Also, any purchase of $75 or more qualifies for a free Greg Mortenson book of your choice!

Three Cups of Tea

Three Cups of Tea: Young Readers Edition

Listen to the Wind

Stones Into Schools

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“THE TIGER is like JAWS but with tigers…and true!”

— John Page, President ABA

“The Tiger is the sort of book I very much like and rarely find… A book not only for adventure buffs, but for all of us interested in wildlife habitat preservation.”

— Annie Proulx

“This book must be read by everybody who is interested in the conservation of wildlife.”

— Temple Grandin, Animals Make Us Human

“. . . suspenseful and majestically narrated.  Vaillant has written a mighty elegy. . .”

— Publisher’s Weekly (Starred Review)

“It’s a travelogue, a natural history, the forensic unravelling of a murder scene and a jaw-dropping portrait of post-communist rural life. . . . It reads like a sci-fi novel set in a lost dystopia and yet it is the moving, enthralling portrait of some courageous, real Russians.”

— Bookseller – UK (Bookseller’s Choice)

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It’s December 1997, and a man-eating tiger is on the prowl outside a remote village in Russia’s Far East. The tiger isn’t just killing people, it’s annihilating them, and a team of men and their dogs must hunt it on foot through the forest in the brutal cold. As the trackers sift through the gruesome remains of the victims, they discover that these attacks aren’t random: the tiger is apparently engaged in a vendetta. Injured, starving, and extremely dangerous, the tiger must be found before it strikes again.

As he re-creates these extraordinary events, John Vaillant gives us an unforgettable portrait of this spectacularly beautiful and mysterious region. We meet the native tribes who for centuries have worshipped and lived alongside tigers, even sharing their kills with them. We witness the arrival of Russian settlers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, soldiers and hunters who greatly diminished the tiger populations. And we come to know their descendants, who, crushed by poverty, have turned to poaching and further upset the natural balance of the region.

This ancient, tenuous relationship between man and predator is at the very heart of this remarkable book. Throughout we encounter surprising theories of how humans and tigers may have evolved to coexist, how we may have developed as scavengers rather than hunters, and how early “Homo sapiens” may have fit seamlessly into the tiger’s ecosystem. Above all, we come to understand the endangered Siberian tiger, a highly intelligent super-predator that can grow to ten feet long, weigh more than six hundred pounds, and range daily over vast territories of forest and mountain.

Beautifully written and deeply informative, ” The Tiger” circles around three main characters: Vladimir Markov, a poacher killed by the tiger; Yuri Trush, the lead tracker; and the tiger himself. It is an absolutely gripping tale of man and nature that leads inexorably to a final showdown in a clearing deep in the taiga.

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About the author:

John Vaillant has written for The New Yorker, the Atlantic, Outside, National Geographic Adventure, and Men’s Journal, among others. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. The Golden Spruce is his first book.

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More Links and Reviews:

- Publisher’s Weekly interview with John Vaillant

- The Tiger homepage

• How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu
• Zero History by William Gibson
• The Lady Matador’s Hotel by Cristina Garcia
• Vermillion Drift by William Kent Krueger
• C by Tom McCarthy

• Dexter Is Delicious by Jeff Lindsay
• Ape House by Sara Gruen
• The Widower’s Tale by Julia Glass
• Getting to Happy by Terry McMillan
• Portobello by Ruth Rendell

Paperback Fiction

• New World Monkeys by Nancy Mauro
• Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby
• Homer & Langley by E. L. Doctorow
• Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls
• The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein by Peter Ackroyd
• Look at the Birdie by Kurt Vonnegut
• The Professional by Robert B. Parker
• Royal Flush by Rhys Bowen
• The Red Tree by Caitlin R. Kiernan
• The Sword of the Lady by S. M. Stirling
• Thereby Hangs a Tail by Spencer Quinn
• Windfall by Penny Vincenzi (reissue)
• Batman Cacophony by Kevin Smith (graphic novel)

