Staff Recommendations
Following are some of Northshire Bookstore’s picks for this holiday season.
Mrs. Osmond
By John Banville
This is a continuation of the increasingly unhappy life of Isabel Archer, the lady about whom Henry James wrote his classic portrait. Fleeing a terrible revelation that further jeopardizes her ill-advised marriage to Gilbert Osmond in Rome, Isabel is determined to turn her life around without causing scandalous reverberations in the strictly regimented society that she inhabits. Reading the author’s elegant prose, one can’t help but think that Mr. James would approve of this resurrection of one of his most memorable heroines.
–Alden Graves
Revolution Song
By Russell Shorto
America’s creation from six diverse perspectives: African-born slave, Albany bureaucrat, Iroquois leader, British politician, well-bred young woman, and George Washington. Their noble acts and blinkered decisions, missteps and triumphs, grievances, ambitions, and failures frame the Revolution in personal terms. Washington, in Shorto’s hands, emerges not as a plaster saint, but as a starkly human, and often flawed American.
–Mike Hare
Smitten Kitchen Every Day: Triumphant & Unfussy New Favorites
By Deb Perelman
If the success and praise Perelman’s first book received is any indication, “triumphant” is an appropriate word. Cooks smitten with her first book—the sort of people who love being in the kitchen—will find themselves re-smitten with 112 new recipes and gorgeous photographs.
–Stan Hynds
Singing Away the Dark
By Caroline Woodward
Illustrated by Julie Morstad
For ages 3–6
Hearkening back to a more simplistic time, this sweet tale of a young girl‘s early morning journey through the woods to get to school is charming. The simple illustrations work perfectly in tandem with the spare text. A wonderful book to cuddle up with on a cold winter‘s evening.
–Jessica Wood
Wishtree
By Katherine Applegate
For ages 8–12
Red is a very old oak tree with a unique perspective on the neighborhood; she’s seen it all through the many years that she has been standing and upholding the tradition of Wish Day, a day when the folks in the area adorn the tree with wishes. This many-layered tale is a lovely and gentle reminder of how to graciously move about our ever-changing world.
–Jessica Wood