Cottage Book Shop Newsletter October 24

Cottage Book Shop - October 2024

Dear Friends,

So far we are having a gorgeous Fall, it's been so warm and sunny; perfect days to enjoy outside. We're still waiting for the colors but they will be here soon enough. We hope it's beautiful where you are too!

We are looking forward to some great hikes this fall and you will also find us reading lots of books and listening to them too on Libro.fm. If you need a book to read let us know and we will help you find just the right one!

If you are out of town check out our website.

You can keep up with news of Cottage Book Shop and Glen Arbor by following us on Facebook. and Instagram.

Happy Fall,

Jenny, Kim, Anne, Amy, Patti

and Sue

The October

Selection of the Month is:

North Woods

By Daniel Mason

Random House $18.00

When two young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and nonhuman characters alike. An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to growing apples. A pair of spinster twins navigate war and famine, envy and desire. A crime reporter unearths an ancient mass grave--only to discover that the earth refuse to give up their secrets. A lovelorn painter, a sinister con man, a stalking panther, a lusty beetle: As the inhabitants confront the wonder and mystery around them, they begin to realize that the dark, raucous, beautiful past is very much alive.

~Recommended by Anne and Sue

Join our Monthly Cottage Selection of the Month and automatically receive our monthly paperback selections at 15% off, plus $5.50 shipping.

If you would like to receive a copy of our email newsletter please send your email address to info@cottagebooks.com.

Countdown to Fall

How to Be a Witch

By Gabrielle Balkan and Shana Gozandky

Illustrated by Carman Saldana

Penguin Workshop $19.99

Written in a conversational, engaging tone, and illustrated in an accessible and appealing style, this book dispels stereotypes and expands young readers' knowledge of what it means to be a REAL witch. Complete with a suggested potion and spell in the backmatter, this is a current and worthy celebration of witches! (Ages 3 and up)

Little Ghost Makes a Friend

By Maggie Adkins Willis

Simon $18.99

Little Ghost and his mom have been happily haunting their creaky old house for years, just the two of them. When a new girl moves in next door, Little Ghost wants to introduce himself. But making friends can be scary...until he comes up with the perfect plan: he's going to invite her over for a Halloween party! But what costume will make her want to be friends with him?

(Ages 2 and up)

Spooky Scary Skeletons

By Andrew Gold

Illustrated by Polona Lovsin

Random House $18.99

Follow along as five little skeletons go trick-or-treating on Halloween night. But when they take their scares too far, can a skeleton dance save the day? (Ages 2 and up)

Wolfgang in the Meadow

By Lenny Wen

Clarion $19.99

Everything in the meadow, from hugging the trees to stargazing with friends, fills Wolfgang with joy. His ambition, though, is to become the great spirit of the Dark Castle. So Wolfgang strives to perfect his spooking skills, practicing day and night. When Wolfgang wins the honor of haunting the shadowy halls, he is very good at it--but if being a great spirit means leaving his beloved meadow behind, is it good for him? (Ages 2 and up)

Zooloween

By Alan Katz

Illustrated by Stephanie Laberis

Harper Collins $18.95

A llama astronaut! A grilled-cheese cheetah! A quarterback yak! It's Halloween at the zoo, and it's time for the animals to show off their costumes. But who will win the prize for best dressed? This night is full of fun and surprises! (Ages 2 and up)

The Cottage

Children's Book Club

The perfect gift for all of the little people in your life. Give the gift of a book a month!

Our knowledgeable staff will personally choose a hardcover book for each child. A passion for reading can begin at a young age and this special gift will foster the love of books and reading!

Here's how it works:

~ each month or bi-monthly the child will receive a recently published, age appropriate hardcover book matched with the child's interests.

(we can also choose classic children's books if requested)

~gifts will be wrapped and arrive with a book plate from the giver.

~the cost of the book (less a 15% discount) and shipping (USPS) is less than $22.00 per month. The amount will be charged to your credit card monthly or bimonthly.

Glen Lake Book Club

Meet the 3rd Friday of the month at Glen Lake Community Library at 10:00 a.m.

October 18

Weyward

By Amelia Hart

St. Martins. $19.00

November 15

The Covenant of Water

By Abraham Verghese

Grove $32.00

December 13

The Measure

By Nikki Erlick

William Morrow $18.99

New Releases

Borrowed Life Of Frederick Fife

By Anna Johnston

William Morrow $30.00

Frederick Fife was born with an extra helping of kindness in his heart. If he borrowed your car, he'd return it washed with a full tank of gas. The problem is there's nobody left in Fred's life to borrow from. At eighty-two, he's desperately lonely, broke, and on the brink of homelessness. Fred's luck changes when, in a bizarre case of mistaken identity, he takes the place of Bernard Greer at the local nursing home. Now he has a roof over his head, three meals a day, and, most importantly, the chance to be part of a family again. All he has to do is hope that his poker face is in better shape than his prostate and that his look-alike never turns up. As Fred navigates life in Bernard's shoes, he learns about the man's past and what it might take to return a life in better condition than he found it.

