Author in Chief: The Untold Story of Our Presidents and the Books They Wrote (Paperback)

By Craig Fehrman

$18.00

Here at Elliott Bay, we’ve had the pleasure of hosting ex-presidents, vice presidents, presidential hopefuls, and nominees. Sometimes these are campaign stops, sometimes book signings and sometimes these have just been presidential shopping trips. Books are always involved, and so it was with great pleasure that I turned to Craig Fehrman’s book, Author in Chief: The Untold Story of Our Presidents and the Books They Wrote. How was it that there had not yet been a book about presidents as authors? Turns out that there’s plenty to say --and we’re actually in the book, too.  Author in Chief is a delight to read (few books like it have been described as witty and addictive, which this book certainly is).

The Changeling: A Novel (Paperback)

By Victor LaValle

$18.00

Fairy tale writing of a high, brilliantly imagined order is at work here in Victor Lavalle's newest (summer 2017, this is) novel. At the outset, seeming to be a conventional enough story of a New York City book-loving freelance book dealer who falls in love, marries, and, with his wife, sets out to live life, including having a child. All of that happens-  this reads at times like a primer for new parenthood, all the routines, how life seems unbelievably altered from the time before child. And then things start to happen. All manner of things, online and off, in a New York City we might know, and in a New York City that we might not. How enchanted is all of this? You won't be able to put this down until you reach the end.  Victor Lavalle does it here.