books

By the staff at Covered Treasures

“A classic is a book that has never finished what it has to say.”—Italo Calvino

Classics are available for readers of all ages and stand the test of time. They are well worth revisiting (or reading for the first time) as we all move forward into 2024.

The Grapes of Wrath

By John Steinbeck (Penguin Classics) $18

First published in 1939, Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize-winning epic of the Great Depression chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family forced to travel west to the promised land of California. A portrait of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless, of one man’s fierce reaction to injustice, and of one woman’s stoical strength, the novel captures the horrors of the Great Depression and probes into the very nature of equality and justice in America.

The Secret Garden

By Frances Hodgson Burnett (Harper Collins) $10

This gorgeous paperback includes Tasha Tudor’s iconic illustrations, an extended author biography, activities, and more, making it the perfect collector’s edition or a wonderful gift for young readers. When orphaned Mary Lennox comes to live at her uncle’s great house on the Yorkshire Moors, she finds it full of secrets. The gardens surrounding the large property are Mary’s only escape. Then, Mary discovers a secret garden, surrounded by walls and locked with a missing key. With the help of two unexpected companions, Mary discovers a way in—and becomes determined to bring the garden back to life.

Stuart Little

By E.B. White (Harper Collins) $7

Stuart Little is no ordinary mouse. Born to a family of humans, he lives in New York City with his parents, his older brother George, and Snowbell the cat. Though he’s shy and thoughtful, he’s also a true lover of adventure. Stuart’s greatest adventure comes when his best friend, a beautiful little bird named Margalo, disappears from her nest. Stuart is determined to track her down and ventures away from home for the very first time in his life. He finds adventure aplenty. But will he find his friend? Whether you curl up with your young reader to share this book or hand it off for independent reading, you are helping to create what are likely to be all-time favorite reading memories.

West with the Night (A Memoir)

By Beryl Markham (North Point Press) $17

If the first responsibility of a memoirist is to lead a life worth writing about, Markham succeeded beyond all measure. Born Beryl Clutterbuck in the middle of England, she and her father moved to Kenya when she was a girl, and she grew up with a zebra for a pet; horses for friends; baboons, lions, and gazelles for neighbors. She made money by scouting elephants from a tiny plane. And she would spend most of the rest of her life in East Africa as an adventurer, a racehorse trainer, and an aviatrix—she became the first person to fly nonstop from Europe to America, the first woman to fly solo east to west across the Atlantic.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

By Betty Smith (Harper Perennial Classics) $19

From the moment she entered the world, Francie Nolan needed to be made of stern stuff, for growing up in the Williamsburg slums of Brooklyn, New York demanded fortitude, precocity, and strength of spirit. By turns overwhelming, heartbreaking, and uplifting, the Nolans’ daily experiences are raw with honesty and tenderly threaded with family connectedness. Smith has created a work of literary art that brilliantly captures a unique time and place as well as deeply resonant moments of universal experience.

A Wrinkle in Time

By Madeleine L’Engle (Square Fish) $9

Late one night, three otherworldly creatures appear and sweep Meg Murry, her brother Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin O’Keefe away on a mission to save Mr. Murray, who has gone missing while doing top-secret work for the government. They travel via tesseract—a wrinkle that transports one across space and time—to where Mr. Murray is being held captive. There they discover a dark force that threatens not only Mr. Murray but the safety of the whole universe. A Wrinkle in Time is the first book in Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Quintet.

Until next month, happy reading.

The staff at Covered Treasures can be reached at books@ocn.me.

Other xxx articles

• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – Great gift ideas (12/5/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – New fall releases (11/2/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – Book series for children and young adults (10/5/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – Celebrating women authors (9/7/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – New fiction titles to round out your summer (8/3/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – Let’s go outdoors! (7/6/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – Time for travel and adventure! (6/1/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – Military history for Memorial Day (5/4/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – Poetry month (4/6/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – March mystery madness (3/2/2024)

By the staff at Covered Treasures

“And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been.”—Rainer Marie Rilke

Here are some books that will help you navigate 2024.

