Eagle Harbor Book Co.
French words are connected by the liaison system, in which a word ending in a consonant links to the next one if it begins with a vowel. They're impressionable, a little bit fickle, behaving differently depending on whom they're with. A French word, if all its friends did, would definitely jump off the Brooklyn Bridge.  
~ Lauren Collins,  Love in Translation,  The New Yorker 2016
Limericks to the rescue... 

Last month was the latest example that the world seems to be getting curiouser and curiouser. On the same day the news delivered a picture of a huge ice sculpture of a North Korean Hwasong-15 intercontinental missile, our President self-diagnosed himself as a "very stable genius." In filming a documentary of the Queen's coronation, the  BBC was not allowed to photograph her crowns from above because that is a vantage point reserved for God. A New York Times Magazine reviewer of an alt-right forum identified prominent right-wing agitators married to or dating Asian women and concluded that "dating Asian women is practically a 'white-nationalist rite of passage.'" And just half-way through the month, the United Arab Republic's government announced a new nature reserve that would cover 10% of Dubai's landmass. Its Prime Minister explained that the desert is both inspirational and beautiful and provides a peaceful shelter to plants, birds and people. The Reserve will include areas for commerce and yoga.

Limericks written by islanders for our occasional limerick contests might be a refreshing reset to start the New Year.  Our Ann and John penned these to warm up past contestants:

A lady from Head of the Bay
Went up to Saint Barnie's to pray
There the vicar within
Apprised her of sin
And she's riddled with guilt to this day
There once was a man from Fort Ward
Who was overly proud of his sword
He buckled and swashed
And enemies quashed
But occasionally relatives gored                                         
                                                         

~ Dave


Author Events and Readings
Thursday, February 1, 7:00pm
North Cascades National Park is remote, rugged, and spectacularly majestic. In the early '60's, conservationists who were troubled by the National Park Service's policy favoring development for tourism and the US Forest Service's policy promoting logging in the national forests leveraged a changing political environment and the evolving environmental values of the natural resource agencies. Their activism eventually led to the 1968 creation of a crown jewel--Washington's magnificent third national park. This engaging account tells the story.  Lauren Danner, PhD, is a writer and historian based in Olympia, Washington. She focuses on public lands policy, Pacific Northwest and environmental history, and outdoor recreation. 

Monday, February 5,  11:15am
Marieke Nijkamp a best-selling author of Young Adult fiction from the Netherlands, will visit Bainbridge High School to talk to students about writing and about her latest book,  Before I Let Go. Though the school event is not open to the public, Marieke will be able to sign copies for fans who contact us before Feb. 5. When ordering on our website, please include any inscription request in the notes field.


Thursday, February 8, 6:30pm
Book Lover's Night Out at Bainbridge Public Library!
In a book club? Want to join or start a book club? Just love books? Join the Bainbridge Public Library and  Seattle7Writers for a library fundraiser, all about bookclubs! There will be authors, snacks, wine, and prizes (21 years-old and over). Tickets are #35 per person. Seattle mystery writer  Kevin O'Brien will moderate a panel of best-selling authors, including  Erica BauermeisterCarol CassellaClaire Dederer, and Laurie Frankel. For tickets, please visit the bookstore, or purchase online at Eventbrite.


Saturday, February 10, 7:00pm
at BARN: All You Need is Love!
Bring your Valentine or come solo for chocolate, wine, and six award-winning and best-selling local authors reading original works with six wildly different perspectives on love and life.  Lynn Brunelle, known for her children's science books and parenting classics like   Mama Gone Geek, will host as authors read short stories, each starting with the first line from Joseph Heller's classic  Catch 22: "It was love at first sight." Other authors joining in will be  Carol CassellaMegan ChanceBridget FoleyWarren Read, and  Susan Wiggs. This event will be at BARN Writers' Studio, from 7-9pm.



Sunday, February 11, 3:00pm
Join us for a double-header event featuring elegant and memorable writing! Seattle author  Anca L. Szilágyi  will talk about her debut novel,  The Daughters of the Airand Port Townsend writer  Julie Christine Johnson ( In Another Life)  will return to Eagle Harbor for a look at her latest novel,  The Crows of BearaBoth of their literary novels include elements of the fantastic. For magical realism fans, this is a must.
Anca L. Szilágyigrew up in Brooklyn. Her writing has  appeared in the  Los Angeles Review of BooksElectric LiteratureGastronomica, and  Fairy Tale Review, among other publications.  The Stranger hailed Anca as one of the "fresh new faces in Seattle fiction."
Julie Christine Johnson has written short stories and essays that have appeared in journals including Emerge Literary Journal, Mud Season Review, Cirque: A Literary Journal of the North Pacific Rim, Cobalt, and River Poets Journal. 
Julie's debut novel  In Another Life went into a second printing three days after its February 2016 release. A hiker, yogi, and swimmer, Julie makes her home in northwest Washington state.


