Country Bookshelf

Attention Twilight fans (we know there are a few of you out there)!

This Tuesday, August 4th, the paperback version of Eclipse (#3 in the Twilight series) will finally be available. You still have time to pre-order to guarantee that you get a copy on the day of release. Call, email or stop in to leave your name and number.

Collectors of fiction by local(ish) authors, take note: Helena native Maile Meloy has a new book of short stories, many of which take place in Montana.  Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It just received a fabulous cover review in the New York Times Book Review and has already become one of our bestsellers.

Here’s what the publisher has to say:

Award-winning writer Maile Meloy’s return to short stories explores complex lives in an austere landscape with the clear-sightedness that first endeared her to readers.

Meloy’s first return to short stories since her critically acclaimed debut, “Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It” is an extraordinary new work from one of the most promising writers of the last decade.

Eleven unforgettable new stories demonstrate the emotional power and the clean, assured style that have earned Meloy praise from critics and devotion from readers. Propelled by a terrific instinct for storytelling, and concerned with the convolutions of modern love and the importance of place, this collection is about the battlefields – and fields of victory – that exist in seemingly harmless spaces, in kitchens and living rooms and cars. Set mostly in the American West, the stories feature small-town lawyers, ranchers, doctors, parents, and children, and explore the moral quandaries of love, family, and friendship. A ranch hand falls for a recent law school graduate who appears unexpectedlya and reluctantlyain his remote Montana town. A young father opens his door to find his dead grandmother standing on the front step. Two women weigh love and betrayal during an early snow. Throughout the book, Meloy examines the tensions between having and wanting, as her characters try to keep hold of opposing forces in their lives: innocence and experience, risk and stability, fidelity and desire.

Knowing, sly, and bittersweet, “Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It” confirms Maile Meloyas singular literary talent. Her lean, controlled prose, full of insight and unexpected poignancy, is the perfect complement to her powerfully moving storytelling.

 

We’ve loved her work, and we think you will too.

Here’s the link to Thomas Friedman’s op-ed column upon visiting the opening of a school built with the help of Greg Mortenson and the Central Asia Institute.

Dear Readers,

Local resident and author Greg Mortenson (Three Cups of Tea) has asked us to pass along a message about an upcoming New York Times article on the Central Asia Institute.

Greetings,
Greetings from Afghanistan. Thomas Friedman NY Times column on Sunday 7/19 is about (or at least some of it) his 7/15 visit with Admiral Mike Mullen – Chairman Joint Chief of Staff to inagurate Central Asia Institute (CAI) Pushgur Girls School in a remote valley.

Admiral Mullen’s visit was emotional and inspiring. Admiral Mullen had a profound impact on the people here, and especially the precious time he took to spend alone with the students. We have exceptional and visionary military leaders, who really get it, about building relationships, putting elders back in charge, listening and learning from the people, its an exciting time.

Please let you friends, family, collegues know about this and ask them to spread the word.
CAI office is closed on 7/16 Friday, so we need your help to get the word out.
Thanks for all your support and blessings of peace.
Greg Mortenson

Mortenson’s second book, Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, is scheduled to be released December 1st. It will be available in both hardcover and audio editions. You can pre-order by calling, emailing or stopping in. Let us know how many and in what formats you’d like your order, and we’ll have them ready for you the day they’re available.

Thanks for reading and for all of your support for Greg and the CAI all these years.

Best,
The Country Bookshelf Staff

–
Country Bookshelf
28 West Main
Bozeman, Montana 59715
406-587-0166
www.countrybookshelf.com
countrybookshelf@gmail.com

Dear Readers,

Welcome to the early July edition of the Country Bookshelf newsletter. We’ve got some great new books and events to share.

BOOKS

Bestsellers

Need ideas for the next book everyone’s talking about? View the Country Bookshelf bestseller list for June and see what the locals are reading.

Hemingway

We’re excited about Moveable Feast: The Restored Edition by Ernest Hemingway, edited by Sean Hemingway which should be in the store this Tuesday, July 14th.

Read the New York Times article about it, including an interview with local resident Patrick Hemingway, here. You can also read an excerpt from it here.
Upcoming Titles

Our website now features a book calendar with just a sampling of the great new books coming out this fall with expected release dates. We’re happy to pre-order any of these for you at any time. Just call, email or stop in. We’ll even take a nice, old-fashioned letter in the mail.

EVENTS

Art Walk

We’ll be open until 8pm for this Friday’s Art Walk (July 10), and we’ll again host the Intermountain Opera Association.  Also, come see some work by Native American painter Robin Rexroat, featured here for the Art Walk.