Skinnytaste Simple: Easy, Healthy Recipes with 7 Ingredients or Fewer: A Cookbook

By Gina Homolka (Clarkson Potter Publishers) $35

Skinnytaste Simple has recipes with no more than seven ingredients, with maximum flavor and nutrition. From hearty breakfasts to crowd-pleasing dinners, there are recipes that many will love. Each recipe features a photo, icons that indicate recipes that may suit your dietary needs (such as gluten-free, dairy-free, vegetarian), and nutritional info, with the most up to date Weight Watchers points available on the Skinnytaste site.

Walk: Slow Down, Wake Up, and Connect at 1-3 Miles per Hour

By Jonathon Stalls (North Atlantic Books) $17.95

In 2010, Jonathon Stalls and his blue heeler husky mix began their 242-day walk across the United States, relying on each other and the kindness of strangers along the way. In this collection of essays, Stalls explores walking as waking up. Walk is an urgent and glorious call to slow down, look around, and engage with the world in front of us. It’s an invitation to move, to connect, to participate deeply in the world—and to dissolve the barriers that separate us from each other and the living Earth.

The Stress Prescription: Seven Days to More Joy and Ease (Seven Days)

By Ellisa Epel (Penguin Life) $15

In The Stress Prescription, Dr. Epel distills decades of research, infused with wisdom, into a practical yet transformative seven-day plan of science-based techniques that can help you harness stress through more positive challenge and purpose. Dr. Epel shows us how we can “stress better” by training our minds and bodies to shift toward a flexible, beneficial stress response that can actually enhance health. You will develop a more robust mindset, build the resources you need to turn stress into strength, and fill your days with more joy, connection, and ease.

Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity

By Peter Attia (Harmony) $32

In this operating manual for longevity, Dr. Peter Attia draws on the latest science to deliver innovative nutritional interventions, techniques for optimizing exercise and sleep, and tools for addressing emotional and mental health. Dr. Attia’s aim is less to tell you what to do and more to help you learn how to think about long-term health, to create the best plan for you as an individual. Aging and longevity are far more malleable than we think; our fate is not set in stone. With the right roadmap, you can plot a different path for your life, one that lets you outlive your genes to make each decade better than the one before.

Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life

By Dacher Keltner (Penguin Press) $28

In Awe, Dacher Keltner presents a radical investigation and deeply personal inquiry into this elusive emotion. Revealing new research into how awe transforms our brains and bodies, alongside an examination of awe across history, culture, and within his own life during a period of grief, Keltner shows us how cultivating awe in our everyday life leads us to appreciate what is most humane in our human nature. And during a moment in which our world feels more divided than ever before, and more imperiled by crises of different kinds, we are greatly in need of awe.

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

By James Clear (Avery Publishing Group) $27

James Clear draws on the most proven ideas from biology, psychology, and neuroscience to create an easy-to-understand guide for making good habits inevitable and bad habits impossible. Along the way, readers will be inspired and entertained with true stories from Olympic gold medalists, award-winning artists, business leaders, life-saving physicians, and star comedians who have used the science of small habits to master their craft and vault to the top of their field.

Happy New Year! Until next month, happy reading.

The staff at Covered Treasures can be reached at books@ocn.me.

Other Between the Covers articles

• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – Great gift ideas (12/5/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – New fall releases (11/2/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – Book series for children and young adults (10/5/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – Celebrating women authors (9/7/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – New fiction titles to round out your summer (8/3/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – Let’s go outdoors! (7/6/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – Time for travel and adventure! (6/1/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – Military history for Memorial Day (5/4/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – Poetry month (4/6/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – March mystery madness (3/2/2024)

By the staff at Covered Treasures

“Christmas is doing a little extra something for someone”—Charles M. Schultz

Here are some books that would make wonderful winter reading for yourself or someone else!

