our next EVENT
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the river’s end bookstore’s 10th Anniversary!
Come celebrate with us. Enjoy refreshments and visual highlights of the past 10 years.
 E.M. Crane, author of Skin Deep (Delacorte Press)
Discussion & Booksigning
If all the world’s a stage, Andrea Anderson is sitting in the audience. High school has its predictable heroes, heroines, villains, and plotlines, and Andrea has no problem guessing how each drama will turn out. She is, after all, a professional spectator. In the social hierarchy she is a Nothing, and at home her mother runs the show. All Andrea has to do is show up every day and life basically plays out as scripted. Then one day Andrea accepts a job. Honora Menapace–a reclusive neighbor–is sick. As in every other aspect of her life, Andrea’s role is clear: Honora’s garden must be taken care of and her pottery finished, and someone needs to feed her dog, Zena. But what starts out as a simple job yanks Andrea’s back-row seat out from under her. Life is no longer predictable, and nothing is what it seems.
 E.M. Crane is the winner of the Delacorte Press Prize for a First Young Adult Novel. She lives with her husband and daughter in Sackets Harbor, NY, where she is a full-time writer. Visit www.emcrane.com
All events at the river's end are free and open to the public.
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| GIFT CARD |
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the perfect solution
 Need a gift for a booklover but unsure which title to buy? A gift card is the perfect solution. To buy a gift card contact us.
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| WHAT WE'RE READING |
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 American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau – Bill McKibben, ed. (Penguin)
A fabulous anthology of writing spanning two centuries, including Thoreau, Whitman, Steinbeck, Carson and ending with the most current essays by Barbara Kingsolver, Michael Pollan, Paul Hawken and Rebecca Solnit. Momaday, Barry Lopez, Alice Walker, Cesar Chavez, Woody Guthrie, and past presidents are some of the other notable writers. Even R. Crumb’s cartoon “ A Short History of America” is featured in this “must-have” collection of essays, sketches, memoirs, poems and protest speeches.
This stunning tome is for those interested in the history of major environmental issues that concern us today; therefore, it should be in every family’s library. . . not to be read quickly but to be savored over time.
find out more of what we're reading. |
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| CHECK OUT OUR TUNES! |
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CDs now available 
Customers may now order their favorite music from the river's end. Save on gas! Save on shipping! Now serving your listening needs seven days a week!
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| Stay informed |
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join our emailing list
 Keep up on the happenings in your Oswego community, join our email list. Your email will be not be sold, nor will we spam you, simply remind you approximately once a month in a simple format of what's going on in and around the river's end bookstore.
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| WI-FI now available |
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 When you browse our books, you may now browse the web. Grab a seat and a cup of coffee! |
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| NEW RELEASES |
FICTION
 The View from the Seventh Layer - Kevin Brockmeier (Pantheon)
This is the best short-story collection you will read all year. Brockmeier manages to fit more eloquence and emotion in ten pages than most authors can struggle to fit into a full-length novel. The fables are so beautiful, I sometimes felt myself out of breath by the sheer beauty of the phrasing and resolution; and, "The Human Soul as a Rube Goldberg Device" is a brilliant adult take on choose-your-own adventure novels.
 World Made By Hand – James Howard Kunstler (Atlantic Monthly)
With World Made by Hand, an astonishing work of speculative fiction, Kunstler makes an imaginative leap into the future, a few decades hence, and shows us what life may be like following the long emergency. For the townspeople of Union Grove, New York, the future is not what they thought it would be. After the catastrophes converged—the end of oil, climate change, global pandemics, and resource wars—they are doing whatever they can to get by. Transportation is slow and dangerous, so food is grown locally at great expense of time and energy, and the outside world is largely unknown.
As the heat of summer intensifies our narrator, Robert Earle, former marketing executive turned carpenter, and his fellow residents of Union Grove struggle with the new way of life. Driven by realistic conflicts and peopled with relatable, engaging characters, World Made by Hand is a novel full of love and loss, violence and power, sex and drugs, depression and desperation, but also plenty of hope.
 Life Class – Pat Barker (Doubleday)
From the Booker Prize–winning author of The Regeneration Trilogy, an acknowledged masterpiece of modern fiction, Life Class is an exceptional new novel of artists and lovers caught in the maelstrom of the Great War. It is the spring of 1914 and a group of young students have gathered in an art studio for a life-drawing class. Paul Tarrant and Elinor Brooke are two parts of an intriguing love triangle and, in the first days of war, they turn to each other. As spring turns to summer, Paul volunteers for the Belgian Red Cross and tends to wounded, dying soldiers from the front line. By the time he returns, Paul must confront the fact that life and love will never be the same for him again.
In Life Class, Pat Barker returns to her most renowned subject: the human devastation and psychic damage wrought by World War One on all levels of British society. If you enjoyed Nemirovsky’s Suite Francaise, you will want to make Life Class your next read. |
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NONFICTION
 The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted - Elizabeth Berg (Random House)
Every woman will find her friends, her mother, her daughter, her sisters, and herself in this collection of wonderful, vivid short stories. Funny, poignant, tender, the stories acknowledge women’s intense connections to food, family, and friendship, celebrating some small and not-so-small acts of defiance and rebellion that startle and delight the characters (and, maybe, the reader). Men: you should read these stories, too, especially if you love women or just don’t “get” them.
