A Treason of Thorns (Hardcover)

By Laura E. Weymouth

$16.19

Weymouth, author of the excellent Light Between Worlds, has produced a sublimely atmospheric coming of age story built around the premise that the realm of England is safeguarded by the powers of six ancient houses and their keepers. The houses are sentient, magic wielding dwellings whose powers control the well being of their surrounding territories and are duty bound to serve the Crown.  In Treason of Thorns a young keeper Violet  finds herself torn between duty to house and crown as her own house Burleigh, veers toward madness and rebellion.

Dasher: How a Brave Little Doe Changed Christmas Forever (Hardcover)

By Matt Tavares, Matt Tavares (Illustrator)

$16.19

Renowned Maine author and illustrator mat Tavares has outdone himself with this exquisitely illustrated tale of one of Santa's reindeer. Young Dasher lives in a traveling circus performing under a hot sun. His mother regales him with magical tales of the distant north and Dasher, being brave, escapes during a storm which has blown the pen door open. He follows the north star to find his destiny. Dasher is sure to be a beloved holiday classic.

Charlie Thorne and the Last Equation (Hardcover)

By Stuart Gibbs

$16.19

With The Last Equation Gibbs, author of the popular Spy School books, launches a new espionage series built around tough egg and thirteen year old girl genius Charlie Thorne.  This is a terrific story which incorporates a fascinating plot device, an equation, Pandora, developed by Einstein butwhich he considered too dangerous for humanity. Pandora's whereabouts are being chased by the CIA, Mossad, and an evil minded group known as the Furies. Einstein hid the equation where he hoped  only someone safe to find it will be able to discover, and Charlie is brought in by her CIA half brother to see if she can find it before the Furies do. Charlie is a very appealing character and the story has just the right blend of action, adventure, and puzzle solving.

Fox and the Box (Hardcover)

By Yvonne Ivinson, Yvonne Ivinson (Illustrator)

$16.19

Toddlers and their parents will love sharing this wonderfully engaging book with its simple word play, gentle adventure, charming illustrations,  and sly humor. A revelation on every page awaits its readers. Children will want to return here many times and parents will not tire of joining them. Delightful!

 

How To: Absurd Scientific Advice for Common Real-World Problems (Hardcover)

By Randall Munroe

$25.20

Munroe, who has a genius for combining good science with absurd contexts, is the author of two previous fun titles What If? and Thing Explainer. He has delivered the goods again with how to: Absurd Scientific Advice For Common Real World Problems. Aptly billed as "the world's most entertaining  and useless self help guide" how to offers sketchy but scientifically plausible advice on how to do such things as catch a wedding-photography drone with sports equipment, make friends and cross rivers using accurate, but manifestly unsafe or ill considered applications of applied physics.

The Book of Delights: Essays (Hardcover)

By Ross Gay

$21.56

Accomplished poet Ross Gay took it upon himself to record one instance or aspect of delight every day for a year. The result  is just as the title indicates, absolutely delightful and a steady antidote to the heaviness and despair which often threatens to engulf our vision. Gay's eye finds delight in small moments and surprising places, deftly affecting the sight of his readers, infectiously luring them into uncovering simple joys in their own worlds. The Book of Delights is as perfect a gift book as you'll ever encounter.

The Crayons' Christmas (Hardcover)

By Drew Daywalt, Oliver Jeffers (Illustrator)

$17.99

The team which has brought children the enormously popular The Day the Crayons Quit and The Day the Crayons Came Home delivers a holiday book sure to please their legion of fans. This tale of how the different crayons celebrate the holidays includes interactive lists and letters, a pop up Christmas tree, and even a menorah as it turns out that one of the crayons celebrates Hanukkah.

The Starless Sea: A Novel (Hardcover)

By Erin Morgenstern

$26.06

Night Circus author Erin Morgenstern's long awaited second novel is simply sublime. The Starless Sea's exploration and immersion in a world of other books, their making, care, and reading, results in  a magnificently layered world built of stories, world building, secrets and secret societies, wayfaring, the machinations of love and time, the adventures of fighting and yielding to change.  All of the  alluring elements of which it is made find a singularly powerful voice in the rich, honeyed pages of the Starless Sea. This is an ambitious book, fully realized, that any lover of words will savor.

As Many Nows as I Can Get (Hardcover)

By Shana Youngdahl

$16.19

The big national debut by Farmington author Shana Youngdahl  is an absolute tour de force. Am I biased in the book's favor because I know Shana? No! The book has such a dynamic immediacy, a skillfully intricate narrative structure, and a challenging, open ended engagement with its protagonists, that any positive personal  bias I came in with was subsumed in the obvious and true excellence of the book.

The story is narrated by Scarlett, a big fish in a small Colorado town, with a passion for physics. The book’s power partially derives from the reader’s strong attachment to a character who embarks on a string of incredibly painful bad decisions. Scarlett is a subtly unreliable narrator. Her perception of herself as a careful person who doesn’t ordinarily make impulsive mistakes, the reader comes to realize, is slightly off center. Another exceptional element of the book derives from Scarlett’s adherence to Einstein’s understanding of the simultaneity of the past, present and future, an illusion of linear progression but in fact a perpetual series of nows. Shana takes Scarlett’s notion of time to create a narrative whose constant temporal shifts accentuates the power of the story. This is a book which will speak strongly to most anyone from fifteen to adult.