In the Mood for NEW BOOKS

Before we get into books, we want to thank you for your overwhelming support the last couple of weeks—our internet orders queue is full of orders and we’re doing our best to process all existing orders. We’ll be back to normal on Wednesday, but for now we invite you to shop all of our new releases on Bookshop till then.

This week we’ve got the new Max Brooks novel, a pair of scintillating debuts, a bundle of laughs from Mike Birbiglia, and an inside look into a presidential impeachment.

Devolution by Max Brooks

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of World War Z reinvents the Bigfoot legend with a thriller that blends fact and fiction, natural and supernatural—human and beast.

When Max Brooks first came across the news story, he dismissed it as just another piece of tabloid clickbait. “Bigfoot Destroys Town.” Come on.

Then he stumbled upon victim Kate Holland’s journals, recovered from the wreckage—her day-by-day, firsthand account of what happened. A hoax? Maybe. The ranger who found the carnage sure seems to be convinced, though. As is Kate’s brother, who is sure that Kate is still alive out there, somewhere…

Kate’s story takes place in the community of Greenloop, a high-end, high-tech planned community nestled in the woods of the Pacific Northwest. The place is a technocrat’s back-to-nature paradise: solar-powered smart houses, daily yoga, sustainable fruit orchards, weekly drone deliveries, and an unparalleled view of the mountains.

When Mt. Rainier erupts nearby, blanketing the Northwest in ash and cutting off the rural enclave from civilization, the paradise slowly turns into a nightmare. As the community struggles with the day-to-day requirements of survival, they notice that wildlife is fleeing the woods en masse…and among them, glimpses of humanoid beasts straight out of local legend, growing closer—and hungrier—with each passing day.

In these pages, Max has faithfully reproduced Kate’s account, interspered with his interviews and commentary on the attack, and on the Bigfoot legend itself—leaving it to the reader to decide whether her tale is truth or fiction.

A chilling experience from bestselling author Max Brooks, Devolution is a Bigfoot story like none you’ve seen before.

All Things Left Wild by James Wade

A powerful and lyrical debut: A botched robbery sets two men on conflicting journeys across the untamed landscape of the American West.

After an attempted horse theft goes tragically wrong, sixteen-year-old Caleb Bentley is on the run with his mean-spirited older brother across the American Southwest at the turn of the twentieth century. Caleb’s moral compass and inner courage will be tested as they travel the harsh terrain and encounter those who have carved out a life there, for good or ill.

Wealthy and bookish Randall Dawson, out of place in this rugged and violent country, is begrudgingly chasing after the Bentley brothers. With little sense of how to survive, much less how to take his revenge, Randall meets Charlotte, a black woman experienced in the deadly ways of life in the West. Together they navigate the murky values of vigilante justice.

Powerful and atmospheric, lyrical and fast-paced, All Things Left Wild is a coming-of-age for one man, a midlife odyssey for the other, and an illustration of the violence and corruption prevalent in our fast-expanding country. It artfully sketches the magnificence of the American West as mirrored in the human soul.

Don’t miss the opportunity to catch James Wade in conversation with Owen Egerton live on Zoom, he’ll be joining us on June 18th at 7PM CDT. This event is completely free, just register using the link here!

Hella by David Gerrold

A master of science fiction introduces a world where everything is large and the problems of survival even larger in this exciting new novel.

Kyle is a young man living on the colonized planet of Hella—a world where everything is large, and the problems of survival are even larger. Plants and animals of monstrous proportion fascinate yet terrify the colonists, and though they are fairly well established, with a Winter Headquarters to shelter from the astonishing heat and tornadoes of summer, and a Summer Headquarters to shelter from the deadly ice storms of winter, they are not entirely self-sufficient. And another colony ship is expected soon.

Yet the colonists of Hella have advanced human technology on their side, tech that enables them to change gender at will, and have any mental difference “supported” with implanted chips. Chips that can connect with the colony computers giving those people with implants internal access to almost unlimited data.

