BookFriends, the cold is settling in on Central Texas, but our new releases keep coming and they’re keeping us cozy while inside the store. This week we’ve got a few titles celebrating some icons we’ve lost in recent years, some stellar non-fiction, and a special treat for Michael Crichton fans! Read along for more!
Carrie Fisher: A Life on the Edge by Sheila Weller
It’s been nearly three years since we lost Carrie Fisher and we’re still reeling from it. But we’re thrilled to finally get a chance to re-live the crazy days and wild nights of one of our most beloved Hollywood icons with Carrie Fisher: A Life on the Edge.
Biographer Sheila Weller traces Fisher’s life from her Hollywood royalty roots to her untimely and shattering death just days before Christmas 2016. Weller exposes us to the demons that haunted Fisher all her life, particularly bipolar disorder and a drug addiction from which she could never quite free herself. We follow her career from her debut in Shampoo to the fame-making Star Wars; dive into her serious relationships with Paul Simon and the talent agent Bryan Lourd; witness her metamorphosis from actress to bestselling author; and watch her turn into a casual spokesperson for mental illness. Sourced by friends, colleagues, and witnesses to all stages of Fisher’s life, Carrie Fisher is an affectionate and even-handed portrayal of a woman whose unsurpassed honesty is a reminder of how things should be.
Grab this gorgeous volume today and read along with us as we prepare to send her off in her final appearance on screen when The Rise of Skywalker debuts later this year.
Essays One: Reading and Writing by Lydia Davis
We’re celebrating the release of this big, new book from the inimitable Lydia Davis! Resident short story buff Uriel loves her writing, calling her “the Queen of flash fiction…no one does more with less,” and he, along with the rest of us, is eager to dive into this brand new volume that compiles her thoughts on reading and writing.
Though she’s best known for her fiction writing and translation work, Davis’s gifts extend equally to her nonfiction. This title gathers, for the first time, a selection of essays, commentaries, and lectures composed over the past five decades. In this first of two volumes, her subjects range from her earliest influences to her favorite short stories, from John Ashbery’s translation of Rimbaud to Alan Cote’s painting, and from the Shepherd’s Psalm to early tourist photographs. On display is the development and range of one of the sharpest, most capacious minds writing today.
Bowie’s Bookshelf by John O’Connell
When Bowie passed in early 2016, he left behind a reading list of 100 titles that influenced his art and changed his life. His choices span fiction and nonfiction, literary and irreverent, and include timeless classics alongside eyebrow-raising obscurities.
In the time since, music writer John O’Connell has put together 100 short essays on those titles, contextualizing it as it pertains to Bowie’s life and works. How did the power imbued in a single suit of armor in The Iliad impact a man who loved costumes, shifting identity, and the siren song of the alter-ego? How did The Gnostic Gospels inform Bowie’s own hazy personal cosmology? How did the poems of T.S. Eliot and Frank O’Hara, the fiction of Vladimir Nabokov and Anthony Burgess, the comics of The Beano and The Viz, and the groundbreaking politics of James Baldwin influence Bowie’s lyrics, his sound, his artistic outlook?
These answers and more lie within this sturdy volume that serves as an epic reading guide, Bowie biography, and keepsake for diehard fans.
The Andromeda Evolution by Daniel H. Wilson
More than fifty years ago, bestselling author Michael Crichton published his groundbreaking techno-thriller, The Andromeda Strain, that posited what would happen if a super virus ravaged the Earth, wiping out droves of the human population.
Fans of the author have been reading it for decades, but many have wondered what to make of the inconclusive ending? But now those questions will finally be answered! Bestselling science fiction writer and fan of Crichton’s writing, Daniel H. Wilson, has been entrusted with continuing the story in The Andromeda Evolution.
Booksellers have been eagerly awaiting this title, we hope you dive in with us and read up on what’s been happening since the event’s of the first book…
The Suspect by Kent Alexander & Kevin Salwen
Have you seen the trailer for the new Clint Eastwood film, Richard Jewell? We have, and we’ve been pouring over web forums and Wikipedia pages untangling the series of events that took place one fateful day in Atlanta during the 1996 Olympics in which a bag of explosives disrupted the games when it detonated and injured 100+ attendees and killed two.
The story behind all that is recounted in Kent Alexander and Kevin Salwen’s The Suspect. In what is the culmination of five years worth of investegative reportage, Alexander and Salwen piece together what really happened during that evening at the Olympic Games, delve into the character of the supposedly lowly security guard, Richard Jewell, who went from hero to villain overnight in the eyes of the media and FBI following the bombing, and traces for us the gripping story of an event that ushered in a steady rise in domestic terrorism in the United States. This story is unmissable — grab it today!
No One Is Too Small To Make a Difference by Greta Thunberg
We’ve been enthralled with the saga of Greta Thunberg, the sixteen year-old who’s captivated the hearts and minds of millions in her pursuit of environmental justice. Her actions sparked a global movement, inspiring millions of students to go on strike for our planet, forcing governments to listen, and earning her a Nobel Peace Prize nomination.
In No One Is Too Small to Make A Difference, the speeches that have made history across the globe, from the United Nations to the streets of her home country, they are collected here.
Her book is a rallying cry for why we must all wake up and fight to protect the living planet, no matter how powerless we feel. Our future depends upon it.
Get this fiery, urgent volume today!
It’s Gary Shandling’s Book, edited by Judd Apatow
From Judd Apatow comes this brand new, illustrated and thoughtfully put together portait of Gary Shandling in It’s Gary Shandling’s Book. There’s no one better to tell Shandling’s story either—Shandling gave Apatow one of his first jobs and remained his mentor for the rest of Shandling’s life; as well, the book expands on Apatow’s Emmy Award-winning HBO documentary, The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling.
Apatow has gathered journal entries, photographs, and essays for a close-up look at the artist who turned his gaze back onto the world of show business. His diaries show Shandling to be self-aware and insightful, revealing a deep philosophical and spiritual side. Contributions by comedians and other leading lights of the industry, as well as people who grew up with Shandling, along with never-before-seen pieces of scripts and brilliant jokes that he never performed, shed new light on every facet of his life and work. This book is the final word on the lasting impact of the great Garry Shandling.
You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, but you’ll be happy to get into the mind of this one of a kind performer and artist.
The Ghost in Apartment 2R by Denis Markell
The Ghost in Apartment 2R presents a brand new kid-friendly mystery about three friends who try to help a restless spirit find peace. It begins when Danny’s older brother takes off for college and leaves behind an angry ghost in the room that used to be his.
With the help of his friends Nat and Gus, Danny interviews everyone his Brooklyn neighborhood to find out about spirits. Is it an Arabian ghoul? A Korean gwishin? A Polish haunting? Maybe the answer lies with Danny’s own bubbe and her tales of a dybbuk, a Jewish mythological ghost. Regardless of its origins, what does the spirit truly want? And can Danny manage to bring the phantom to rest?
Merrillee ate this one up, saying, The Ghost in Apartment 2R is “probably not the scariest ghost story you’ve ever read, but maybe one of the best written, and most fun to read…it had such a satisfying ending, too – so good!!” Get yours today!
That’s it for new releases this week, folks! We hope to see you around these parts next week, or, if you happen to drop by the store, give us a wave and we’ll show you all the new books we just got in. You might find your new favorite in the stacks!
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