Books

Who better to recommend the best books of the year than librarians? Staffers at the Spokane Public Library released their recommended reads of 2024 (some were published before 2024), all available to check out at area branches or to purchase at local book shops, such as Auntie’s.

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, Dec. 14, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide, powered by Circana BookScan © 2024 Circana. (Reprinted from Publishers Weekly, published by PWxyz LLC. © 2024, PWxyz LLC.) HARDCOVER FICTION 1. "James: A Novel" by Percival Everett (Doubleday) Last week: 2 2. ...

Readers often go to the library to look into the past, checking out books that have already been written and movies that have already been made, accessing information that’s already been shared.

My big takeaway from “Heartbreak Is the National Anthem” was: Is it even possible for the most famous person in the world to get famouser?

If, rather than process recent events, you’d prefer to immerse yourself in a romance novel, you’re hardly alone. Thankfully, 2024 has been an exceptional year for romance releases. Authors worked overtime in their chemistry labs to brew stories designed to make your toes curl and your spine tingle. Here are eight standouts with some niche superlatives to help you decide which love story is your one true match.

Spokane author Megan Young is out with a new children’s book highlighting some of Spokane’s most iconic spots and paying homage to the famous Garbage Goat in Riverfront Park.

I’m not sure if 2024 had a novel, like 2022’s “Babel” or 2023’s “Fourth Wing,” that took the world by storm and reshaped the map of speculative fiction. But this year did have a wealth of unforgettable books, making it tough to narrow things down to the year’s best. These are the 11 I couldn’t stop thinking about.

Comics are famously adept at visibly rendering the mechanics of time. Many of the best graphic novels of 2024 revel in that very capacity, dwelling on the way stories move between generations, how we recall childhood and even on the inhuman cadence of rivers. These 10 books differ wildly in style and content, capturing the remarkable range and diversity of the medium.

The best thrillers of the year find long-standing series in fine form, as well as newcomers to the genre leaving their chilling mark.

Just as I was feeling sated from all the rich literary Guinness, along comes another Irish writer with a lip-smacking pint. Set in an impoverished County Clare village during December 1962, but narrated from an indeterminate point in the future, Niall Williams’s “Time of the Child” dazzles as both Christmas tale and erudite novel. Why should the holiday belong to Richard Paul Evans and the Hallmark Channel?

The impetus for Spokane author Joan Burbick to write “Erased” happened the way it would in a book: Her husband received an oil painting of his mother, who disappeared in Japanese-occupied China during his early childhood.

After authoring and designing pages on myriad topics from “The Star -Spangled Banner” to Chick-Fil-A and Henry Ford’s quadricycle, you’d think Charles Apple would run out of topics to feature in his Further Review series.

In Craig Johnson’s newest novella set in the Longmire universe, “Tooth and Claw,” we follow Walt Longmire’s thrilling adventure in the desolate wilderness of the Arctic Circle. It’s John Carpenter’s “The Thing” crossed with Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws,” as Walt and the geographical survey crew he’s supposed to protect finds itself stranded on glaciers near the northernmost point of Alaska, fighting to survive.

This fall has showcased D.C. weather at its very best – temperatures in the 70s, day after day of luminous blue skies and dry, crisp air, lovely afternoons for strolling in parks or hiking along the Potomac and in Rock Creek Park. Overall, God couldn’t have ordered a better lead-up to my birthday on Nov. 6. As it turned out, though, I spent most of that day in quiet despondency, thinking about the future of this country and the world.

“Orbital,” the fifth novel by Samantha Harvey, won the 2024 Booker Prize for fiction on Tuesday. The novel follows astronauts over the course of 24 hours on a space station. The prize comes with a cash award of 50,000 pounds (just under $64,000).

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, Nov. 9, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide, powered by Circana BookScan © 2024 Circana. (Reprinted from Publishers Weekly, published by PWxyz LLC. © 2024, PWxyz LLC.) HARDCOVER FICTION 1. "The Book of Bill" by Alex Hirsch (Hyperion Avenue) Last week: 7 2. ...

Greetings, Spokane. I’m the guy who creates the Further Review pages for your morning newspaper!

Handel’s “Messiah” is performed every Christmas season around the world. Originally composed in 1741, the English-language oratorio, almost entirely made up of text from the King James Bible, is as popular today as ever. “Messiah” is performed in churches, community centers and massive concert halls, as well as during group sing-alongs. Its arias are ethereal, its hallelujah chorus magnificent. Its message, that of resurrection, is uplifting and transformative, and all the more ironic because it was funded by the transatlantic slave trade. Writer Charles King reveals this and more in his book “Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel’s Messiah.”

Every industry has its rock stars. You know, the kind of person everyone in a chosen profession knows exactly who he or she is.