Greetings!
We’ve come through our 50 th year serving Bainbridge Island, and what a year it was! Like many of you, we turned to books to find meaning, comfort, escape, and solace. This year more than ever, we’ve needed books to bring our imaginations forth. Among the booksellers at ye olde bookshoppe, we’ve been discussing our favorite reads from this year. Here are your Eagle Harbor Books Top 25 bestsellers of 2020.
We don’t know what 2021 will bring, but we hope it will be a fresh start. Again, books will play a role, and we are very excited for the 2021 line-up. Scroll down for a list of highly anticipated great reads for the New Year. In the meantime, we’ll continue to learn and adapt to the new realities, and we’ll keep working to create the best reading community we possibly can, stronger for the adversity we’ve shared. Thanks to you, we know that we have many more years together ahead of us.
Please note that we will be closed to conduct inventory from Monday January 4 through Thursday January 7. You can still shop online 24/7 or by phone, and curbside pick-up will be available during this closure.
Happy, happy New Year!
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The most anticipated titles in 2021! |
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Fresh Water for Flowers, by Valérie Perrin
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A bestseller in Europe, this elegant, thoughtful novel will restore your faith in humanity. From her small French village, Violette is the cemetery keeper who soothes the mourners and keeps their secrets. Abandoned by a missing husband, she builds a loyal surrogate family from others who work in the cemetery. When a stranger disturbs her carefully crafted lifestyle, Violette recollects on her own tragedies that lead her there. Be prepared for some tears but also some gorgeous writing. I adored this novel. ~ Jane
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Caste, by Isabel Wilkerson
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Caste is an essential read, a lucid, no-holds-barred examination of race, our nation's history, and the rigid caste system that has been such a destructive force to individuals, communities, and our democracy. Most people think of caste as a foreign system found in places like India. But Wilkerson, through her research, insight, and immersion, argues that caste is "a fixed and embedded value" that rests on the assumption of supremacy of one group over "inferior" others. Caste is the bones in our culture, she writes, and race is the skin. She also explores what a world without caste could be. Please take this book home and begin the work with us!
~ Victoria
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Is This Anything? by Jerry Seinfeld
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If you’ve seen at least several episodes of Seinfeld (who hasn’t?) and you like his sense of humor (who doesn’t?), I can almost guarantee that you’ll enjoy this book. It’s a comprehensive and roughly chronological compilation of every comedy bit that he’s written for his standup routines over the past 40+ years. So, knowing Seinfeld’s vocal style, reading these bits is like hearing him perform them for you as the sole member of the audience. Very entertaining! ~ David
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So Anyway..., by John Cleese |
Having been a fan of Monty Python and the Fawlty Towers series since I was a teen, I fully expected to enjoy this autobiography. But I was also pleasantly surprised that Cleese spends most of the book narrating his life before Python, about which I previously knew virtually nothing. One learns about his childhood, his school days, his nearly becoming a lawyer, and his emergence as a comedy writer and performer on British radio, stage, and television at a remarkably young age. He’s generous in his praise for mentors like David Frost, his longtime writing partner Graham Chapman, and other fellow Pythons. But he wields a merciless wit against people whom he credibly judges to be selfish or clueless. I frequently laughed out loud while reading this wonderful memoir. ~ David
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Mastering Mindful Eating, by Michelle Babb |
I am a huge fan of dietician Michelle Babb's always calm and sensible books on food as a happy, nourishing, healing part of our life. She breaks down the damage done by diets, fads, and low self-esteem, and instead instills a healthy relationship with our bodies and food. Becoming more mindful and listening to what our bodies say, feel, and enjoy, while serving foods that are fresh, non-processed, and without extra sugars and chemicals, will bring a more natural, healthful life. She includes some wonderful recipes, too! ~ Victoria
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The Boy in the Field, by Margot Livesey
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On a fall afternoon in 1999, teenage siblings Matthew, Duncan and Zoe are walking home from school when they encounter a boy lying in a field, unconscious and bloodied. The boy’s life is saved thanks to their quick thinking and concern, but as a result the lives of the siblings are forever changed. On the surface the story is a classic whodunit, but the deeper mysteries of the story lie within the lives of the siblings, their comings of age, their family, and an amazingly prescient dog. This is a spare, swift-moving story, superbly told by a literary master. Livesey’s novels always entertain and always leave the reader a bit breathless. As I came to the end of the story only one word sprang to mind – stunning! ~ Susan
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Still Life, by Val McDermid |
When a lobster fisherman discovers a dead body in Scotland’s Firth of Forth, DCI Karen Pirie is called into investigate. Simple murder cut and dried, done and dusted. Well, not really... Number 6 in award winning Val Mc Dermid’s Karen Pirie series is arguably her most complex and tightly plotted. Karen dives into this multilayered case revealing a clever art forger, a skeleton in a suburban garage, false identities, and the required cooperation of police from Denmark, the Netherlands and Ireland. And just how are these elements connected and who’s the real villain you might ask? Ah, that is what makes this latest Val McDermid so propulsively readable and so very entertaining. Throw in a lot of Edinburgh urban detail and gorgeous Irish countryside and you will be delightfully entertained for hours! ~ Susan
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Eyes that Kiss the Corners
by Joanna Ho
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On Sleepy Hill
by Patricia Hegarty
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Big Rig Rescue
by Chris Gall
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Unplugged
by Gordon Korman
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Here in the Real World
by Sara Pennypacker
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Race to the Sun
by Rebecca Roanhorse
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New Books For Young Adults |
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Lore
by Alexandra Bracken
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One of the Good Ones
by Maika Mouliti
& Maritza Mouliti
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The Librarian of Auschwitz
by Antonio Iturbe
& Lilit Thwaites
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You are welcome!
All Store Book Group titles are discounted 15% up until the date of discussion
Reader's Circle Book Group
January 5, 7:00 pm
by Ken Kesey
Speculative Fiction Book Group
January 5, 7:00 pm
by Frank Herbert
Mystery Book Group
January 26, 7:00 pm
Our popular in-store book groups are now meeting virtually by zoom!
Contact us for the meeting links.
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Thank You For Supporting The Island's Independent Bookstore |
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157 Winslow Way E
Bainbridge Island, WA 98110
206.842.533
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