Recommendations

MORGAN HILL BOOKSTORE A Fine Selection of Books
Magazines, Crane's Stationery,  Greeting Cards,  Gift Wrap,  Wooden Puzzles,  Gourmet Nuts,  Chocolates & More!
 
 
We've been making book recommendations for 18 years!
Here are some of our favorites.
 

Some of Connie's Favorites

Chernow, Ron  Washington: A Life

Colwin, Laurie  Home Cooking  and More Home Cooking

 Cleve, Chris  Little Bee

Carter, Forrest,  The Education of Little Tree

Doig, Ivan  This House of Sky

Duncan, David James  The Brothers K

Frazier, Charles  Cold Mountain

Guterson, David  Snow Fallling on Cedars

Helene Hanff   84 Charing Cross Road

Haruf, Kent Plainsong

Hull, Jonathan  Losing Julia

Kidder, Tracy  Mountains beyond Mountains

Kingsolver, Barbara  The Poisonwood Bible

McMurtry, Larry  Lonesome Dove

Martel, Yann  The Lfe of Pi

Mosher, Howard Frank  Waiting for Teddy Williams

Naslund, Sena Jeter   Ahab's Wife

Olson, Lynne  Citizens of London

Proulx, Annie  Shipping News

Pullman, Philip   The Golden Compass trilogy

Ransom, Arthur   The Swallows and Amazons series

Rawicz, Slavomir  The Long Walk

Robinson, Marilynne  Gilead

Russo, Richard  Straight Man

Sams, Ferrol   Run with the Horsemen

Shaffer, Mary Ann  The Guernsey Literary . . . Society

Shute, Neville  A Town Like Alice

Stevenson, William  Spymistress

 Verghese, Abraham  Cutting for Stone

Wein, Elizabeth  Code Name Verity

Wessels, Tom  Reading the Forested Landscape

 Zusak, Marcus  The Book Thief

 

Some of Peggy's Favorites

Benioff, David  City of Thieves

Brooks, Geraldine  A Year of Wonders 

Boyd, William  Any Human Heart

Chevalier, Tracy  The Girl with the Pearl Earring

Cleve, Chris  Little Bee

Fuller, Alexandra  Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

Gardham, Jane  Old Filth

Japrisot,Sebastien  A Very Long Engagement

King, Lily  Father of the Rain

Kingsolver, Barbara  The Poisonwood Bible

Mantel, Hilary  Wolf Hall

Mason, Daniel  The Piano Tuner

McCann, Colum  Let the Great World Spin

McEwan, Ian  Atonement

Mitchell, David  Cloud Atlas

Mones, Nicole  Lost in Translation

Naslund, Sena Jeter   Ahab's Wife

Obreht, Tea  The Tiger' Wife

Olson, Lynne  Citizens of London

Petterson, Per  Out Stealing Horses

Pouncy, Peter  Rules for Old Men Waiting

St. Aubyn, Edward  The Patrick Melrose novels

Stegner, Wallace  Crossing to Safety

Strout, Elizabeth  Olive Kitteridge

Trevor, William  The Story of Lucy Gault

Unsworth, Barry  Sacred Hunger

Verghese, Abraham  Cutting for Stone

Winton, Tim  Dirt Music

Zafon, Carlos Ruiz  Shadow of the Wind

Zusak, Marcus  The Book Thief

 

 

 

 Here are some books we've recently read and recommend!

Canada (Hardcover)

$27.99
ISBN-13: 9780061692048
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Ecco, 5/2012

This may be the finest of Pulitzer Prize winning author Richard Ford's novels.  Fifteen year year old Dell Parsons' world falls apart after his parents are arrested and imprisoned and his twin sister flees when a plot to sell stolen beef and a disastrous bank robbery go awry.  Dell winds up on the bleak, brooding prairies of Saskatchewan where he struggles to understand and make sense of the random losses of his young life. Ford writes with spare, elegant prose as he paints a richly detailed landscape of place and emotion.


Bring Up the Bodies (Hardcover)

$28.00
ISBN-13: 9780805090031
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Henry Holt and Co., 5/2012

This is the second of Mantel's Thomas Cromwell trilogy; the first, Wolf Hall, won both the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Award. These novels, which follow the life and career of Cromwell (Thomas Cromwell, not to be confused with Oliver!), as he becomes a powerful ally of Henry XIII. Msntel, with her incredibly nuanced grasp of historical detail, simply immerses the reader in the world of Tudor England. Bring Up the Bodies opens in September 1535 and spans just a single pivotal year of the conspiracies and trials of Anne Boleyn, her family, and allies.


