Books

This Friday, campers will gather at the Lawrence Rist Memorial Fireplace in Manito Park to hear mythologies, ghost stories, and urban legends of Spokane, as the new local book press, Banana Slug Books, celebrates the release of its first book, “Spokane Campfire Stories,” which features work from 23 writers.

For accomplished folklorist and author S.E. Schlosser, ghost stories aren’t just reserved for Halloween.

I’d hoped to sleep a full eight hours but lately when the baby wakes for a moment, I’m up for the rest of the night. So here I am. Bleary, but with writing time. My shirt is on backwards. My eyes still won’t focus. But I can see to write. There is a shelter here, in this hour my son has given me.

James Patrick Thomas’ voicemail ends with “I wish you peace.”

1999: Tracy’s parents were never home when we got off the bus. From 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. we had free reign of the house and gorged ourselves on those Safeway treasures her Dad had bought. Ruffles Sour Cream and Cheddar chips, Kraft Mac n’ Cheese, a loaf of white bread, Jif Creamy Peanut Butter, liters of soda – one orange, one dark amber. The only item without a logo on the counter was Tracy’s mom’s famous raspberry jam. We ate then like September snowmen melted out of our training bras and Calvin Klein jeans. Traded our school day attire for sweats and braless freedom. For real life education we watched Maury Povich and “One Tree Hill” drunk on our power over the television remote. After work Tracy’s mom would drive home and pick up after us. I don’t think either of us ever considered her mom came from work only to come home and work some more. Collecting our stories about the injustice of teachers, our crushes and the latest girl drama she’d reach blindly for the pantry staples, cans of veggies and boxes of starch. “What do you girls want for dinner?” she’d ask. It was simple because Tracy always wanted what I wanted, mashed potatoes and ground beef, brown gravy and pea salad.

The Moomin family – Moominpappa, Moominmamma and Moomintroll – live in Moominvalley, where they welcome all friends, visitors and vagrants for adventures and sweet treats.

A family of five happily embarks on a trip to a sporting event as “Culpability” opens. The vibe of fun and innocence lasts for precisely four pages.

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, Aug. 2, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide, powered by Circana BookScan © 2025 Circana. (Reprinted from Publishers Weekly, published by PWxyz LLC. © 2025, PWxyz LLC.) HARDCOVER FICTION 1. "Atmosphere: A Love Story" by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Ballantine) Last ...

President Donald Trump recently proposed a budget for cleaning up hazardous waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation that’s more than a billion dollars short of what Washington officials have said is needed while slashing budgets for similar projects across America.

Chloe Caldwell’s dad advised, “You get good at what you do,” a lesson she has applied to her writing that allowed her to chronicle her fertility journey in real time.

This was West Central in the early aughts. Long after Union Pacific abandoned the railyard overlooking the river. A neighborhood of middle-class people born and raised by the tracks, people who never dreamed of leaving.

The saying goes: Never judge a book by its cover. But what about the edges of its pages?

“One night, after many dark moonless nights, when the stars shone brightly, a silver sliver appeared, a shy smile in the sky.

Tuesday, June 10, 1692, was a windy day. Cold salt air bent slender seagrass and flapped dark linen skirts and coats of a group of Salem Village Puritans gathered on a grassy knoll overlooking the sea. Sunshine sparkled on the dark Atlantic waters and the assembled crowd watched Bridget Bishop hang by her neck from a wooden gallows for the capital crime of practicing witchcraft. The ocean air did not rustle Bridget’s skirts, likely tied around her feet, which moved while she struggled. Until she was still. Silence then, but for the wind and waves of relief flooding the crowd’s racing hearts now warm as the summer sun, cooled by the wind that gently spun Bridget’s body in languid circles. The witch, and so the evil she invited into their village, was dead. This was the end.

It’s a beautiful morning in early summer, breezy and not too warm yet, the sky a smooth blue stone behind the narrow spears of the pines, the garden with its fresh green growth damp with dew and already warming in the early sun. Sofia stands in her too large socks in the yellow and white kitchen, a child still at 14, and, emboldened by her mother’s question – How are you, Sofe? – suddenly tells her mother the truth about what her stepfather Tom is doing to her.

Ford reaches down and turns the radio up. It’s a song about dust, about wind. His mom’s favorite. She liked to remind him that the luckiest wind delivered him to her.

Artificial intelligence is accelerating faster than a Tesla toward an oak tree. Every day brings a fresh story – possibly written by AI – about the wonders of a world remastered by autonomous billionaires and their silicon golems. Perplexity, indeed.

Dorothy’s Auntie Em, a traumatized Civil War veteran and a shy artist with a secret are some of the wonderful characters in this summer’s noteworthy historical novels. These creative tales reimagine historical and literary moments, adding new dimensions, pondering, “What if?”

Lawrence Pintak’s “Lessons from the Mountaintop: Ten Modern Mystics and Their Extraordinary Lives” is an impressive work of participatory journalism.