Thursday, Feb. 15, 6:30pm
Calling all book groups -- and anyone interesting in joining one! Hot on the heels of our  Annual Book of the Year Survey, we present an evening that promises to abound with ideas and camaraderie for the many bibliophiles that call us headquarters. We are dedicating this evening to you! 
Martha Bayley, former fiction buyer for KRL, will open our evening.  She with be followed by  Random House representatives  Katie Mehan and  David Glenn, who will talk about invigorating book group selections for great reads and discussions. All these selections will be discounted at the event! The event is open to all, including those who seek a book group or wish to form one! Finally, the highly anticipated 
Book of the Year winners will be announced. Free books, great reading recommendations, refreshments -- this will be heaven for book groupies one and all!
 

Sunday, Feb. 18, 7:00pm
We are delighted to present former Islander  Anna Quinn  for a reading from her debut novel,  The Night Child. This breathtaking debut novel examines the impact of traumatic childhood experiences and the fragile line between past and present. Exquisitely nuanced and profoundly intimate, 
The Night Child  is a story of resilience, hope, and the capacity of the mind, body, and spirit to save itself despite all odds. Anna Quinn owns the Writers' Workshoppe and Imprint Bookstore in Port Townsend, Washington, where she has been named the city's Patron of the Arts. She is a published poet and essayist with twenty-six years of experience teaching and leading writing workshops across the country.

Tuesday, Feb. 20, 12:00pm
When marine biologist Ray Berringer and his student crew embark on an oceanographic cruise in the Gulf of Alaska, the waters are troubled in more ways than one. Powerful bonds are forged among offbeat characters studying the effects of ocean acidification on pteropods, a tiny, keystone species, in this cutting-edge CliFi novel. Nancy Lord writes from her home base in Homer, Alaska. Her work is informed by a deep connection to the landscape and culture of the place she calls home. pH  is her first novel.


Sunday, February 25, 3 :00pm
How will our patterns of thinking shape our future? What does the future hold for our civilization? Can the patterns of the past help us make sense of where we're going? Join world-renowned authors  Jeremy Lent  and  David Korten  in a discussion of the patterns that have shaped history, and what it means for upcoming generations. The Patterning Instinct  uncovers the hidden foundations of our modern unsustainable worldview, and offers a vision for a more harmonious future. The Guardian  columnist George Monbiot has called the book "perhaps the most profound and far-reaching I've ever read."


More In-Store Events
Saturday, February 10, 11:00am
Have you caught the  bullet journaling craze? Join us as our newest bookseller/artist Rose gives a workshop to get you started. What you will discover is a creative and inspiring method of keeping a to-do list, planner, and/or diary in a single notebook. Creativity abounds, there are no rules, and it provides a format to keep you organized like never before. We will have all the supplies to create your new journal.



Wednesday, February 21, 5-7pm
Eagle Harbor Books is happy to support Peacock Family Services with an in-store book fair! We will donate
20% of all sales between 5pm and closing to this unique Bainbridge resource, whose mission is to help the children of North Kitsap County reach their full potential, nurtured by families and caregivers who feel supported, informed, and connected. Read more...



STAFF FAVES OF 2017: A PREVIEW

Your local booksellers have a lot of strong opinions about books that they read. As each year opens, we ask them to name their three favorites from the previous year. These books, forty-plus in number, will be up for display in our Staff Recommends section. Watch for them! Here's a sample from the list, a preview of the past year's titles about which our EHBC staff feels passionate:



The Long Haul: a Trucker's Tales of Life on the Road, 
by Finn Murphy 
This memoir by a career long-haul trucker with a classical education and a cross-country crush on  PR's Terry Gross is more than one person's story. It's a fascinating exploration of flyover America by someone who's seen the worst of it -- and still has faith in the best of it. His perspective on what ails the country is a prescription every bit as essential as that provided in  Hillbilly ElegyNomadland, and other nonfiction journeys through our non-coastal country.  ~ Jim




Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates 
Coates writes this short and poetic book to his son, offering him advice on living unafraid but self-protective as a boy of color in white supremacist America. He covers some of his own formative experiences and those of his classmates at Howard University, including dealing with the loss of a friend who was killed by a policeman. ~ Rose