Nonfiction

• Empire of Dreams: The Epic Life of Cecil B. DeMille by Scott Eyman
• Too Big to Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin (paper)
• The Case for God by Karen Armstrong (paper)
• The Junior Officers’ Reading Club: Killing Time and Fighting Wars by Patrick Hennessey (paper)
• The Hilliker Curse by James Ellroy
• The Book of the Dead: Lives of the Justly Famous and the Undeservedly Obscure by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson
• The Last Resort: A Memoir of Mischief and Mayhem on a Family Farm in Africa by Douglas Rogers (paper)
• The Enough Moment: Fighting to End Africa’s Worst Human Rights Crimes by John Prendergast with Don Cheadle (paper)
• You Were Always Mom’s Favorite! Sisters in Conversation Throughout Their Lives by Deborah Tannen (paper)
• Traveling with Pomegranates by Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor (paper)
• Ratio by Michael Ruhlman (paper)
• Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman – 10^th anniversary edition
• Napoleon by Felix Markham (reissue)
• Mess: The Manual of Accidents and Mistakes by Keri Smith (creator of Wreck This Journal)

Children’s & Young Adult

• The Missing Golden Ticket and Other Splendiferous Secrets by Roald Dahl
• A Pig Parade Is a Terrible Idea by Michael Ian Black and Kevin Hawkes
• My Mommy Hung the Moon by Jamie Lee Curtis and Laura Cornell

Hardcover Fiction

• Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
• Lost Empire by Clive Cussler & Grant Blackwood
• Body Work by Sara Paretsky
• The Devil by Ken Bruen
• The War of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
• Skippy Dies by Paul Murray

Paperback Fiction

• Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
• Arctic Chill by Arnaldur Indridason
• The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny
• Native Star by M. K. Hobson
• Willful Behavior by Donna Leon
• Hector and the Search for Happiness by Francois Lelord
• Baking Cakes in Kigali by Gaile Parkin
• The Death of Bunny Munro by Nick Cave
• Queer by William S. Burroughs (reissue)
• Evil at Heart by Chelsea Cain
• The Alchemaster’s Apprentice by Walter Moers
• Pursuit of Honor by Vince Flynn
• The Law of Nines by Terry Goodkind
• Fade Away by Harlan Coben
• The Scarpetta Factor by Patricia Cornwell
• The Taking by Dean Koontz
• Other Lands by David Anthony Durham
• Angel Time by Anne Rice
• You Were Wrong by Matthew Sharpe
• The Woman with the Bouquet by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt
• A Novel Bookstore by Laurence Cosse
• The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards by Robert Boswell
• Wandering Stars by Sholem Aleichem (reissue)

Kids & Young Adult

• Eon by Allison Goodman (paper)
• Radiance by Alyson Noel (paper)
• Breathless by Jessica Warman
• Leven Thumps and the Ruins of Alder by Obert Skye
• Into the Gauntlet by Margaret Peterson Haddix – Book 10 of The 39 Clues
• Moominland Midwinter by Tove Jansson (reissue)
• Tales from Moominvalley by Tove Jansson (reissue)
• Dooby Dooby Moo by Doreen Cronin & Betsy Lewin (board book)

Nonfiction

• Rat Girl: A Memoir by Kristin Hersh
• The Audacity to Win by David Plouffe
• Gabriel Garcia Marquez: A Life by Gerald Martin
• The Possibility of Everything: A Memoir by Hope Edelman
• The Curse of the Good Girl by Rachel Simmons
• The Healing of America by T. R. Reid
• A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit
• The Hare with Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal

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About the author:

Carl Hiaasen was born and raised in Florida. He is the author of thirteen previous novels, including Skinny Dip, Sick Puppy, Stormy Weather, Basket Case, and, for young readers, Flush and Hoot. He also writes a regular column for The Miami Herald.