Flight Behavior (Paperback)

$16.99
ISBN-13: 9780062124272
Availability: Coming Soon - Available for Pre-Order Now
Published: Harper Perennial, 6/2013

The marvelously named Dellarobia Turnbow is resolute in her determination to escape from her hard scrabble life in the mountains of Tennessee. The very day she sets her plan in motion, she encounters the unearthly beauty of a valley afire with a mass of monarch butterflies, gathered in a place and time where they should not be.  In ways she never dreamed, that valley utterly transforms Dellarobia’s life and community.

 

 


The Chaperone (Hardcover)

$26.95
ISBN-13: 9781594487019
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Riverhead Hardcover, 6/2012

Thirty-six year old Cora Carlisle, of Wichita, Kansas, seems to have a perfect life in the summer of 1922.  When chance events  conspire so that she chaperones an extraordinary and talented young teenager to dance lessons in New York City, the facade of Cora’s life is lifted.  Cora is a captivating character, set in a fascinating historical and cultural framework.  Moriarity has crafted a deeply thought provoking story that lingers long after the last page is read.

 


How It All Began (Hardcover)

$26.95
ISBN-13: 9780670023448
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Viking Adult, 1/2012

When Charlotte Rainsford, a retired schoolteacher, is mugged by an unseen assailant, the consequences ripple outward, affecting family, friends, and strangers in astonishing ways. This book is simply a pleasure to savor. Lively gives us characters we genuinely care about, whose ordinary, fascinating lives give us plenty to ponder. We have all read and loved this book and agree it may be Lively’s best novel yet!


A Good American (Hardcover)

$25.95
ISBN-13: 9780399157592
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam, 2/2012

Always there was music. So begins this wonderful story of a young couple who flee Prussia in 1904 to end up making their home in Missouri. Their story is told by their grandson, James, and like the best family stories, is filled with the coincidences, missed connections, and both the tragedy and magic of ordinary life. George breaks your heart with the quiet sacrifices and secrets of his characters, while he never forgets the wonder and humor of life. Carrying the reader across the generations with music and food, religion and prohibition, racism and patriotism, A Good American is a book to savor. (This is excerpted from a review in the February edition of The Indie Next List - and we couldn't improve it!)


Rules of Civility (Paperback)

$16.00
ISBN-13: 9780143121169
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Penguin Books, 7/2012

On New Year's Eve, 1938, two young women pool their funds to enjoy an evening of fine jazz in Manhattan.  Their $3 doesn't last long, but a chance encounter opens the door to a year of encounters that reshapes their lives.  This elegantly written novel brings Depression era New York and the glittering world of its most fortunate to vividly drawn, almost cinematic life, but also balances that glamour with the reality of other lives.  Despite the ghosts of Great Gatsby who inevitably gather round such a plot, there is not a trite word in this book.  It is a richly wonderful period piece.  Dust off that old Benny Goodman CD for a soundtrack and sink into a really good story!


Caleb's Crossing (Paperback)

$16.00
ISBN-13: 9780143121077
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Penguin Books, 4/2012

This is a deeply satisfying book on so many levels. Brooks perfectly expresses the voice of twelve year old Bethia Mayfield, who narrates this story of life on Martha's Vineyard (and later in Cambridge town) in the 1660s. The story opens during the last summer of her childhood's freedom, when Bethia roams the island's wild lands under the pretext of gathering food for her family's larder. She encounters a young Wampanoag boy who later crosses into Puritan society and comes to be known as Caleb. Their unusual, often hidden friendship forms a thread between their shared lives, which are repeatedly beset by tragedy and great challenge. Once again, as she did in earlier books, Brooks pulls us into the richly imagined lives of her characters and then creates an even richer and more nuanced story with her confident command of the historical setting. This is historical fiction at its very best!


State of Wonder (Paperback)

$15.99
ISBN-13: 9780062049810
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Harper Perennial, 5/2012

Patchett's new novel, set mostly in the Amazon basin, lures the reader into her story - and invites inevitable mention of Heart of Darkness.  When Dr. Marina Singh is sent to Brazil on a mission to discover a colleague's fate there, she enters a land of ambiguity that she must struggle to understand, and in doing so, slowly comes to terms with the relationships of her own life.  Patchett is such a luminous writer and her descriptions are so vivid that this novel takes on a special pleasure in its reading.