Kyle has grown up with an implanted chip, and enjoys the “noise” his chip emparts. Yet, despite the advances of science, humans are still human, and corruption and ambition also thrive on Hella.

When the new colony ship lands on Hella, can Kyle use his special abilities to keep his home colony safe from a would-be autocrat and a coup that threatens his family as well as his home?

Endgame by Rep. Eric Swalwell

How do you stop a rogue president? How do you protect our country from a man who lies, who obstructs justice, and who seeks to cheat with foreign powers to get reelected? Our constitution offers one remedy: impeachment. Thanks to the courageous actions of public servants who came forward to report his abuses of power, on December 18, 2019, President Donald J. Trump became just the third president in US history to be impeached by the House of Representatives.

In Endgame, Congressman Eric Swalwell offers his personal account of his path to office and how he and his colleagues resisted, investigated, and impeached a corrupt president. After the shock of the 2016 election and Trump’s inauguration (including the luncheon afterward), Swalwell, as a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the House Judiciary Committee, quickly became involved in pushing back against Trump’s outrageous actions as he sought to get to the bottom of foreign interference in our elections. But Republicans were in control of the investigation, and it became clear that taking back the House was essential.

Swalwell takes readers inside Congress and through the impeachment process, from Trump’s disgraceful phone call with the Ukrainian president, just one day after Robert Mueller testified to Congress, to caucus meetings and conversations with the Speaker to the bombshell public hearings and the historic vote, and then what followed next—the holding of the articles, the news of more possible witnesses, and the sham trial in the Senate. Endgame is fascinating, a gripping read by a unique witness to extraordinary events.

Sad Janet  by Lucie Britsch

An irresistibly blackhearted comedy about doctors, dating, dogs, and depression

Janet works at a ramshackle dog shelter in the woods. She has a passive-aggressive boyfriend, a meddlesome family, and a clutch of eccentric coworkers. Most of all, she has her “sad”—a comfortable cloak of gloomy realism that brings her comfort when everyone around her has surrendered to the permanent promise of pharmaceutical bliss.

Janet wants no part of this, and her family has nearly given up on her. That is, until the fateful summer when word spreads of a new pill that offers even confirmed cynics a short-term taste of happiness…just long enough to make it through the holidays without sinking into depression. When her family stages an intervention, her boyfriend leaves her, and the prospect of making it through Christmas alone seems like too much, Janet decides to give in to the pressure. What follows is life-changing for all concerned—in ways no one quite expected.

Sharp-tongued, relentlessly witty, yet surprisingly warm, Sad Janet is the depression comedy you never knew you needed.

The New One by Mike Birbiglia

The Margot Affair by Sanaë Lemoine

The secret daughter of a French politician and a famous actress drops the startling revelation that will shatter her family, in this beguiling debut novel of intrigue and betrayal.

“There were so many of us, children of these double families who dreamed of the other side. That night, I fantasized about the separate spheres of our lives colliding…”

Margot Louve has lived her life as her parents’ secret. For seventeen years, her father—an influential French politician with presidential ambitions—has led a double life: his only contact with Margot and her mother conducted in hidden moments away from his wife and official duties.

In their small Parisian apartment on the Left Bank, Margot’s mother, Anouk—a prominent actress—fiercely guards the closed world of secrecy she has built around them. It is a house of cards that Margot, fueled by a longing to be seen and heard, decides to tumble.

That simmering summer, she meets the man who will set her plan in motion: a well-regarded journalist whose trust seems surprisingly easy to gain. But as Margot is drawn into an adult world she struggles to comprehend, she learns how one impulsive decision can change the contours of her world, and the lives of those around her, in ways she could never have imagined.

Stunningly exposing the seams between private lives and public faces, The Margot Affair is a novel of truth and deceit, desire and transgression. It introduces a searing new voice in literary fiction.

We invite you to shop these titles and more through our online storefront at Bookshop while our in-store team works on catching up to existing online orders from your overwhelming support. We’ll be back to taking your orders on Wednesday!