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More Links and Reviews:

- NPR Review and Book Excerpt

- Los Angeles Times Review

- New York Times Review

Here are the nominees for the October pick for the Country Bookshelf Book Club. Voting for these titles will continue through Tuesday, August 17th. You can vote online HERE or by calling (406-587-0166), emailing (countrybookshelf@gmail.com), or stopping in to fill out a ballot (28 W. Main, Bozeman, MT).

The winning title will be announced to our book club email list, on this website, on our facebook, twitter, and in the store. The October Book Club discussion will be at 7pm on Tuesday, October 26 upstairs at the Country Bookshelf.

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The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

– “Leave it to Atwood to find humor in a post-apolcalyptic world as she covertly, and brilliantly, addresses questions of how we need to live on an imperiled planet.” The Kansas City Star

The long-awaited new novel from Margaret Atwood. “The Year of the Flood” is a dystopic masterpiece and a testament to her visionary power.
The times and species have been changing at a rapid rate, and the social compact is wearing as thin as environmental stability. Adam One, the kindly leader of the God’s Gardeners–a religion devoted to the melding of science and religion, as well as the preservation of all plant and animal life–has long predicted a natural disaster that will alter Earth as we know it. Now it has occurred, obliterating most human life. Two women have survived: Ren, a young trapeze dancer locked inside the high-end sex club Scales and Tails, and Toby, a God’s Gardener barricaded inside a luxurious spa where many of the treatments are edible.
Have others survived? Ren’s bioartist friend Amanda? Zeb, her eco-fighter stepfather? Her onetime lover, Jimmy? Or the murderous Painballers, survivors of the mutual-elimination Painball prison? Not to mention the shadowy, corrupt policing force of the ruling powers . . .
Meanwhile, gene-spliced life forms are proliferating: the lion/lamb blends, the Mo’hair sheep with human hair, the pigs with human brain tissue. As Adam One and his intrepid hemp-clad band make their way through this strange new world, Ren and Toby will have to decide on their next move. They can’t stay locked away . . .
By turns dark, tender, violent, thoughtful, and uneasily hilarious, “The Year of the Flood” is Atwood at her most brilliant and inventive.

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A Short History of Women by Kate Walbert

– Ambitious and impressive … Reminiscent of a host of innovative writers from Virginia Woolf to Muriel Spark to Pat Barker … A witty and assured testament to the women’s movement and women writers, obscure and renowned.”  The Washington Post

National Book Award finalist Kate Walbert’s “A Short History of Women” is a profoundly moving portrayal of the complicated legacies of mothers and daughters, chronicling five generations of women from the close of the nineteenth century through the early years of the twenty-first.

The novel opens in England in 1914 at the deathbed of Dorothy Townsend, a suffragette who starves herself for the cause. Her choice echoes in the stories of her descendants interwoven throughout: a brilliant daughter who tries to escape the burden of her mother’s infamy by immigrating to America just after World War I to begin a career in science; a niece who chooses a conventional path — marriage, children, suburban domesticity — only to find herself disillusioned with her husband of fifty years and engaged in heartbreaking and futile antiwar protests; a great-granddaughter who wryly articulates the free-floating anxiety of the times while getting drunk on a children’s playdate in post-9/11 Manhattan. In a kaleidoscope of voices and with a richness of imagery, emotion, and wit, Walbert portrays the ways in which successive generations of women have responded to what the Victorians called “The Woman Question.”

As she did in her critically acclaimed “The Gardens of Kyoto” and “Our Kind,” Walbert induces “a state in which the past seems to hang effortlessly amid the present” (“The New York Times”). “A Short History of Women” is her most ambitious novel, a thought-provoking and vividly original narrative that crisscrosses a century to reflect the tides of time and the ways in which the lives of our great-grandmothers resonate in our own.

