crime. Well done.
Bookseller: Pam
Title: The JanesComments: Alice Vega and Max Caplin are a great team, with just the right amounts of intelligence, wit, humor, understanding, and sexual tension between them. Can't wait for more in the series!
Bookseller: Pam
Title: The Rabbit HunterComments: Why hadn't I heard of this series before?! I read this one-- the Rabbit Hunter -- and then immediately had to go find all the ones that had come before. They all are so well written and true page turners! Peopled with genuine characters, taut suspense, and a unique style. I'm hooked on this series!
Bookseller: Pam
Title: Golden StateComments:
Let me begin by saying I've loved Ben Winters' books since reading The Last Policeman back in 2013. His latest doesn't disappoint. A world where truth is required by law because of the confusion of lies (political, scientific, religious) that have corrupted the world's past. And yet even where Truth is required (the Objectively So), it gets complicated. When a branch of government can simply deem things "unknown and unknowable" to disguise ugly truths, what happens to the So then? Philosophy and politics are wrapped up in this police procedural.
It is Truth that I love Ben Winters' speculative fiction!
Bookseller: Pam
Title: A Grief SublimeComments: In her book -- a mix of memoir, love poem, and fiction -- Robbins perfectly captures the fractured nature of grief and moving forward after a tragic loss. It is beautiful and painful; at times it is joyful; but most of all it is true. Like life itself, grief is a bounty of contradictions.
Fry bread is food, shape, sound, color, flavor, time, art, history, place, family, nation. Charmingly illustrated and told in simple but powerful verse: a history of fry bread!
A bonus: the endpapers list the names of many -- all? -- the bands and tribes of Native Americans in the U.S.
The author is a member of the Seminole Nation, Mekusukey Band.
Bookseller: Pam
Title: How ToComments:
Possibly the most fun you will ever have learning about how to do stuff. From how to land on an aircraft carrier to how to play tag to how to decorate a tree and numerous other "how to's" in between. Be prepared to laugh out loud.
Bookseller: Pam
Title: What Rose ForgotComments: The best Nevada Barr to come out in years! Rose is a fully-realized character, charming & witty & smart. She has to prove to herself (and others) not only that she is fully in possession of her memory and her senses but also that she and others are victims of a murderous money-making scheme. Beautifully crafted and funny dialogue shows the depth of care between Rose and her granddaughter as they work to solve the mystery!
Bookseller: Pam
Title: The Lager Queen of MinnesotaComments:
From the author of Kitchens of the Great Midwest comes an equally engaging story of love, loss, finding what you're good at, and taking it as far as it can go. It's also about pie and beer.
Bookseller: Pam
Title: Run AwayComments:
If you are a fan of the suspense genre and haven't yet read Harlan Coben, you've got a lot to look forward to! I envy you having 30+ books to explore and discover. Coben's latest, Run Away, is up there with the best of them. An engrossing story filled with twists and turns and (possible) surprises.
Bookseller: Pam
Title: I Am GodComments:
The story of what happens when God suddenly notices an individual human woman and falls in love with her. Funny, philosophical, deftly told.
*Includes ruminations on ambles through the beauty of the galaxies and on that "alleged son" Jesus.
Bookseller: Pam
Title: Fox 8Comments:
A simple yet profound morality tale told in the form of a letter from Fox 8 to the Yumans who may receive it. Fox 8 learned to speak and read yuman by watching through a window where a lady was "saying Storys to her pups with luv . . . Then due to feeling luv, wud bend down, putting snout and lips to the heds of her pups, which was called 'goodnight kiss.'"The story starts simple and sweet with the above scene. THen the humans destroy the foxes' homes and scare away their food when they build a Mawl. A terrible incident occurs which causes Fox 8 to flee far from the encroaching city to find a new pack and a new life.
A lovely, sweet, terribly sad, yet hopeful paean to the relationship between humans and nature.
