Paul

About: 

A book lover since my mother read Fox in Sox to me as a child. I still enjoy wandering the median between sound & sense. My areas of interest include poetry, literary fiction, graphic novels, travel, & nature.  I’m operations manager for the bookstore.

Books: 
Staff Pick Badge
Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs By Sally Mann Cover Image
$21.99
ISBN: 9780316247757
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Back Bay Books - April 26th, 2016

Paul's June 2015 pick

Hold Still, by Sally Mann

This fascinating memoir explores the charged territory of familial & cultural history, and how their intersection can both, or sometimes alternately, enlighten and enflame. While evoking place as a source of comfort and cage, Mann also manages to extrapolate meaning from even the most mundane of experiences, in addition to the most gothic or memorable. Photographs of southern landscapes juxtaposed with those of domesticity. There's suicide & homicide & fear & fearlessness & the simple pleasures of swimming and horseback riding. It was her quotidian photographs of her children, of course, some of which included them nude, that first catapulted her to recognition of both the artistic & notorious kind. But seeing the whole panorama of her memories serves as the perfect context from which to understand her art as documentarian rather than provocateur. Mann demonstrates an ability to pluck just the right image to convey her life's arc with words as memorably, as indelibly, as she has often done with her camera. There is a heft to the combination that leaves the reader reassuringly, surprisingly, ecstatically buoyant.

Hold Still, by Sally Mann.

This fascinating memoir explores the charged territory of familial & cultural history, and how their intersection can both, or sometimes alternately, enlighten and enflame. While evoking place as a source of comfort and cage, Mann also manages to extrapolate meaning from even the most mundane of experiences, in addition to the most gothic or memorable. Photographs of southern landscapes juxtaposed with those of domesticity. There's suicide & homicide & fear & fearlessness & the simple pleasures of swimming and horseback riding. It was her quotidian photographs of her children, of course, some of which included them nude, that first catapulted her to recognition of both the artistic & notorious kind. But seeing the whole panorama of her memories serves as the perfect context from which to understand her art as documentarian rather than provocateur. Mann demonstrates an ability to pluck just the right image to convey her life's arc with words as memorably, as indelibly, as she has often done with her camera. There is a heft to the combination that leaves the reader reassuringly, surprisingly, ecstatically buoyant.


Staff Pick Badge
Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea, and Human Life By George Monbiot, George Monbiot (Preface by) Cover Image
By George Monbiot, George Monbiot (Preface by)
$15.00
ISBN: 9780226325279
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: University of Chicago Press - April 26th, 2017

Paul's January 2015 pick

Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea, and Human Life, by George Monbiot

 A fascinating exploration into the attempts to rewild the earth, bringing wolves back to Yellowstone & mountain lions to the Rockies, amongst many other projects. Monbiot discusses not just the geographical but also the emotional aspects of such a rewilding, and how it helps humans to reconnect with the world around them.


Staff Pick Badge
What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions By Randall Munroe Cover Image
$30.00
ISBN: 9780544272996
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Dey Street Books - September 2nd, 2014

Tracy and Paul's joint September 2014 pick
what if? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, by Randall Munroe

What if a former NASA roboticist found a way to talk about scientific facts and principles by answering crazy, silly questions and illustrating the responses with stick-figure cartoons? And what if he was so good at this that thousands of devoted fans couldn’t help but laugh out loud as they read his creatively constructed, scientific answers?
Creator of the popular website xkcd, Randall Munroe brings intelligence and wit to the printed page with what if? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions. Appropriate for everyone from tweens to adults, what if? will have you following friends and family around the house so you can read them excerpts from the book. You’ll learn how much Force power Yoda can really output, and “what would happen if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90 percent the speed of light.” (Nothing good.) You’ll wonder why the science classes you took in school were nothing like this. And you’ll consider emailing xkcd to ask when Munroe’s next book is coming out.


Staff Pick Badge
Over Easy By Mimi Pond Cover Image
$24.95
Likely available, but must be ordered by email/phone
ISBN: 9781770461536
Published: Drawn and Quarterly - April 15th, 2014

Paul's April 2014 pick

Over Easy by Mimi Pond

A fascinating, sometimes laconic, sometimes frenetic exploration of the California of the 1970s, this graphic novel grapples with the drama of growing up in a funny, light-hearted yet strangely moving way. The drawing is as affecting as the storyline. The characters will eerily remind you of friends, or friends of friends, who you end up liking despite everything you learn about them. Pond also has an excellent ear for dialogue & a fine eye for obscure details of diners & dilapidated apartments. The way she captures the transformation of the counter-culture from hippies to punks is brilliant enough to serve as a history lesson for those who were born after “God Save the Queen” conquered radio. You should read this book & revisit the shag carpeting & recreational sex era, when run-down diners could be the place to go for those with nothing better to do than feel alive!


Staff Pick Badge
Correspondences: A poem and portraits By Anne Michaels, Bernice Eisenstein (Illustrator) Cover Image
By Anne Michaels, Bernice Eisenstein (Illustrator)
$35.00
Likely available, but must be ordered by email/phone
ISBN: 9780307962492
Published: Knopf - December 3rd, 2013

Paul's January 2014 pick

Correspondences by Anne Michaels & Bernice Eisenstein

This accordion-style book combines the mesmerizing wordplay of Anne Michael's long poem chronicling both the historical & personal experience of life in the 20th-century with the haunting portraits of Bernice Eisenstein of that same century's seminal thinkers. At once poignant & reassuring, humbling & uplifting, this book transcends making connections to reflect the interconnectedness of lived experience, both of individuals & cultures. The unfolding of the volume also allows for a changed perspective on the reading process itself. It allows us a rare glimpse into the immutable,


"the moment one life

becomes another"

and the whole world changes and few notice it.