 Quiet, Please: Dispatches from a Public Librarian – Scott Douglas (Da Capo)
For most of us, librarians are the quiet people behind the desk, who, apart from the occasional “shush,” vanish into the background. But in Quiet, Please, McSweeney’s contributor Scott Douglas puts the quirky caretakers of our literature front and center. With a keen eye for the absurd and a Kesey-esque cast of characters, Douglas takes us where few readers have gone before. Punctuated by his own highly subjective research into library history-from Andrew Carnegie’s Gilded Age to today’s Afghanistan-Douglas gives us a surprising (and sometimes hilarious) look at the lives which make up the social institution that is his library.
 The Man Who Made Lists – Joshua Kendall (Putnam)
The extraordinary true story of Peter Mark Roget and his legendary Thesaurus.
Polymath, eccentric, synonym aficionado, Roget was an eminent scholar who absorbed himself in his work, yet he also possessed an allure that endeared him to his mentors and colleagues-not to mention a host of female admirers. But, most notably, Roget made lists. From the age of eight, he kept these lists with the intention of ordering the chaotic world around him.
Evocative and entertaining, The Man Who Made Lists lets readers join Roget on his worldly adventures and emotional journeys. This rich narrative explores the power of words and the everlasting legacy of a rediscovered genius.
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TEEN LIT
 Skin Deep – E.M. Crane (Delacorte)
If all the world’s a stage, Andrea Anderson is sitting in the audience. High school has its predictable heroes, heroines, villains, and plotlines, and Andrea has no problem guessing how each drama will turn out. She is, after all, a professional spectator. In the social hierarchy she is a Nothing, and at home her mother runs the show. All Andrea has to do is show up every day and life basically plays out as scripted.
Then one day Andrea accepts a job. Honora Menapace–a reclusive neighbor–is sick. As in every other aspect of her life, Andrea’s role is clear: Honora’s garden must be taken care of and her pottery finished, and someone needs to feed her dog, Zena. But what starts out as a simple job yanks Andrea’s back-row seat out from under her. Life is no longer predictable, and nothing is what it seems.
 Ranger’s Apprentice – Book Four: The Battle for Skandia - John Flanagan (Philomel)
Still far from their homeland after escaping slavery in the icebound land of Skandia, Will and Evanlyn's plans to return to Araluen are spoiled when Evanlyn is taken captive by a Temujai warrior. Though still weakened by the warmweed's toxic effects, Will employs his Ranger training to locate his friend, but an enemy scouting party has him fatally outnumbered. Will is certain death is close at hand, until Halt and Horace make a daring, last-minute rescue. The battles and drama are nonstop in Book Four of this hugely popular epic.
 The Final Warning – A Maximum Ride Novel – James Patterson (Little, Brown)
In this breathtaking new story from the astonishing imagination of James Patterson, a girl has to save herself from an army assembled just to capture her—and maybe save the planet while she's at it.
Maximum Ride is a perfectly normal teenager who just happens to be able to fly, the result of an out-of- control government experiment. Max and the other members of the Flock—six kids who share her remarkable ability—have been asked to aid a group of environmental scientists studying the causes of global warming. Their ability to fly could help the scientists conquer this epic problem. The expedition seems like a perfect combination of adventure, activism—and escaping government forces who watch the Flock like a hawk.
 Baseball Crazy: Ten Short Stories That Cover All the Bases - Nancy Mercado, ed. (Dial)
Okay, I admit it: I am baseball crazy. I’m also crazy about books, and this is a fine melding of two of my great passions. Ten fine stories (think of it as a complete game with an extra inning) look at baseball from a variety of angles. This book will delight teen baseball fans, both male and female, and should be a great way to hook reluctant readers. The lineup includes such popular writers of young-adult books as Jerry Spinelli, John H. Ritter, and Joseph Bruchac.
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KIDS CORNER
 Independent Dames: What You Never Knew About Women and Girls of the American Revolution – Laurie Halse Anderson(Simon & Schuster)
Listen up! You've all heard about the great men who led and fought during the American Revolution; but did you know that the guys only make up part of the story? What about the women? The girls? The dames? Didn't they play a part?
Of course they did, and with page after page of superbly researched information and thoughtfully detailed illustrations, acclaimed novelist and picture-book author Laurie Halse Anderson and charismatic illustrator Matt Faulkner prove the case in this entertaining, informative, and long overdue homage to those independent dames.
(For Ages 6-8)
 Help Me, Mr. Mutt: Expert Answers for Dogs with People Problems - Janet Stevens and Susan Stevens Crummel (Harcourt)
Calling all dogs and dog lovers! (And if you’re not too fond of cats, that’s a plus.) This delightful picture book for the upper end of the picture-book audience (and on up through adults) is a series of letters from dogs to a very supportive advice columnist. Each response is followed by a cranky missive from “The Queen,” a cat who begs to differ. The book is heaps of fun, and the illustrations are priceless.
 Corduroy: 40th Anniversary Edition – Don Freeman (Viking)
Surely “Corduroy” is a favorite of everyone who’s read it over the past 40 years. A bear who’s sat on a store shelf for a long time learns that he’s not wanted because he’s missing a button. He goes off in search of one, creates havoc, but is taken home by a loving child who wants him even without the button. This anniversary edition is fascinating, with eight pages of back story about Freeman and how he created this magical book.
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