Bookseller: Pam
Title: Taking the Arrow Out of the HeartComments: I picked up this book one morning after (yet another) mass shooting -- the second so far this month and it's only the 8th . . . Walker's words soothed me, and allowed me to cry for those I haven't met but who could so easily be mine. The Future Captured in a Heartless Fist begins, "Somehow it is left to us this most hopeful of generations to bear the unbearable." Walker's poems capture not only the present world turmoil, but the beauty of her spirit. Even those like me who are not typically poetry readers will be moved, challenged, and uplifted. "We are in swoon."
Bookseller: Pam
Title: Where the Crawdads SingComments:
Loneliness and melancholy weave a background hum with the beauty of the marshes dancing along as the melody of this song about love of nature and the wild things that dwell far from populated areas, out where the crawdads sing. Abandoned as a child, Kya raises herself with scants bits of help from a few others. She grows to know the salt marshes and becomes an expert on all that lives within them. A tale beautifully told.
Bookseller: Pam
Title: The Salt LineComments:
A dystopian future described through a literary-suspense thriller not quite like anything else I've read. The characters are vivid and true. The story is complete in itself, but I'm left wanting to know what happens next for Edie & West & Marta & Violet as they each move on from the closing scenes. Even the "villains" are well-rounded and empathetic each in their own despicable ways.
Bookseller: Pam
Title: CostalegreComments: Costalegre is presented in the form of a 14 year old girl's diary as she navigates her world populated by a domineering and/or emotionally absent mother and a grou0p of Surrealist artists who are seeking refuge from the Nazis during world war II. In turns, calm, haunting, disturbing. Very well written and memorable. Loosely based on the true life stories of Peggy Guggenheim and her daughter Pegeen.
Bookseller: Pam
Title: Space Unicorn BluesComments:
I picked up this book to read just because of the title, but you may need a little more encouragement! It's about a century old battle between the magical beings of space and humans who have destroyed their own planet and are moving across the universe doing the usual things humans do while exploring new territory (mainly paying little head to the beings that already live there). It's sad and funny and charming, and all the characters are relatable. I loved it and devoured it in a day.
Bookseller: Pam
Title: The Salt LineComments: Compelling, taut, suspenseful, sad . . . What would you do to save the ones you love? Would you choose family over the world? Is it worth saving the world if it means losing the ones we love? Unexpected twists and turns abound and the suspense is "edge of your seat."
Bookseller: Pam
Title: American HippoComments:
An entertaining "western" set in the bayous of Louisiana. Imagine Louis L'Amour with gender fluid characters and hippos instead of horses and cattle. I loved the characters in these stories!
Bookseller: Pam
Title: Not That BadComments:
Essays from a number of writers about their own experiences with varying degrees of sexual harassment, assault, rape, that we tell ourselves are "not that bad" (we didn't die; we weren't physically damaged; he used a knife, not a gun . . .)
These are not my memories; not my words; but all are relatable. Some may make you cry; others rage. All are important. Many people should read this book and perhaps learn something from it.
Edited by Roxane Gay
Bookseller: Pam
Title: Country DarkComments:
A taut, sparse tale of the choices we make for the sake of family and love. Filled with evocative descriptions, there is a memorable line on nearly every page. Like this: "She hoped for a rainbow but none came and she understood that she was an adult now and adults didn't hope for what they couldn't control, but accepted what was there -- the tree in the road, the woods, the soft thin blue of the sky."
Bookseller: Pam
Title: NoirComments:
If you haven't read Christopher Moore, you've been missing some of the funniest, quirkiest novels of the past 20 or so years. This latest is classic Moore in terms of characters and humor, but with a 1940's noir vibe and some aliens from the Roswell, NM crash site . . . Up there with such Moore classics as "Lamb" and "Sacre Bleu," it includes a charming romance between a (not very) tough guy bartender and a five and dime waitress, and a reliable narrator in the form of a black mamba snake named Peter.
Bookseller: Pam
Title: She Rides ShotgunComments:
Beautiful writing about some tough subjects like prison vendettas that spill over into the outside world, losing a parent, growing up, revenge. Violence permeates the pages.
One of the last lines reads, "As Park headed for the door, someone started some music, something with bass in it, something wild and alive and free." This novel is all that and more. Wow.
Independent since 1974 · Phone 413-645-3256 · Mon-Fri 10-6 · Sat 10-5 · Closed Sun · hello@thebookloft.com
