You will WOLF this one down!

Big news! I just read a book about werewolves, and loved it! Not just werewolves, the LAST werewolf, which also happens to be the title. Glen Duncan (author of I, Lucifer) has a fresh, exciting writing style that kept me pleased and engaged sentence-by-sentence, no matter what was going on with the plot.

Whenever there's a character who by some supernatural phenomenon or another has become immortal (or is enduring a 400-year lifespan, as is the case here), I often find the personality of that character to be quite unbelievable. I never knew why until I read Duncan's book. His protagonist, Jake the werewolf, has lived 200 years and is utterly sick of life. He's painfully aware of the mundane and relentless cycle of cause and effect, punctuated by his monthly transformation. Even in the most nail-biting moments, he is just kind of done with all of it, and it made me realize that yes, that's exactly how one would feel after a life sustained by mandatory cannibalism. Jake is believable and likable because of his humanity; without the “curse,” he would just be another sex-crazed existentialist writing in a journal. Werewolfism turns out to be like a steroid and a depressant: both the best and the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone.

At its core, this novel explores familiar territory. How do we ever really connect with others, especially if we feel different from the rest of the world? I finished the book thankful, however, that Duncan decided to explore a very old and sometimes cliché subject with a very honest sense of the philosophical and the visceral. Never before have such highbrow and lowbrow references shared the same page so gracefully. Give this one a try if you are looking for something refreshing, frank, and scary. I know I'll be recommending it left and right.

Requiescat

Mo' Thackeray, mo' Thackeray, and yet more Thackeray!

--Usedbuyer2.0

On the Superiority of the Fairer Sex

And, yet another selection from the great Thack.


--Usedbuyer2.0

Thackeray's Dinner

More Thackeray, in anticipation of our upcoming celebration of his 200th Birthday!  Please join us July 14th, 7PM, at the University Book Store !

-- Usedbuyer2.0

Summer Reading Rocks!

Summer reading programs are awesome, because reading is already awesome, and getting prizes for doing something that is already awesome is awesome squared. Is that too many awesomes? NO! Impossible. That is how awesome summer reading programs are.

Why should you care? Because we have one this year! Finally! Yay! Here's how our summer reading program works:

1. Come in, sign up (just give a name and e-mail, no money or long questionnaire-answering or microchipping of your children required) and you'll get a reading log to keep track of the books your child reads, a lanyard on which to keep said reading log, a button that says some variation of "Summer Reading Rock Star," and a coupon for 20% off an entire book purchase. Then y'all set about filling that reading log up. You do not have to only write down books you've bought from us. Library books and books you have at home are a-okay. We just want to make it easier to stock up on new lit with those coupons.

2. When the kids have read five whole books (read-alouds are okay, especially for the Pre-K set) come back in and show us the reading log, and they can choose from a bin of prizes scientifically designed to drive elementary schoolers wild—silly bandz, erasers shaped like sushi, tiny slinkies, those giant pink bouncy balls (and honestly, we could all use a giant bouncy ball). They also get another button, and y'all get another coupon.

3. After ten books, kids get a big button that says "I Rocked Summer Reading at University Book Store," and they get to pick out a FREE book from our selection behind the Kids Desk. And hey, what's this, another coupon? These things'll be saving you money till September.

4. If any industrious readers want to go on from there, they can get another reading log and start over, and keep getting those fabulous prizes. At the end of the summer, we'll have a drawing for all the folks who've signed up, and someone from each participating branch will win a backpack full of school supplies! (All the school supply-loving children like me say, Yeeeeeaah! All the other kids'll groan, I know. How can you not love the smell of fresh binders and pencils, huh? It's the best.)

5. We're also encouraging readers to write and turn in Young Reader's Review cards, because we put those up on the shelf to help recommend books that you liked to other kids. And also because it's really fun to talk and write about the books you love. (And also because we do a monthly drawing of those cards and the winner gets a gift card to the store.)

And that's it. You're welcome. We are loving this program. So many people have signed up already we can hardly believe it. It's super exciting. And if you want some book recommendations from our professional book recommenders in the Kids Department, head over to the Summer Reading page on our website. Three cheers!


--Anna,  Kids

What are you reading this summer?

If you come into the store in the next few months (and why wouldn't you?), stop by our new Summer Staff Favorites display. We have everything from childhood favorites (A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L'Engle; Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome) to new nonfiction (Fire Season by Philip Connors; Tolstoy and the Purple Chair by Nina Sankovitch) and classic fiction (Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry; The Hunter by Richard Stark.) If all you can think about this summer is eating delicious things, there are some beautiful cookbooks to choose from (Fried Chicken and Champagne by Lisa Dupar; Plenty by Yotam Ottolenghi)
I promise there will be no more parenthesis in this blog post.
These and many more great picks await your perusal. If you don't live around here, why not give our new "Ask A Bookseller" button a whirl and let us recommend something to you? Tell us what kind of books you like, give us a price range, and we will send you whatever sounds good. Personal shopper + free shipping = summer reading success!!


--Seija

For your bathroom reading pleasure...

Ok, now who is going to start making these!?  We need these in the store!

Ask A Bookseller!

Big (medium-sized?) news around here: we've added an Ask A Bookseller button to our website. It looks like the green square above. Now, that one's not a link, because I'm not quite savvy enough to do that, but if you go to our books homepage, it'll be there on the right-hand side and clicking on the real one will make your computer send us an e-mail. Here are some kinds of questions you could ask us through e-mail:

1. Do you have any used copies of that new hardcover that was just on the radio? (Maybe.)

2. What's the perfect book for a precocious six-year-old who likes adventure-y or fantasy books? (David and the Phoenix.)

3. Can you put Zeitoun on hold for me at your U District store? No, wait, in Bellevue? (Absolutely. Do you want the paperback for $15.95, or the remainder hardcover for $9.98?)

4. Are you guys going to do a summer reading program? (Yes!)

5. What was Lewis Carroll's real name again? (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.)

That's it! Easy as pie. And if that button doesn't work for you, you can e-mail us at ubs [underscore] askabookseller [at] earthlink.net. Except you should put an actual underscore and an actual @ sign instead of those brackets. I think if I write it out fully, robots from space will start sending us e-mails about certain medications and princes who need our bank account numbers.

Ask us a question!

-Anna, Kids Books