Father of the Rain (Paperback)

$14.95
ISBN-13: 9780802145345
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Grove Press, 5/2011

Read a few pages of this novel and you are likely to be pulled right into it. King won the New England Book Award for Fiction for this, along with many other accolades, and rightly so. Her writing is mesmerizing. Amid snippets of Nixon’s presidential resignation and glimpses of a society becoming unmoored from its traditional values, 11 year old Daley is trapped by the dissolution of her parent’s marriage, caught between the charismatic foolery of her father and her mother’s social liberalism. Throughout her life, she shrewdly observes this dysfunctional family through a lens of loyalty, wit and, above all else, love.


Cutting for Stone (Paperback)

$15.95
ISBN-13: 9780375714368
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Vintage, 1/2010

This long, layered novel leaves the reader haunted by the love stories it tells, the beautiful drama of medicine and countless surgical procedures, the tastes, smells and sounds of Addis Ababa and Ethiopia and the Bronx in New York, and the flawed and noble characters whose lives are revealed.  It is, simply, a wonderful book that every one of us has read and loved, and it comes with our collective highest recommendation!


The Book Thief (Paperback)

$12.99
ISBN-13: 9780375842207
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Knopf Books for Young Readers, 9/2007

Liesel Meminger will enter your heart. She is a pale, skinny 9 year old when we first meet her, a foster child left in a small town outside Munich in 1939. We join her life for the next 4 years. Her story is written in words of indelible beauty that describe a life of pain, friendship, trust and love. It is a story about what humans are capable of, narrated in an extraordinary voice of tenderness and sardonic humor. This is an unusual, powerful story that will linger long after you have read the last page.


$15.95
ISBN-13: 9781400034376
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Vintage, 1/2011

This is a deeply satisfying story of friendship, family, love, and responsibility.  When Andras Lévi arrives in Paris from Hungary as an architecture student in 1937, the world seems almost normal.  His brother Tibor is a medical student in Italy, while their youngest brother seeks a life on stage.  Orringer builds these lives meticulously, with relationships and details that feel real. Slowly, the worm of horrors that became World War II edges into their existence and changes each of them irredeemably.  Yet, that terrible time at last comes to an end and life and love and even family continue.


Gilead (Paperback)

$15.00
ISBN-13: 9780312424404
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Picador, 1/2006

In this extraordinary novel, an old man writes a reminiscence of his life and heritage for his young son. This is a story that is thoughtful and complex, written with language often so beautiful that it demands to be read aloud. It is a moving, spiritually compelling story - a rare and wonderful book.


Russian Winter (Paperback)

$14.99
ISBN-13: 9780061962172
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Harper Perennial, 5/2011

This long, involved story revolves around the long life of a woman.  Once a ballerina with the fabled Russian Bolshoi, now crippled in old age and living in Boston, she decides to offer her collection of amber and other jewels to auction for charity.  This momentous decision stirs her to a fascinating, sometimes painful reexamination of her youth and the early years of her ballet career  in Stalinist Russia.  Her altruistic decision also has enormous, but unintended impact on the lives of others.


The Help (Paperback)

$16.00
ISBN-13: 9780425232200
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Berkley Trade, 4/2011

Even is you've seen the movie, you need to read the book!  It is so  good, it is just about impossible to put down!  The three women of this story, set in Jackson, Mississippi in 1962, are simply good company.  They are smart, lively, decent people, and it is a pleasure to spend the hours of reading this book in their company.  Two of them are black servants in the town, the third is white, a new grad of Ole' Miss with a yen to write.  The narrative of what their lives are like and how they intersect will linger in your thoughts long after the book is finished.


$15.00
ISBN-13: 9780812981223
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2/2011

The petty but picturesque village of Edgecombe St. Mary is the setting for this wry, unsentimental, amusing novel.  When Major Pettigrew (retired) and Mrs. Ali (shopkeeper) find growing comfort in their shared life circumstances and love of literature, they scandalize more than their respective families.  This smart romantic comedy is also an exploration of decency and tradition - and it's happy ending is a pure delight!


$15.95
ISBN-13: 9780802145314
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Grove Press, 5/2011

Critical praise for Matterhorn has been extraordinary,and this a book likely to be read generations from now. Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down, gives perhaps the best and most succinct description. There have been, he says, "some very good novels about the Vietnam War, but this is the first great one, and I doubt it will ever be surpassed . . . Here is story telling so authentic, so moving and so intense, so relentlessly dramatic, that there were times I wasn't sure I could stand to turn the page. As with the best fiction, I was sad to reach the end." In the annals of writings on the U.S. War in Vietnam, Matterhorn is sure to be linked with Michael Herr's nonfiction account, Dispatches, and Philip Caputo's memoir, Rumor of War.