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The Twin by Gerbrand Bakker

– translated from the Dutch; winner of the international IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

– “Stealthy, seductive story-telling that draws you into a world of silent rage and quite unexpected relationships. Compelling and convincing from beginning to end.” Tim Parks

When his twin brother dies in a car accident, Helmer is obliged to return from university life to take over his brother’s role on the small family farm, resigning himself to spending the rest of his days with his head under a cow.

Thirty years later, Helmer moves his invalid father upstairs to have him out of the way. Soon after, Riet, once engaged to marry Helmer’s twin, appears and asks if she and her troubled eighteen-year-old son could come to live with them on the farm.

Ostensibly a novel about the canals, the green fields, and the unrelenting flatness of the Dutch countryside, “The Twin” ultimately opens itself to the possibility or impossibility of taking life into one’s own hands. It chronicles a way of life that has resisted modernity and is culturally apart, yet is riven with longing.

Gerbrand Bakker studied Dutch literature and worked subtitling nature films before becoming a gardener. “The Twin,” his first novel, appeared in Dutch in 2006 and was awarded the Golden Dog-Ear Prize for the best-selling literary debut in the Netherlands.

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War Dances by Sherman Alexie

– “Alexie mixes up comedy and tragedy, shoots it through with tenderness, then delivers with a provocateur’s don’t-give-a-damn flourish.” The Seattle Times

Fresh off his National Book Award win, Alexie delivers a heartbreaking, hilarious collection of stories that explores the precarious balance between self-preservation and external responsibility in art, family, and the world at large.

With unparalleled insight into the minds of artists, laborers, fathers, husbands, and sons, Alexie populates his stories with ordinary men on the brink of exceptional change. In a bicoastal journey through the consequences of both simple and monumental life choices, Alexie introduces us to personal worlds as they transform beyond return.

In the title story, a famous writer must decide how to care for his distant father who is slowly dying a “natural Indian death” from alcohol and diabetes, just as he learns that he himself may have a brain tumor. Alexie dissects a vintage-clothing store owner’s failing marriage and his courtship of a married photographer in various airports across the country; what happens when a politician’s son commits a hate crime; and how a young boy discovers his self-worth while writing obituaries for his local newspaper.

Brazen and wise, “War Dances” takes us to the heart of what it means to be human. This provocative new work is Alexie at the height of his powers.

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The Quickening by Michelle Hoover

– “This exceptional debut novel reminded me of the writing of Willa Cather. It is the story of two women, struggling to survive in the hard country of 1900s Midwest farmland.” IndieNext List recommendation

Enidina Current and Mary Morrow live on neighboring farms in the flat, hard country of the upper Midwest during the early 1900s. This hardscrabble life comes easily to some, like Eddie, who has never wanted more than the land she works and the animals she raises on it with her husband, Frank. But for the deeply religious Mary, farming is an awkward living and at odds with her more cosmopolitan inclinations.

Still, Mary creates a clean and orderly home life for her stormy husband, Jack, and her sons, while she adapts to the isolation of a rural town through the inspiration of a local preacher. She is the first to befriend Eddie in a relationship that will prove as rugged as the ground they walk on.

Despite having little in common, Eddie and Mary need one another for survival and companionship. But as the Great Depression threatens, the delicate balance of their reliance on one another tips, pitting neighbor against neighbor, exposing the dark secrets they hide from one another, and triggering a series of disquieting events that threaten to unravel not only their friendship but their families as well.
In this luminous and unforgettable debut, Michelle Hoover explores the polarization of the human soul in times of hardship and the instinctual drive for self-preservation by whatever means necessary. “The” “Quickening “stands as a novel of lyrical precision and historical consequence, reflecting the resilience and sacrifices required even now in our modern troubled times.

Join us beginning at 8am on Tuesday, August 24th for the release of the third and final installment of The Hunger Games Trilogy, Mockingjay!

We’ll have trivia, refreshments, and giveaways.

Design and create a tribute costume and compete for best costume.

But most importantly, you can get your book and start reading right away! Pre-order your copy now.

The Hunger Games is not just for the kids.

