Local middle-school student Abby Westfield reviews books for young readers. 
Join us for Storytime on Sunday and Wednesday mornings. 
Check out our beginning and intermediate knitting & crochet classes with instructors Thea & Sue.
Five Sunday evening sessions with Dr. Abby Caplin.
Welcome to BookShop West Portal!
We wish to send you all a very special thank you for making this past year a great one. In spite of the troubled economy, we feel the ongoing support of our community, and for this we are so very fortunate. The New Year looks promising indeed: we will continue to offer more Buyer’s Choice titles, hold our annual School Days promotion, provide in-store classes, and host a roster of interesting and provocative author events.
Upcoming Events
PETER HESSLER will discuss
Country Driving: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory
Thursday, February 18th at 7 PM
Peter Hessler has been called "one of the Western world's most thoughtful writers on modern China" by the Wall Street Journal. In 2001, the Beijing correspondent for the New Yorker acquired a Chinese drivers license and embarked on a seven-year odyssey that took him from one end of the country to the other. Country Driving is his third travelog-memoir, following his bestselling Oracle Bones: A Journey Between China's Past and Present and River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze.
In this final book in his award-winning China trilogy, Hessler highlights the human side of the economic revolution in China. He deftly illuminates the vast, shifting landscape of a traditionally rural nation that, having once built walls against foreigners, is now building roads and factory towns that look to the outside world. As he travels through southern China, Hessler traces the fate of the owners and workers of a factory that makes rings for bras. All of them are illiterate peasants, and he writes of their dreams and courage in making a better life within a "no-holds-barred version of capitalism." Though he befriends his subjects, Hessler never intrudes in their stories, and he follows their lives over a number of years.
"The result is a remarkably detailed, engrossing account of China today...told with humor, affection and great insight." — Kirkus Reviews
CARA BLACK will read from
Murder in the Palais Royal
Wednesday, March 3rd at 7 PM
The author of the nationally bestselling and award nominated Aimée Leduc Investigation series offers her tenth installment, Murder in the Palais Royal. Investigator Aimée Leduc - called "one of the best heroines in crime fiction" by Lee Child - is arrested for the shooting of her partner Rene Friant. In fact, Rene was shot by someone impersonating Leduc, and now Aimée is trying to figure out who wants to frame her. A mysterious deposit has been made to her firm's bank account, drawing attention from the taxman. Two murders ensue. How do they relate to the youth whom Aimée’s testimony sent to jail in the very first Aimée Leduc investigation, Murder in the Marais?
LISA SEE will read from
Shanghai Girls
Tuesday, March 9th at 7 PM
From the author of the bestselling novels Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and Peony in Love comes the story of May and Pearl, two sisters living in Shanghai in the mid-1930s. They are beautiful, sophisticated and well-educated, but their family is on the verge of bankruptcy. Hoping to improve their social standing, May and Pearl's parents arrange for their daughters to marry “Gold Mountain men” who have come from Los Angeles to find brides.
But when the sisters leave China and arrive at Angel’s Island (the Ellis Island of the West), they are detained, interrogated, and humiliated for months - and feel the harsh reality of leaving home. The situation becomes even more desperate when May discovers she’s pregnant. The sisters make a pact that no one can ever know.
"This feeling - longing for home and missing the people left behind - is at the heart of the novel," says See. "We live in a nation of immigrants. We all have someone in our families who was brave enough, scared enough, or crazy enough to leave the home country to come to America. This experience is the blood and tears of American experience."
ELAINE BEALE will read from
Another Life Altogether
Thursday, March 11th at 7 PM
Jesse Bennett, the 13-year-old heroine of Beale's charming debut, longs to escape the humdrum life of Britain's East Yorkshire. But when her mother attempts suicide, her father moves the family farther into the country, thinking that a change of scene will help his wife recover. The people of Midham are less than welcoming; eventually, Jesse falls in with Tracey and Amanda, the toughest and most feared girls in town. Jesse pretends to be just like her friends, and even though she cares nothing for clothes or boys and despises the meanness, she develops a crush on Amanda that threatens to end unfavorably.
"Another Life Altogether captivated me from the very first page. Dazzling in its authenticity and utterly absorbing, it is an uplifting story about adolescence, family, and finding one’s place in the world. With the character of Jesse Bennett, Elaine Beale manages to create hope and humor in an otherwise turbulent world. It is a rare, insightful, and gorgeously written novel." — Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants
RACHAEL HERRON will read from
How to Knit a Love Song: A Cyprus Hollow Yarn
Tuesday, March 16th at 7 PM
Abigail is more than ready for a change when she inherits a cottage from her beloved mentor, knitting guru Eliza Carpenter. But when she leaves the city for the greener pastures of a small California beach town, she finds that her cozy little cottage - which she intends to turn into a knitting shop - is a decrepit, junk-filled shack. And her new neighbor is an irascible rancher, Cade, who happens to be Eliza's nephew. He owns everything surrounding Abigail's ramshackle new home, and views the city girl as an unwanted interloper.
But chemistry working overtime is drawing these two very different people close together. And when the past that Abigail thought she'd left behind comes calling, she'll have to somehow learn to trust her handsome adversary with much more than just her heart.
KELLI STANLEY will read from
City of Dragons
Thursday, March 18th at 7 PM
It is 1940 in San Francisco's Chinatown. As the city celebrates Chinese New Year with a Rice Bowl Party - a three day carnival designed to raise money and support for China war relief — private investigator Miranda Corbie stumbles upon the body of teenager Eddie Takahashi. The Chamber of Commerce wants it covered up. The cops acquiesce. All Miranda wants is justice, and she uses her street smarts and her .22 to navigate the gritty San Francisco underworld, sorting out the truth. Was Eddie a good boy, as his immigrant parents claim, or a drug mule for shady Chinese herbalist Mike Chen? Did Eddie's Japanese heritage factor into his murder?
"This atmospheric series debut by the author of Nox Dormienda, winner of the Bruce Alexander Award for best historical mystery, will appeal to fans of noir historicals." — Library Journal