A Town Like Alice (Paperback)

$15.00
ISBN-13: 9780307474001
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Vintage, 2/2010

First published in 1950, this is still a favorite book for many readers (including this one). After surviving as a POW of the Japanese in World War II, Jean Paget is determined to use an inheritance to build a well for the Malaysian village that sheltered her group. In making this a reality, she discovers that an Australian soldier she encountered during the war and who had been tortured and, she believed, killed, had actually survived. This discovery leads Jean to a new life and new challenges in Australia’s rugged outback. Despite the romance and drama of the plot, this is an old fashioned book that moves slowly, filled with intricate detail. And that is its very appeal. A Town Like Alice feels like real life.


$12.00
ISBN-13: 9780312427641
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Picador, 9/2008

In honor of the Queen's Jubilee, we'll keep his witty little novel that explores the subversive pleasures of reading on our list. When the Queen’s corgis stray into a mobile library, she feels duty bound to check something out, and so discovers the joy of reading. Her new pleasure soon upsets the royal applecart, disturbs the palace staff, and has far reaching and funny consequences.


$13.00
ISBN-13: 9780618619030
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Mariner Books, 8/2005

Mosher writes of the Red Sox, local baseball, childhood, and the flinty, colorful people of the Northeast Kingdom with humor, insight and the deep pathos of a long-suffering and undying Red Sox fan. From young Ethan “E.A.” Allen to a macaw named Curse of the Bambino, this novel is filled with great characters and a story that is just plain good. It is absolutely not necessary to be a baseball (or even sports) fan to love this book!


$14.99
ISBN-13: 9780060559151
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: William Morrow Paperbacks, 1/2007

This richly atmospheric literary thriller will keep you guessing to the end! As the new year begins, there are odd and unsettling incidents at the elite St. Oswald's School for boys. Before long, a wicked game of 'chess' evolves between a beloved classics teacher nearing retirement and his unknown, formidable opponent who has a bitter grudge and a master strategy planned to the final, deadly move.


Something Missing (Paperback)

$15.00
ISBN-13: 9780767930888
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Broadway, 7/2009

Martin Railsback, Jr. plans his every action with endearing care and precision, and that is what makes him such a successful housebreaker. Except that he's not exactly a thief - well, he is, but he only takes small items that he needs for himself from the over stocked pantries of his 'clients'. When he accidentally drops a toothbrush into an open toilet during a ‘visit’, Martin’s carefully designed life unravels . . . and rewinds!


The Art Forger (Paperback)

$14.95
ISBN-13: 9781616203160
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 5/2013

Claire Roth is a young Boston artist who, for reasons of her own, agrees to paint a copy of one of the Degas master pieces stolen during the infamous Gardner Museum heist. Shapiro’s depiction of the art world, the technical details of how paintings are forged and how authenticators are fooled, enhance a fast moving, complex plot.

 


$14.95
ISBN-13: 9780307454690
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Vintage, 4/2010

After a tour with the French army in Bosnia, Bruno Courreges is content with his restored farm house and quiet life in the idyllic village of St. Denis. Beyond that lovely image, however, memories of the past are long, and Bruno soon realizes that a strange murder has its root in France's World War II history. As the village's Chief of Police (actually their only police), Bruno launchs an investigation that reaches deep into the fabric of their society. The richly described cultural and physical details of the Dordogne make this an especially appealing novel.


$16.00
ISBN-13: 9780312427368
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Picador, 10/2007

This is the first of a particularly satisfying detective series. These books are set in England (and elsewhere) during the years following World War I, and follow the adventures of Mary Russell, a quirky, intelligent young woman who gradually becomes friend, partner and wife of Sherlock Holmes. Every book in the series is well written and well plotted, and it is especially fun to see peripheral characters emerge to greater significance as the series moves along. These books share the same time period and characteristic tone of the Maisy Dobbs books by Jacqueline Winspear, which we also recommend highly.


Coroner's Lunch (Paperback)

$14.00
ISBN-13: 9781569474181
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Soho Crime, 11/2005

This begins a mystery series unlike any other. Dr. Siri Paiboun is an unlikely and very appealing hero. Against his wishes, Siri becomes the National Coroner of Laos under the new communist regime in 1975. Untrained and unsuited for the position, nonetheless he and his staff grow to embrace their roles and to solve the mysteries they encounter with the same droll wit and mordant humor with which they face all the deprivations and bureaucratic absurdity of life under communism.


