Dear Readers,
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We hope you plan to join us for our final major reading of the season this Friday, November 13th at 7pm when Helena native Maile Meloy will read from her latest collection of short stories, Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It. This beautiful collection has been highly praised in many national book reviews, including garnering the front cover of the New York Times Book Review this summer, and has been enjoyed by many of the Country Bookshelf staff.
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“There are times when a writer nails a story the way a diver nails a dive….[Meloy] offers up both plain speaking and mystery, subtlety and shock. That hole in the water marks where the final plunge of a story took your heart along with it.”
—The New York Times Book Review

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“Somehow [Meloy] pulls off what never quite seemed possible before: combining the meticulous realism of domestic fiction with the witchery of a natural-born storyteller.”
—The New York Times Magazine

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With her debut collection, Half in Love, Maile Meloy was hailed as “a writer not of promise, but with a fully realized gift” (San Diego Union-Tribune). The New York Times called the book “a sparkling debut, and the Chicago Tribune called Meloy “a truly compelling discovery.” Two acclaimed novels later, Meloy makes a brilliant return to the short story form with BOTH WAYS IS THE ONLY WAY I WANT IT (Riverhead Books; Publication Date: July 9, 2009; ISBN: 978-1-59448-869-6; Price: $25.95).

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The stories in BOTH WAYS IS THE ONLY WAY I WANT IT have appeared in The New Yorker and other magazines, and cover a wide and varied range. In “Lovely Rita,” love and disaster strike the builders at a nuclear power plant. In “The Children,” a man about to leave his family is confronted with the weight and consequence of the decision. In “The Girlfriend,” a grieving father confronts the teenage girlfriend of his daughter’s killer and finds himself outmatched. Other stories feature an aging Argentine lover, a young ranch hand in a small Montana town, a teenage girl faced with unsettling truths about adulthood, and two hitchhikers named Bonnie and Clyde. In all of the stories, Meloy’s characters are caught between opposing forces: between innocence and experience, impulse and stability, fidelity and desire.

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Meloy’s taut prose—described as “gracefully confident” by The Washington Post and “deceptively unfancy” by Newsday—moves her stories swiftly to their thrilling conclusions. “A natural-born storyteller” (The New York Times Magazine), Meloy brings plot-driven narratives to the realm of domestic fiction, and the result is as gripping and compulsive as it is recognizable and real.
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Call or email to reserve your copy.
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If you missed getting a copy of Double Take by local author Kevin Connolly for yourself or a loved one, and would like to make sure you receive a signed copy before the holidays, please let us know right away. We’re expecting to have more copies signed in the near future.
 

 
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Also, local hero Greg Mortenson has a new book debuting December 1st. We are now taking preorders for signed copies of Stones Into Schools. Please call or email to reserve yours (hardcover $26.95).
 

 
Thanks again for all of your support, and please let us know how we can best serve your book needs.
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Best,
The Country Bookshelf Staff