Hawkeye: My Life as a Weapon, by Matt Fraction,
David Aja, and Javier Pulido
I've had multiple people tell me this is a great starting point for reading comics about Hawkeye, and within a few pages it was easy to see why. There are no muscle-bound uber-mensches here. Rather, in the muted palette and the brisk storytelling, you get the sense of a man who is just kind of muddling through the superhero business, because he feels some kind of conscience and possibly just doesn't know what else to do. His life might be a disaster, but it's a wonderfully fun one to read about. Ages 13-22. ~ Jo




To the Bright Edge of the World, by Eowyn Ivey
A lyrical tale crossing centuries, set in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. Ivey introduces us to Sophie and her husband, Col. Allen Forrester, part of the early wave of explorers and settlers of European descent in the west, whose unique and loving partnership defies the expectations of the times. Their stories, retrieved from boxes in an attic a century later, are intertwined with the correspondence of the couple's great nephew and a young museum exhibits curator in the Alaskan town near where much of story takes place. Enchanting!
~ Victoria




The Fortune Teller, by Gwendolyn Womack
An archivist specializing in ancient texts is asked to appraise a tarot deck, perhaps the earliest deck known, dating back thousands of years. In a parallel tale, the mysterious history of the deck is revealed as the modern-day drama of the appraiser and her mysterious wealthy client unfolds. A suspenseful tale, steeped in mysticism. ~ Jane




The Explorer, by Katherine Rundell 
This is my favorite middle grade book of 2017! Four very different kids survive a plane crash in the Amazon jungle, and readers will be fascinated by how they build a raft, harvest honey like monkeys, taste spiders, and adopt an orphan sloth. As they struggle, they learn a new respect for the natural world and wild, untamed places. Ages 8-12. ~ Alison 



New in Hardcover Fiction
Need to Know
by Karen Cleveland
Gnomon
by Nick Harkaway
Red Clocks
by Lenz Zumas
Brass
by Xhenet Aliu
King Zeno
by Nathaniel Rich
The Sky is Yours
by Chandler Klang Smith
New in Hardcover Nonfiction
Heavens on Earth
by Michael Shermer
The Collector of Lives
by Ingrid Rowland and Noah Charney
A Kind of Mirraculas Paradise
by Sandra Allen
Anatomy of a Genocide
by Omer Bartov
So You Want to Talk About Race
by Ijeoma Oluo
When They Call You a Terrorist
by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele
New in Paperback Fiction
This Is How It Alwas Is
by Laurie Frnakel
A Horse Walks Into a Bar
by David Grossman
The Perfect Nanny
by Leila Slimani
Kiss Carlo
by Adriana Trigiani
Celine
by Peter Heller
Ill Will
by Dan Chaon
New in Paperback Nonfiction
Reality Is Not What It Seems
by Carlo Rovelli
Never Caught
by Ona Judge
Letters to a Young Muslim
by Omar Saif Ghobash
100 Million Years of Food
by Stephen Le
Storm in a Teacup
by Helen Czerski
Presence
by Amy Cuddy
New Books for Kids
Be Kind
by Pat Zietlow Miller
Yellow Kayak
by Nina Laden
The Digger and the Flower
by Joshph Kuefler
The Unicorn Quest
by Kamilla Benko
The Royal Rabbits of London
by Santa Montefiore
A Problematic Pardox
by Eliot Sappingfield
New Books for Young Adults
The Hazel Wood
by Melissa Albert
The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza
by Shaun David Hutchinson
Speak: The Graphic Novel
by Laurie Halse Anderson
And there's more...

Cyber Monday - February 5
Save 20% on all online orders! Choose to pay online or when you pick it up at the store. Or we can ship for you. Just fill up your cart and enter the coupon code  EHBC20  when you check out.
Store Book Groups:
Drop in - You are welcome!


February 6, 7:00 pm
Commonwealthby Ann Patchett
       

February 27, 7:00 pm
The Girl in the Spider's Web,  by David Lagercrantz
  

Digital Books:  
If you are new to  e-books or audio books, 
let us help you get started.


Did you know that you can buy eBooks right from our Eagle Harbor Book Co. website? You can purchase  Kobo e-Readers in our store, and with the Kobo app you can also buy eBooks onto smart phones, tablets, and computers (excluding Kindles). There are millions of titles available, and the best news is that your Kobo purchases help to support your local bookstore!   See our  Kobo FAQ for more information.


Eagle Harbor Books has partnered with Libro.fm to offer a fantastic audio book service to our customers. You can choose from over 70,000 audio books and help support Eagle Harbor Book Co. by  clicking on this link and starting your membership today

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island's independent bookstore