“What happens if we choose entertainment over humanity? In Collins’s world, we’ll be obsessed with grooming, we’ll talk funny, and all our sentences will end with the same rise as questions. When Katniss is sent to stylists to be made more telegenic before she competes, she stands naked in front of them, strangely unembarrassed. “They’re so unlike people that I’m no more self-conscious than if a trio of oddly colored birds were pecking around my feet,” she thinks. In order not to hate these creatures who are sending her to her death, she imagines them as pets. It isn’t just the contestants who risk the loss of their humanity. It is all who watch.”

–Publishers Weekly, Megan Whalen Turner, STARRED REVIEW

“…brilliantly plotted and perfectly paced…a futuristic novel every bit as good and as allegorically rich as Scott Westerfeld’s ‘Uglies’ books.”

–The New York Times, John Green
“…enthralling, imaginative and creepy…”

–Los Angeles Times

“Collins’s characters are completely realistic and sympathetic as they form alliances and friendships in the face of overwhelming odds; the plot is tense, dramatic, and engrossing. This book will definitely resonate with the generation raised on reality shows like “Survivor” and “American Gladiator.”

–School Library Journal, STARRED REVIEW

“[A] plot-driven blend of suspense, science fiction, and romance.”

–USA Today

“The plot is front and center here—the twists and turns are addictive, particularly when the romantic subplot ups the ante—yet the Capitol’s oppression and exploitation of the districts always simmers just below the surface, waiting to be more fully explored in future volumes. Collins has written a compulsively readable blend of science fiction, survival story, unlikely romance, and social commentary.” –Horn Book, STARRED REVIEW

“Populated by three dimensional characters, this is a superb tale of physical adventure, political suspense, and romance.”

–Booklist, STARRED REVIEW

“[A] stylish postmodern ‘Lost’ in direct collision with ‘Lord of the Flies.’”

–The Wall Street Journal, Katie Roiphe

“Themes of government control, “big brother,” and personal independence are explored amidst a thrilling adventure that will appeal to science fiction, survival, and adventure readers. The suspense of this powerful novel will keep the reader glued to the page long after bedtime.”

–VOYA, Deborah L. Dubois

“Impressive world-building, breathtaking action and clear philosophical concerns make this volume, the beginning of a planned trilogy, as good as The Giver and more exciting.”

--Kirkus

At the time he became Commissioner, Pettit had taught at Penn State University, been a senior staff member in federal relations for the American Council on Education in Washington, D.C., headed the political science program at Montana State University, and run the successful gubernatorial campaign of his then brother-in-law, Tom Judge.

Earlier in his career Pettit had served on the Washington staffs of Montana senators James E. Murray and Lee Metcalf.  After leaving the Commissioner’s position, he ran unsuccessfully in the Democratic primary for the U.S. House of Representatives, in what then was Montana’s second (eastern) Congressional District.

After leaving Montana in 1981, Pettit was a university chancellor or president in Texas, Illinois and Pennsylvania.  He finished his academic career as president of Indiana University of Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, where he was the chief executive for eleven years.  After retirement in 2003, Pettit remained in Pennsylvania to donate a year to a non-profit organization, consult in Washington with an arm of the NAFTA secretariat, and write the first draft of his memoir.  He returned to Montana in 2007 and resides in Helena.  Pettit serves on the board of directors for Humanities Montana.

In If You Live by the Sword, the author speaks honestly about the human struggles of the university presidency, and how that seldom discussed aspect of the role is intensified by the intrusion of partisan politics.  In order to distinguish this from the usual such memoir, Pettit takes the reader behind the scenes.  He shares highlights of his own political and intellectual development and discusses how his formative years and his time as a university leader were affected by the evolving political history of the country from 1937 to 2003.