Staff Pick Badge
Blue Is the Warmest Color By Julie Maroh Cover Image
$19.95
ISBN: 9781551525143
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Arsenal Pulp Press - September 3rd, 2013

Paul's November 2013 pick

Blue is the Warmest Color by Julie Maroh

A mesmerizing tale of love lost & found & lost again, full of tenderness and the throbbing tumult of being young & besotted, in this case with another woman with blue hair. The artwork compliments the story perfectly. And makes you want to meet these characters out in the real world!

 


Staff Pick Badge
Wave: A Memoir By Sonali Deraniyagala Cover Image
$18.00
ISBN: 9780345804310
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Vintage - December 31st, 2013

Paul's August 2013 pick

Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala

This memoir recounts the terrifying moments of the 2004 Tsunami, and its long harrowing aftermath. In prose both brittle & searing, broken & luminous, transformative & disturbing, Deraniyagala pieces together a brutally honest account of the furious & wretched days and months and years she struggled to come to terms with what happened to her & her world on the day after Christmas in 2004. She careens from ceaselessly trying to erase memories of her happy life before the tidal wave, to relentlessly trying to remember every last thing that occurred before it. This book is so mesmerizing, equally difficult to pick up its painful shards as it is to put them down again.


Sky Ward (Wesleyan Poetry) By Kazim Ali Cover Image
$24.95
Likely available, but must be ordered by email/phone
ISBN: 9780819573575
Published: Wesleyan University Press - February 27th, 2013

Paul's March 2013 pick

Sky Ward by Kazim Ali

A linguistic soaring collection of new poems from Ali, this collection explores desperation and desire and grace through word- and space-play, but remain grounded in the most daily human experiences. The candor and unease riffling the surface of these poems makes their beauty all the more startling.

 


Hunger Mountain: A Field Guide to Mind and Landscape By David Hinton Cover Image
$17.95
Likely available, but must be ordered by email/phone
ISBN: 9781611800166
Published: Shambhala - November 13th, 2012

Paul's December 2012 pick

Hunger Mountain by David Hinton

A series of walks up the mountain outside his back door provides Hinton with an opportunity to examine how the study of Chinese landscape painting, poetry, and his own family life have shaped his own world view. Both poetic and down-to-earth, this small book offers vast rewards, from ruminations on the origins of the cosmos to the transient beauty of a falling snowflake.

 


The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot (Landscapes #3) By Robert Macfarlane Cover Image
$20.00
ISBN: 9780147509796
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Penguin Books - September 24th, 2013

Paul's November 2012 pick

The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot by Robert Macfarlane

Throughout this mesmerizing book, Macfarlane chronicles numerous journeys, most on foot, a few by boat, following the old ways, the trails & pathways used down through the centuries to take people from place to place a back again. It is a book haunted by the landscapes & seascapes of the past, but always look forward to what we will learn from them in the unknowable future. An Odyssey for the post-modern world.


Mother and Child: A Novel By Carole Maso Cover Image
$26.00
Likely available, but must be ordered by email/phone
ISBN: 9781582438184
Published: Counterpoint - June 26th, 2012

Paul's July 2012 pick 

A meditation on the mystery & beauty contained within a simple human life, Maso's new novel chronicles the wanderings of a mother & child through untamed & wonderous landscapes, both of the mind & of the earth.

It is an awesome book! Read it soon!


Love, an Index (McSweeney's Poetry) By Rebecca Lindenberg Cover Image
$18.00
Likely available, but must be ordered by email/phone
ISBN: 9781936365791
Published: McSweeney's - March 20th, 2012

Paul's June 2012 pick

Love, an Index by Rebecca Lindenberg

A multifarious collection of serial poems linked by sadness & joy & longing, as well as the details of the poet's relationship with another poet, who disappears while hiking a volcano. Lindenberg's voice both sings of & matter-of-factly recounts their love, her loss, and one way to go on living even though haunted.


Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail (Oprah's Book Club 2.0) By Cheryl Strayed Cover Image
$18.00
ISBN: 9780307476074
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Vintage - March 26th, 2013

Paul's April 2012 pick

A fascinating chronicle of a woman coming to terms with her life on the pacific crest trail, learning the true meaning of "putting one foot in front of the other" as a guide to living.


Lifespan of a Fact By John D'Agata, Jim Fingal Cover Image
$18.95
ISBN: 9780393340730
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: W. W. Norton & Company - February 27th, 2012

Paul's February 2012 pick

A fascinating meditation on the fraught territory between fact and fiction, truth and accuracy, knowledge and entertainment, this slim book chronicles the development of an essay written by D'Agata through the questioning & clarifying feedback provided by Fingal. Wonderfully insightful, it's also beautifully arranged on the page.


Everything Is Its Own Reward By Paul Madonna (Illustrator) Cover Image
By Paul Madonna (Illustrator)
$35.00
ISBN: 9780872865150
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: City Lights Books - April 19th, 2011

Paul's January 2012 pick

A beautiful ink-washed graphic novel set in San Francisco, with many of the geographical landmarks of the bay area making an appearance, the Golden Gate Bridge, Twin Peaks, the Mission District, in which the collaboration between image & text is fraught with provisional meaning. All the panels are devoid of people, but never of life. Moving in a slow uncertain tender way.


Staff Pick Badge
A History of the World in 100 Objects By Neil MacGregor Cover Image
$35.00
ISBN: 9780143124153
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 Days
Published: Penguin Books - September 24th, 2013

Paul's November 2011 pick

A fascinating approach to the telling of history, using objects left behind by ordinary men & women to chronicle the passing of the world's civilizations. Kaleidoscopic & endlessly surprising. The photographs of the objects are as illuminating as the stories themselves.