Magic on the Mountainside

By Nancy Godbout Jurka (Satiama Publishing) $20

Every holiday season in the town of Palmer Lake, Colo., townspeople and children look forward eagerly to the annual magic on their mountainside—the lighting of the Palmer Lake Star. Two children wait, but when nothing happens they take matters into their own hands and it turns into quite the adventure. This book celebrates the natural beauty of Colorado while telling the history of our Palmer Lake star.

Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon

By Melissa Sevigny (Norton) $30

In summer 1938, botanists Elzada Clover and Lois Jotter set off to run the Colorado River, accompanied by an ambitious and entrepreneurial expedition leader, a zoologist, and two amateur boatmen. Through the vibrant letters and diaries of the two women, science journalist Melissa L. Sevigny traces their daring 43-day journey down the river, during which they meticulously cataloged the thorny plants that thrived in the Grand Canyon’s secret nooks and crannies. Brave the Wild River is a spellbinding adventure of two women who risked their lives to make an unprecedented botanical survey of a defining landscape in the American West, at a time when human influences had begun to change it forever.

Being Henry: The Fonz … and Beyond

By Henry Winkler (Celadon Books) $30

Henry Winkler, launched into prominence as “The Fonz” in the beloved Happy Days, has transcended the role that made him who he is. Henry shares in this achingly vulnerable memoir the disheartening truth of his childhood, the difficulties of a life with severe dyslexia, the pressures of a role that takes on a life of its own, and the path forward once your wildest dream seems behind you. Since the glorious era of Happy Days fame, Henry has endeared himself to a new generation with roles in which he’s been revealed as an actor with immense depth and pathos, a departure from the period of his life when he was typecast as The Fonz and could barely find work.

Absolution

By Alice McDermott (Farrar, Straus &Giroux) $28

American women—American wives—have been mostly minor characters in the literature of the Vietnam War, but in Absolution they take center stage. This book focuses on two women and the discovery of how their own lives as women on the periphery—of politics, of history, of war, of their husbands’ convictions—have been shaped and burdened by the same sort of unintended consequences that followed America’s tragic interference in Southeast Asia.

Little Red Sleigh

By Erin Guendelsberger (Sourcebooks Wonderful) $18

The Little Red Sleigh has one big dream: to one day become Santa’s big red sleigh! But all her life, she’s been told she’s too small, she’s too young, she can’t fly, and she certainly can’t meet Santa. Well, this Christmas, with the help of some friends, she’s determined to do the impossible. Full of winter joy and holiday magic, this charming Christmas story will remind readers of all ages that no dream is out of reach if you believe.

Murtagh: The World of Aragon (Inheritance Cycle)

By Christopher Paolini (Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers) $30

The world is no longer safe for the Dragon Rider Murtagh and his dragon, Thorn. An evil king has been toppled, and they are left to face the consequences of the reluctant role they played in his reign of terror. Now they are hated and alone, exiled to the outskirts of society.

So begins an epic journey into lands both familiar and untraveled, where Murtagh and Thorn must use every weapon in their arsenal, from brains to brawn, to find and outwit a mysterious witch. In this gripping novel starring one of the most popular characters from Christopher Paolini’s blockbuster Inheritance Cycle, a Dragon Rider must discover what he stands for in a world that has abandoned him. Murtagh is the perfect book to enter the World of Eragon for the first time or to joyfully return.

Merry Christmas! And until next year, happy reading.

The staff at Covered Treasures can be reached at books@ocn.me.