$14.99
ISBN-13: 9781250006929
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Minotaur Books, 9/2012

Across Brattleboro, Vermont, rich people (some with dark secrets) are waking up in their high-security, alarm-equipped houses to find a Post-It note reading 'You're it!" stuck to their bedside tables.  There is nothing stolen (that anyone admits), except bits of gourmet treats from the refrigerator that have been eaten.  This new Joe Gunther is a quirky, fascinating mystery filled with off-beat characters and a true feel for Vermont.  Archer has been a great friend to Morgan Hill (and independent booksellers everywhere!) and it is always a pleasure to recommend his books.


Email or call for price
ISBN-13: 9781581952308
Availability: Special Order - Subject to Availability
Published: Zoland Books, 1/2009

Publisher’s Weekly captures the essence of this very funny tale as it is told by its mild-mannered narrator, Norman de Ratour. Sly and spicy from start to finish, this unexpected hybrid blends academic spoofery, cannibalism and a murder mystery, serving it up with a just-right balance of innocence, subtle malevolence and cheeky irony. We particularly like the cheeky irony!


$15.00
ISBN-13: 9780307474414
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Vintage, 2/2010

Here is an absolute gem of a book! First published in 1988, this collection of highly opinionated personal essays on cooking and life remains an all time favorite, and it is a book that should be reread periodically. Colwin's common sense, her refreshing humor and lively stories will send you back into the kitchen refreshed and challenged. Be sure to try her gingerbread recipes; we can't decide which is the best.


Washington: A Life (Paperback)

$20.00
ISBN-13: 9780143119968
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Penguin Books, 9/2011

In a review, noted historian Gordon S. Wood proclaimed this to be The best, most comprehensive, and most balanced single-volume biography of Washington ever written.  We completely agree! This is simply historical writing at its very best. Chernow provides an extraordinarily nuanced view not only of Washington, but of the time and society in which he lived.  If you enjoy history, this is definitely a ‘must-read’!

 


$26.95
ISBN-13: 9780425252864
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Berkley Hardcover, 12/2012

Ever since Diane Rehm's extraordinary NPR interview, this has been on the best seller list.  It is an amazing, mesmerizing, true story of World War II.  The narrative focuses on an encounter a few days before Christmas 1943 between a badly wounded American B-17 and a German Ace flying a Messerschmitt.  Makos gives us this story, but enriches it with the backgrounds and war experiences of the men involved. Ultimately, this is a story of heroism and morality. It is a book hard to put down! 

 


$15.00
ISBN-13: 9780307453280
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Broadway, 4/2011

Sometimes reality is stranger than fiction! This is the tale of a dead body, false invasion plans, a gullible Nazi, a gold prospector, and a brilliant lawyer with a plan, who all combined to tip the balance of victory in World War II. Ben McIntyre obtained fascinating new information to add to this story that was originally told in 1953 as The Man Who Never Was. It really was an extraordinary plot - and best of all, the Allies really did pull it off!


$15.00
ISBN-13: 9780307739865
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Vintage, 3/2012

When her husband (who speaks Mandarin with "pure tones") was offered a two year job in Beijing, Conley was hesitant to move their young sons. Before long, however, their family was readily navigating a strange society and spending their weekends exploring the countryside, where they feasted on dumplings and found adventures in small villages and on the Great Wall. But their lives abruptly changed again when Susan discovered she had breast cancer. This is a deeply appealing, beautifully written memoir of a wonderful family, written with love, humor and even wisdom.


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ISBN-13: 9780812973013
Availability: Special Order - Subject to Availability
Published: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 1/2004

We have been recommending this book since it was first published in 2003. Since the earthquake hit Haiti, this amazing story of the mission and achievements of Dr. Farmer, as well as his colleagues, Jim Yong Kim (now the president of Dartmouth College) and Ophelia Dahl, with their organization, Partners in Health, is more important than ever. More than any news article, this book helps us understand and appreciate Haiti and its people, and to feel that there is hope for their future.


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ISBN-13: 9781413310344
Availability: Special Order - Subject to Availability
Published: Nolo, 5/2009

The subtitle to this is A Guide to Succession Planning for your Cottage, Cabin, Camp or Vacation Home, and that aptly summarizes the contents. This is a well organized, easy to read and understand guide to issues that face many families in our beautiful area, and it offers a creative method to solving a situation that all too often becomes hurtful and contentious.