Dr. Pettit is a graduate of the University of Montana, with a master’s degree from Washington University in St. Louis and a Ph.D from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Fiction

• Prospero in Hell by L. Jagi Lamplighter
• Turbulence by Giles Foden
• Three Stations by Martin Cruz Smith
• Crossfire by Dick Francis & Felix Francis
• The Man with the Baltic Stare by James Church
• The Bear by R. A. Salvatore

Non-Fiction

• Justice by Michael Sandel — newly in paperback
• Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth and Art by Lewis Hyde– new paperback edition with a new foreward by Michael Chabon
• The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches from the Fault Line between Christianity and Islam by Eliza Griswold
• American Terroir: Savoring the Flavors of Our Woods, Waters, and Fields by Rowan Jacobsen
• The Pain Chronicles: Cures, Myths, Mysteries, Prayers, Diaries, Brain Scans, Healing, and the Science of Suffering by Melanie Thernstrom
• The Power by Rhonda Byrne
• The Africa Cookbook: Tastes of a Continent by Jessica B. Harris
• An Apple Harvest: Recipes and Orchard Lore by Frank Browning and Sharon Silva

Juvenile & Young Adult

• Scumble by Ingrid Law — a companion to Savvy

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EVENTS
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Then mark your calendars for these other fabulous events:
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SEPTEMBER
Sept. 14 at 7pm — Steve Osman reading/signing for his memoir Stumbling Into Paradise
Sept. 18 from 9-11am — Robert D. Miller signing his mystery novel Deep Stepping Stones
Sept. 28 at 7pm — Book Club: Two Rivers by T. Greenwood — Led by Mary Jane. Don’t miss this one!
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OCTOBER
Oct. 14 from 11:30am-1pm — Ivan Doig signing Work Song
Oct. 19 at 7pm — David Abram reading/signing Becoming Animal
Oct. 26 at 7pm — Book Club: Book yet to be determined
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NOVEMBER
Nov. 13 at 4pm — Sarahlee Lawrence reading/signing River House
Nov. 30 at 7pm — Tom McGuane reading/signing Driving on the Rim
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YOUR BOOKSTORE NEEDS YOU
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Call for recommendations: Do you have a favorite science fiction or fantasy author whose works we aren’t currently carrying? Let us know! We want to be sure to bring the best in all genres to our readers, and we’d love to have some suggestions for how to increase our SF/Fantasy selection.
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Call for recommendations: Do you have children who love sharing their favorite books with friends? Bring your kids into the store and let them fill our our Kids Recommend tags to place on the shelves in our children’s section so everyone will know what the kids are really reading and enjoying.
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SIGNED BOOKS
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After many great summer events and many authors just dropping by, we’ve got a large selection of signed books. They make great gifts, but they are in limited supply, so pick up the ones you want soon!
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Here’s a sampling of what’s on our signed shelf:
All of Greg Mortenson’s books (Three Cups of Tea, Stones Into Schools, and the kid’s books)
Carl Hiaasen’s Star Island
Tom Brokaw’s The Greatest Generation, Boom, and Scout, Atticus, and Boo (features an interview with Brokaw)
Blindsided by Jim Cole
Sounds Like Crazy by Shana Mahaffey (she’s willing to Skype or call in to book clubs — let us know; we can put you in touch with her)
Faithful by Janet Fox
Double Take by Kevin Michael Connolly (this is the current One Book One Bozeman read and the MSU Freshman read)
Eric Jay Dolin’s Fur, Fortune, and Empire and Leviathan (he just spoke at the Museum of the Rockies)
Fragile by Lisa Unger
Saving Gracie by Carol Bradley
Bloodshed at Little Bighorn by Tim Lehman
The Car that Brought You Here Still Runs by Frances McCue (about Montana poet Richard Hugo; his poetry is the current One Book Montana)
Forget Me Not by Jennifer Lowe-Anker
Diane Smith’s two novels Letters from Yellowstone and Pictures from an Expedition
Thanks for reading! We hope to see you soon. Look for our next newsletter which will feature some of the books our staff members have been enjoying this year.
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Best,
The Country Bookshelf Staff
 

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