Crazy Days

Come downtown for the bargains during the annual Crazy Days Friday and Saturday, July 17-18. We’ll be open from 9am-6pm each day and will have books and cards at our sidewalk sale.

Readings & Other Events Begin Again in the Fall!

More to come. Check our website’s event calendar & stay tuned to the newsletters for the latest information.

Tuesday, September 15th 7pm

Jamie Ford will read from and sign his debut novel, Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.

Book Clubs Get-together

Look for more information about a meeting for local book clubs this September where we’ll host an open forum for discussion and information. If you are a member of a local book club, please let us know how the Country Bookshelf can best serve your needs. We gladly order books in small quantities for many clubs. See our recent post about this, including a list of recent local book club choices.

One Book One Bozeman

Events for the community reading program, One Book One Bozeman, happen this September. The Soloist by Steve Lopez is this year’s selection, and it is also the MSU freshmen read.

Thanks for reading and we look forward to seeing you soon!

The Gallatin Valley and surrounding areas are blessed with many book clubs.  We’d like to foster communication between all of these thoughtful readers to enhance all of your reading and discussion experiences.

Please email us suggestions for how the Country Bookshelf can be of further service to your club or what kind of information you’d be interested in about other clubs, including:

• how they manage/operate the club;
• who directs meetings (if at all) and how;
• how, when and what kinds of books are chosen;
• what books they liked, didn’t like, sparked great conversation;
• how the club began, how it has changed over time, and whether new members are welcome;
• whether the club has particular goals or themes. 

We are also planning an open forum meeting for book club members and other readers sometime this September. Look for more details in the future and be sure to let us know what would be most helpful or interesting to you.

If your book club is not in our register, please contact us to add it and begin ordering books for your group. If your club has ordered books through us before, we’d love to get the most current contact information.

We already stock many book club selections, and I’ve seen many customers mine the book club shelf for reading ideas (you folks have fabulous taste!), but for those who can’t visit us in person as often, I’d like to begin this conversation with a list of recent book club choices.

If your book club has read one of these, please share with us how people liked it and how the conversation went. With your permission, we’d love to share these thoughts in future posts and perhaps even in a special book club newsletter.

 A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell

The Best American Short Stories 2008 edited by Salman Rushdie

Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl

Buster Midnight’s Cafe by Sandra Dallas

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The Ambassadors by Henry James

Birds of America by Lorrie Moore

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy

The Last Crossing by Guy Vanderhaeghe

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

Lipstick Jihad by Azadeh Moaveni

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen

New Non-Fiction (hardcover)

1. Born to Run by Christopher McDougall

2. Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew Crawford

3. Tears in the Darkness by Michael & Elizabeth M. Norman

4. Rapt by Winifred Gallagher

Non-Fiction (paperback)

1. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson

2. The Soloist by Steve Lopez

3. Legend of Colton H. Bryant by Alexandra Fuller

4. Wesley the Owl by Stacey O’Brien

5. When You are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris

Regional

1. Stick Horses & Other Stories of Ranch Life by Wally McRae

2. The Surrounded by D’Arcy McNickle

3. The Pass by Thomas Savage

4. Day Hikes around Bozeman by Robert Stone

5. Wolf Tracks on the Welcome Mat by Paul Zarzyski

6. Trash Fish by Greg Keeler

7. This Common Secret by Susan Wicklund & Alan Kesselheim

Mystery

1. Swan Peak by James Lee Burke

2. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

3. Triple Cross by Mark T. Sullivan

4. The Foreigner by Francie Lin

New Fiction (hardcover)

1. Selected Works of T. S. Spivet by Reif Larsen

2. Angel’s Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

3. Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

4. The Eleventh Man by Ivan Doig

5. Short History of Women by Kate Walbert

6. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

7. Hotel on the Corner of Bitter & Sweet by Jamie Ford

Fiction (paperback)

1. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

2. Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows

3. Mudbound by Hillary Jordan

4. Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

5. Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

Young Adult

1. Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

2. Twilight (series) by Stephenie Meyer

3. Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel by Michael Scott

Juvenile

1. Listen to the Wind by Greg Mortenson

2. Rainbow Magic Fairies (series) by Daisy Meadows

3. Percy Jackson & the Olympians (series) by Rick Riordan

4. Dinosaur Cove (series) by Rex Stone

5. Three Cups of Tea (young reader edition) by Greg Mortenson