~Recommended by Amy

Blue Sisters

By Coco Mellors

Ballantine $30.00

The three Blue sisters are exceptional--and exceptionally different. Avery, the eldest and a recovering heroin addict turned strait-laced lawyer, lives with her wife in London; Bonnie, a former boxer, works as a bouncer in Los Angeles following a devastating defeat; and Lucky, the youngest, models in Paris while trying to outrun her hard-partying ways. They also had a fourth sister, Nicky, whose unexpected death left the family reeling. A year later, as they each navigate grief, addiction, and ambition, they find they must return to New York to stop the sale of the apartment they were raised in. But coming home is never as easy as it seems. As the sisters reckon with the disappointments of their childhood and the loss of the only person who held them together, they realize that the greatest secrets they've been keeping might not have been from one another but from themselves.

~Recommended by Anne and Sue

Colored Television

By Danzy Senna

Riverhead $29.00

Jane has high hopes her life is about to turn around. After years of living precariously, she, her painter husband Lenny, and their two kids have landed a stint as house sitters in a friend's luxurious home high in the hills above Los Angeles, a gig that coincides magically with Jane's sabbatical. If she can just finish her latest novel, Nusu Nusu--the centuries-spanning epic Lenny refers to as her 'mulatto War and Peace'--she'll have tenure and some semblance of stability and success within her grasp. But things don't work out quite as hoped. In search of a plan B, like countless writers before her Jane turns her desperate gaze to Hollywood. When she finagles a meeting with a hot young producer with a seven-figure deal to create 'diverse content' for a streaming network, he seems excited to work with a 'real writer' to create what he envisions as the greatest biracial comedy ever to hit the small screen. Things finally seem to be going right for Jane--until they go terribly wrong.

~Recommended by Jenny

The Mighty Red

By Louise Erdrich

Harper $32.00

In Argus, North Dakota, a collection of people revolve around a fraught wedding.

Gary Geist, a terrified young man set to inherit two farms, is desperate to marry Kismet Poe, an impulsive, lapsed Goth who can't read her future but seems to resolve his.Hugo, a gentle red-haired, home-schooled giant, is also in love with Kismet. He's determined to steal her and is eager to be a home wrecker. Kismet's mother, Crystal, hauls sugar beets for Gary's family, and on her nightly runs, tunes into the darkness of late-night radio, sees visions of guardian angels, and worries for the future, her daughter's and her own. Human time, deep time, Red River time, the half-life of herbicides and pesticides, and the elegance of time represented in fracking core samples from unimaginable depths, is set against the speed of climate change, the depletion of natural resources, and the sudden economic meltdown of 2008-2009. How much does a dress cost? A used car? A package of cinnamon rolls? Can you see the shape of your soul in the ever changing clouds? Your personal salvation in the giant expanse of sky? These are the questions the people of the Red River Valley of the North wrestle with every day. It is about ordinary people who dream, grow up, fall in love, struggle, endure tragedy, carry bitter secrets; men and women both complicated and contradictory, flawed and decent, lonely and hopeful. It is about a starkly beautiful prairie community whose members must cope with devastating consequences as powerful forces upend them. ~Recommended by Sue

The Sequel

By Helen Hanff Korelitz

Celadon $29.00

Anna Williams-Bonner has taken care of business. That is to say, she's taken care of her husband, bestselling novelist Jacob Finch Bonner, and solved the mystery of the anonymous plagiarism accusations that tormented him. Now she is living her life, content to enjoy her husband's royalty checks in perpetuity, but literary celebrity continues to beckon, and this time the book in question is her own debut novel, The Afterword. After all, how hard can it really be to write and publish a universally lauded best seller? Then, in the wake of The Afterword's great success, Anna begins to receive anonymous accusations of her very own. Surely there is no one out there who still knows the truth about her colorful life, so who is sending her these excerpts of a justly lost manuscript by a justly unpublished author? Who knows her true name and origins? Who understands the exact nature of her many, many transgressions? Anna has come too far, and worked too hard, to lose this life. She cannot rest until she has eradicated the threat and reclaimed, definitively and permanently, her sole and uncontested right to her own story. ~Recommended by Anne and Sue

Tell Me Everything

By Elizabeth Strout

Random House $30.00

It's autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer Bob Burgess has become enmeshed in an unfolding murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother. He has also fallen into a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer Lucy Barton, who lives down the road in a house by the sea with her husband William. Together, Lucy and Bob go on walks and talk about their lives, their fears and regrets, and what might have been. Lucy, meanwhile, is finally introduced to the iconic Olive Kitteridge, now living in a retirement community on the edge of town. Together, they spend afternoons in Olive's apartment, telling each other stories. Stories about people they have known--'unrecorded lives, ' Olive calls them--reanimating them, and, in the process, imbuing their lives with meaning. ~Recommended by Sue

At the National

Writers Series