Thunderstruck by Erik Larson

Thunderstruck
by Erik Larson

In Thunderstruck, Erik Larson tells the interwoven stories of two men - Hawley Crippen, a very unlikely murderer, and Guglielmo Marconi, the obsessive creator of a seemingly supernatural means of communication - whose lives intersect during one of the greatest criminal chases of all time. A true story of love, murder, and the end of the world's "great hush."

In Thunderstruck, Erik Larson tells the interwoven stories of two men?Hawley Crippen, a very unlikely murderer, and Guglielmo Marconi, the obsessive creator of a seemingly supernatural means of communication?whose lives intersect during one of the greatest criminal chases of all time.

Set in Edwardian London and on the stormy coasts of Cornwall, Cape Cod, and Nova Scotia, Thunderstruck evokes the dynamism of those years when great shipping companies competed to build the biggest, fastest ocean liners, scientific advances dazzled the public with visions of a world transformed, and the rich outdid one another with ostentatious displays of wealth. Against this background, Marconi races against incredible odds and relentless skepticism to perfect his invention: the wireless, a prime catalyst for the emergence of the world we know today. Meanwhile, Crippen, "the kindest of men," nearly commits the perfect crime.

With his superb narrative skills, Erik Larson guides these parallel narratives toward a relentlessly suspenseful meeting on the waters of the North Atlantic. Along the way, he tells of a sad and tragic love affair that was described on the front pages of newspapers around the world, a chief inspector who found himself strangely sympathetic to the killer and his lover, and a driven and compelling inventor who transformed the way we communicate. Thunderstruck presents a vibrant portrait of an era of séances, science, and fog, inhabited by inventors, magicians, and Scotland Yard detectives, all presided over by the amiable and fun-loving Edward VII as the world slid inevitably toward the first great war of the twentieth century. Gripping from the first page, and rich with fascinating detail about the time, the people, and the new inventions that connect and divide us, Thunderstruck is splendid narrative history from a master of the form.

About the Author

Erik Larson is the bestselling author of the National Book Award finalist and Edgar Award?winning The Devil in the White City. He lives in Seattle with his wife, three daughters, and a dog named Molly.

Northwest Bestsellers - wk ending Oct. 22, 2006

Bestsellers in the Pacific Northwest

The Pacific Northwest Independent Bestseller List based on reporting from the independent booksellers of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association and Book Sense. Most of these books aren't books from the Pacific Northwest, but are books that are currently selling well in the Pacific Northwest. Week ending October 22, 2006.

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. Thirteen Moons, Charles Frazier
2. What Came Before He Shot Her, Elizabeth George
3. The Road, Cormac McCarthy
4. For One More Day, Mitch Albom
5. Echo Park, Michael Connelly
6. The Willow Field, William Kittredge
7. Under Orders, Dick Francis
8. Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen
9. The Whistling Season, Ivan Doig
10. Abundance, Sena Jeter Naslund

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. State of Denial, Bob Woodward
2. The Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama
3. The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, Bill Bryson
4. The Innocent Man, John Grisham
5. Ageless, Suzanne Somers
6. I Feel Bad About My Neck, Nora Ephron
7. The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins
8. Letter to a Christian Nation, Sam Harris
9. Screwed, Thom Hartmann
10. Culture Warrior, Bill O'Reilly

MASS MARKET

1. A Feast for Crows, George R.R. Martin
2. School Days, Robert B. Parker
3. Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman
4. Running With Scissors, Augusten Burroughs
5. Predator, Patricia D. Cornwell
6. Death and Judgment, Donna Leon
7. Mary, Mary, James Patterson
8. Flags of Our Fathers, James Bradley
9. The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary, 4th Edition, Merriam-Webster (Eds.)
10. New Comprehensive A-Z Crossword Dictionary, Edy Garcia Schaffer (Ed.)