Other Between the Covers articles

• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – Great gift ideas (12/5/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – New fall releases (11/2/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – Book series for children and young adults (10/5/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – Celebrating women authors (9/7/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – New fiction titles to round out your summer (8/3/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – Let’s go outdoors! (7/6/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – Time for travel and adventure! (6/1/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – Military history for Memorial Day (5/4/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – Poetry month (4/6/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – March mystery madness (3/2/2024)

By the staff at Covered Treasures

“Don’t wait until the fourth Thursday in November to sit with family and friends to give thanks. Make every day a day of thanksgiving”—Charmaine J. Forde

Here are some great new releases:

The Exchange: After the Firm

By John Grisham (Doubleday Books) $30

What became of Mitch and Abby McDeere after they exposed the crimes of the Memphis law firm Bendini, Lambert & Locke and fled the country? The answer is in The Exchange, the riveting sequel to The Firm. Fifteen years later, Mitch and Abby are living in Manhattan, where Mitch is a partner at the largest law firm in the world. When a mentor in Rome asks him for a favor that will take him far from home, Mitch finds himself at the center of a sinister plot that has worldwide implications—and once again endangers his colleagues, friends, and family. Mitch has become a master at staying one step ahead of his adversaries, but this time there’s nowhere to hide.

The War of Words: How American GI Journalists Battled Censorship and Propaganda to Help Win World War II

By Molly Guptill Manning (Blackstone Publishing) $26

A captivating story of how American troops in World War II wielded pens to tell their own stories as they made history. As the Axis blurred the lines between truth and fiction, the best defense was for American troops to bring the truth into focus by writing it down and disseminating it themselves. By war’s end, over 4,600 unique GI publications had been printed around the world. In newsprint, troops made sense of their hardships, losses, and reasons for fighting. These newspapers—by and for the troops—became the heart and soul of a unit. This stunning volume includes 14 pages of photographs and illustrations.

Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon

By Michael Lewis (Norton) $30

This is the story of the spectacular collapse of the bit coin trading company known as FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried, the enigmatic founder at its center. Lewis takes readers on a wild ride through crypto’s gold rush, offering an education in high frequency trading, philanthropy, bankruptcy, and the justice system.

The Vaster Wilds

By Lauren Goff (Riverhead Books) $28

A servant girl escapes from a colonial settlement in the wilderness, carrying nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of God that burns hot within her. What she finds is beyond the limits of her imagination and will bend her belief in everything her own civilization has taught her.

The Armor of Light

By Ken Follett (Viking) $38

The long-awaited sequel to A Column of Fire, Follett’s latest book heralds a new dawn for Kingsbridge, England, where progress clashes with tradition, class struggles to push into every part of society, and war in Europe engulfs the entire continent and beyond.

The Complete Mediterranean Cookbook: Over 200 Fresh, Health-Boosting Recipes (Complete Cookbook Edition)

By Coastal Kitchen (Cider Mill Press) $34.95

The Coastal Kitchen believes that food is the easiest way to create the connection and meaning that we all need in our lives. To help build this foundation, the editors work to bring the very best recipes, techniques, and ideas from the culinary world into the home. The book contains over 200 recipes for bold entrees, sauces, sides, pastas, beans, veggies, meats, seafood, salads, and desserts. The easy-to-follow instructions are suitable for all skill levels.

To Infinity and Beyond: A Journey of Cosmic Discovery

By Neil de Grasse Tyson & Lindsey Nyx Walker (National Geographic Society) $30

Drawing on mythology, history, and literature, Tyson and Walker bring planetary science down to earth and the principles of astrophysics within reach. In this entertaining book, illustrated with vivid photographs and art, readers travel through space and time, starting with the Big Bang and voyaging to the far reaches of the universe and beyond. Along the way, science greets pop culture as Tyson explains the triumphs—and bloopers—in Hollywood’s blockbusters: all part of an entertaining ride through the cosmos. For science junkies and fans of the conundrums that astrophysicists often ponder.

Until next month, happy reading.

The staff at Covered Treasures can be reached at books@ocn.me.

Other Book reviews

• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – Great gift ideas (12/5/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – New fall releases (11/2/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – Book series for children and young adults (10/5/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – Celebrating women authors (9/7/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – New fiction titles to round out your summer (8/3/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – Let’s go outdoors! (7/6/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – Time for travel and adventure! (6/1/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – Military history for Memorial Day (5/4/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – Poetry month (4/6/2024)
• Between the Covers at Covered Treasures Bookstore – March mystery madness (3/2/2024)