Blogs

GRACE NOTES - FEBRUARY 2023

Black History Month is not just a celebration of Black achievement and Black joy, it is a time of reckoning and reflection on the ongoing echoes of America’s painful past.

In Perceval Everett’s stinging dark comedy, The Trees, that past is laid as bare and bloody as the open wound that it still is. Part social justice polemic, part revenge horror, part buddy-cop procedural, it is a searing indictment of institutionalized racism in America.

GRACE NOTES - NOVEMBER 2022

Fall is the perfect season for a road trip, and for stocking up on books for the cold months from your favorite local indie. I took to the road a few weeks ago for a whirlwind Great Lakes independent bookstore tour that took me from Detroit to Toronto to Buffalo and places between. I visited 10 stores in 6 cities in 4 days. Whew! So many great shops, each with its unique flavor. Here’s my travelogue:

GRACE NOTES - SEPTEMBER 2022

The book was better.” We hear this axiom every day at the store, with the plethora of books being adapted into films and series. I can’t begin to understand the challenges of taking several hundred pages of text and realizing it on the screen. What to retain? What to leave out? How much can you change without betraying the author’s intent or making those who have read the book howl in protest?

GRACE NOTES - AUGUST 2022

 

This month, I’ll be judging books by their covers. It may or may not come as a surprise, but as booksellers, we do this all the time. We often find that a pretty face does not always signify a vacuous read; often it’s quite the opposite. Each of the books below hits the sweet spot of gorgeous cover art with great writing behind it.

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