CHILDREN'S TITLES

1. The End (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 13), Lemony Snicket, Brett Helquist (Illus.)
2. Blizzard of the Blue Moon (Magic Tree House #36), Mary Pope Osborne, Sal Murdocca (Illus.)
3. The Lost Colony (Artemis Fowl, #5), Eoin Colfer
4. Goodnight Moon, Margaret Wise Brown, Clement Hurd (Illus.)
5. Mommy?, Arthur Yorinks, Maurice Sendak
6. Captain Underpants and the Preposterous Plight of the Purple Potty People, Dav Pilkey
7. Wintersmith, Terry Pratchett
8. Twilight, Stephenie Meyer
9. The Tale of Despereaux, Kate DiCamillo
10. Pirateology, Captain William Lubber

Kathy Casey's Northwest Table

Kathy Casey's Northwest Table

By Kathy Casey, E. Jane Armstrong (Photographer)

Kathy Casey, beloved expert on Northwest cuisine, shares more than 100 it-doesn't-get-more-delicious-than-this recipes for everything from cocktails all the way to desserts. Lambert cherry mojitos waft the fragrance of fresh mint. A Tillamook cheddar spread made with Oregon's famous cheese is spiked with locally brewed ale. Dungeness crab cakes are topped with a vibrant slaw. Wild Alaskan salmon is crowned with herb-tossed rings of Walla Walla sweet onions. And desserts like Buttermilk Panna Cotta with Cascade Berries make the end of the meal as special as the beginning. These recipes?coupled here with fascinating stories of Kathy's Northwest culinary adventures?are inspired by the diverse cultural heritage of the region: modern favorites, cherished recipes passed from generation to generation, Pacific Rim and Native American influences, as well as its natural bounty blend the traditional and the contemporary in a delightfully modern cuisine. Add to that gorgeous photographs showing off the culinary landscape, Kathy Casey's Northwest Table is not only distinctive, it's downright delicious.

About the Author

Chef Kathy Casey is widely recognized for her fold in bringing women chefs and Northwest cuisine to national prominence. She owns Kathy Casey Food Studios, a food, beverage, and restaurant consulting venue in Seattle, and Dish D'Lish, featuring a line of retail specialty projects. Also an accomplished food writer, Kathy pens a monthly column, "Dishing," for the Seattle Times. She is a frequent TV guest and host. A true Northwesterner, this Washington-born chef grows an urban "parking lot" garden E. Jane Armstrong's photographs have appeared in magazines such as Travel & Leisure and in many books, including The Perfect Match and From Our House to Yours. She lives in Seattle.

Order now from northwest-books.com.

Northwest Bestsellers - wk ending Oct. 15, 2006

Bestsellers in the Pacific Northwest

The Pacific Northwest Independent Bestseller List based on reporting from the independent booksellers of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association and Book Sense. Most of these books aren't books from the Pacific Northwest, but are books that are currently selling well in the Pacific Northwest. Week ending October 15, 2006.

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. Thirteen Moons, Charles Frazier
2. The Road, Cormac McCarthy
3. Under Orders, Dick Francis
4. Echo Park, Michael Connelly
5. For One More Day, Mitch Albom
6. The Mission Song, John le Carre
7. Rise and Shine, Anna Quindlen
8. The Whistling Season, Ivan Doig
9. Fragile Things, Neil Gaiman
10. Motor Mouth, Janet Evanovich

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. State of Denial, Bob Woodward
2. The Innocent Man, John Grisham
3. I Feel Bad About My Neck, Nora Ephron
4. Letter to a Christian Nation, Sam Harris
5. Home Ground, Barry Lopez, Debra Gwartney (Eds.)
6. Ageless, Suzanne Somers
7. The Greatest Story Ever Sold, Frank Rich
8. Culture Warrior, Bill O'Reilly
9. Marley & Me, John Grogan
10. The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan

MASS MARKET

1. Running With Scissors (Movie Tie-In), Augusten Burroughs
2. Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman
3. Ordinary Heroes, Scott Turow
4. Predator, Patricia D. Cornwell
5. A Feast for Crows, George R.R. Martin
6. Death and Judgment, Donna Leon
7. The Black Dahlia, James Ellroy
8. School Days, Robert B. Parker
9. The Lincoln Lawyer, Michael Connelly
10. 1984, George Orwell

CHILDREN'S TITLES

1. The End (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 13), Lemony Snicket, Brett Helquist (Illus.)
2. The Lost Colony (Artemis Fowl, #5), Eoin Colfer
3. Blizzard of the Blue Moon (Magic Tree House #36), Mary Pope Osborne, Sal Murdocca (Illus.)
4. Goodnight Moon, Margaret Wise Brown, Clement Hurd (Illus.)
5. Captain Underpants and the Preposterous Plight of the Purple Potty People, Dav Pilkey
6. The Beatrice Letters, Lemony Snicket, Brett Helquist (Illus.)
7. Pirateology, Captain William Lubber
8. Peter and the Starcatchers, Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson
9. Mommy?, Arthur Yorinks, Maurice Sendak
10. Twilight. Stephenie Meyer

Northwest Bestsellers - wk ending Oct. 8, 2006

Bestsellers in the Pacific Northwest

The Pacific Northwest Independent Bestseller List based on reporting from the independent booksellers of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association and Book Sense. Most of these books aren't books from the Pacific Northwest, but are books that are currently selling well in the Pacific Northwest. Week ending October 8, 2006.

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. Thirteen Moons, Charles Frazier
2. The Road, Cormac McCarthy
3. For One More Day, Mitch Albom
4. Under Orders, Dick Francis
5. Thirst, Mary Oliver
6. The Mission Song, John le Carre
7. Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen
8. The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield
9. The Emperor's Children, Claire Messud
10. The Last Town on Earth, Thomas Mullen

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. State of Denial, Bob Woodward
2. I Feel Bad About My Neck, Nora Ephron
3. Letter to a Christian Nation, Sam Harris
4. Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape, Barry Lopez, Debra Gwartney (Eds.)
5. Marley & Me, John Grogan
6. The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins
7. The Greatest Story Ever Sold, Frank Rich
8. Culture Warrior, Bill O'Reilly
9. Screwed, Thom Hartmann
10. The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan

MASS MARKET

1. A Feast for Crows, George R.R. Martin
2. Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman
3. Running with Scissors, Augusten Burroughs
4. Death and Judgment, Donna Leon
5. The Camel Club, David Baldacci
6. Predator, Patricia D. Cornwell
7. Dance of the Gods, Nora Roberts
8. Ordinary Heroes, Scott Turow
9. The Devil Wears Prada, Lauren Weisberger
10. Thud!, Terry Pratchett

CHILDREN'S TITLES

1. The Lost Colony (Artemis Fowl, #5), Eoin Colfer
2. Blizzard of the Blue Moon (Magic Tree House #36), Mary Pope Osborne, Salvatore Murdocca (Illus.)
3. Mommy?, Arthur Yorinks, Maurice Sendak
4. Goodnight Moon, Margaret Wise Brown, Clement Hurd (Illus.)
5. Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak
6. Eragon, Christopher Paolini
7. Pirateology, Captain William Lubber
8. Peter and the Shadow Thieves, Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson
9. Captain Underpants and the Preposterous Plight of the Purple Potty People, Dav Pilkey
10. Wintersmith, Terry Pratchett

The Zero by Jess Walter

The Zero
by Jess Walter

The Zero is a groundbreaking novel, a darkly comic snapshot of our times that is already being compared to the works of Franz Kafka and Joseph Heller.

From its opening pages-;when hero cop Brian Remy wakes up to find he's shot himself in the head-;novelist Jess Walter takes us on a harrowing tour of a city and a country shuddering through the aftershocks of a devastating terrorist attack. As the smoke slowly clears, Remy finds that his memory is skipping, lurching between moments of lucidity and days when he doesn't seem to be living his own life at all. The landscape around him is at once fractured and oddly familiar: a world dominated by a Machiavellian mayor known as "The Boss," and peopled by gawking celebrities, anguished policemen peddling First Responder cereal, and pink real estate divas hyping the spoils of tragedy. Remy himself has a new girlfriend he doesn't know, a son who pretends he's dead, and an unsettling new job chasing a trail of paper scraps for a shadowy intelligence agency known as the Department of Documentation. Whether that trail will lead Remy to an elusive terror cell-;or send him circling back to himself-;is only one of the questions posed by this provocative yet deeply human novel.

From a novelist of astounding talent, The Zero is an extraordinary story of how our trials become our transgressions, of how we forgive ourselves and whether or not we should.

About the Author

Jess Walter is the author of the forthcoming novel The Zero, along with two previous novels, Land of the Blind and Over Tumbled Graves, a New York Times Notable Book. Also an acclaimed investigative reporter, he is the author of Ruby Ridge: The Truth and Tragedy of the Randy Weaver Family, which was made into a CBS miniseries. Walter lives in Spokane with his family.

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Windshield Wilderness

Windshield Wilderness: Cars, Roads, and Nature in Washington's National Parks

by William Cronon (Foreword), David Louter (Author)

In his engaging book Windshield Wilderness, David Louter explores the relationship between automobiles and national parks, and how together they have shaped our ideas of wilderness. National parks, he argues, did not develop as places set aside from the modern world, but rather came to be known and appreciated through technological progress in the form of cars and roads, leaving an enduring legacy of knowing nature through machines.

With a lively style and striking illustrations, Louter traces the history of Washington State?s national parks -- Mount Rainier, Olympic, and North Cascades -- to illustrate shifting ideas of wilderness as scenic, as roadless, and as ecological reserve. He reminds us that we cannot understand national parks without recognizing that cars have been central to how people experience and interpret their meaning, and especially how they perceive them as wild places.

Windshield Wilderness explores what few histories of national parks address: what it means to view parks from the road and through a windshield. Building upon recent interpretations of wilderness as a cultural construct rather than as a pure state of nature, the story of autos in parks presents the preservation of wilderness as a dynamic and nuanced process.Windshield Wilderness illuminates the difficulty of separating human-modified landscapes from natural ones, encouraging us to recognize our connections with nature in national parks.

About the Author

David Louter is a historian with the National Park Service in Seattle, Washington.

Northwest Bestsellers - wk ending Oct. 1, 2006

Bestsellers in the Pacific Northwest

The Pacific Northwest Independent Bestseller List based on reporting from the independent booksellers of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association and Book Sense. Most of these books aren't books from the Pacific Northwest, but are books that are currently selling well in the Pacific Northwest. Week ending October 1, 2006.

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. The Road, Cormac McCarthy
2. For One More Day, Mitch Albom
3. The Mission Song, John le Carre
4. Under Orders, Dick Francis
5. Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen
6. The Last Town on Earth, Thomas Mullen
7. The Emperor's Children, Claire Messud
8. The Right Attitude to Rain, Alexander McCall Smith
9. Thirst, Mary Oliver
10. Fragile Things, Neil Gaiman

HARDCOVER NONFICTION

1. I Feel Bad About My Neck, Nora Ephron
2. Marley & Me, John Grogan
3. Letter to a Christian Nation, Sam Harris
4. The Greatest Story Ever Sold, Frank Rich
5. The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins
6. Culture Warrior, Bill O'Reilly
7. State of Denial, Bob Woodward
8. Fiasco, Thomas E. Ricks
9. The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan
10. The World Is Flat (Updated and Expanded), Thomas L. Friedman

MASS MARKET

1. A Feast for Crows, George R.R. Martin
2. The Lincoln Lawyer, Michael Connelly
3. Death and Judgment, Donna Leon
4. Anansi Boys, Neil Gaiman
5. Running with Scissors, Augusten Burroughs
6. The Black Dahlia, James Ellroy
7. The Hot Kid, Elmore Leonard
8. The Camel Club, David Baldacci
9. Ordinary Heroes, Scott Turow
10. The Devil Wears Prada, Lauren Weisberger

CHILDREN'S TITLES

1. The Lost Colony (Artemis Fowl, #5), Eoin Colfer
2. Blizzard of the Blue Moon (Magic Tree House #36), Mary Pope Osborne, Salvatore Murdocca (Illus.)
3. Peter and the Starcatchers, Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson
4. Mommy?, Arthur Yorinks, Maurice Sendak (Illus.)
5. Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak
6. Captain Underpants and the Preposterous Plight of the Purple Potty People, Dav Pilkey
7. Pirateology, Captain William Lubber
8. Goodnight Moon, Margaret Wise Brown, Clement Hurd (Illus.)
9. Twilight, Stephenie Meyer
10. Wintersmith, Terry Pratchett