290 E. Main St
Ashland, OR 97520
541-488-0029
bloomsburyashland
@gmail.com
OUR HOURS HAVE TEMPORARILY CHANGED
Open 7-days:
Mon-Sat 9am-5pm
Sun 10am-5pm
Home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival
Specializing in contemporary fiction, children’s books, young adult, local authors, & a large Shakespeare & theater section
After shopping, enjoy your book at… Bloomsbury Blends
Organic eats, drinks, treats
Above Bloomsbury Books.
290 E. Main
(541) 708-0608
If you are interested in ordering a book or checking stock please email us at:
bbashlandorders@gmail.com
Thank you!
Dear customer,
The safety and health of our community is always of utmost importance to us. In the interest of public health and safety, we have made the decision to limit browsing in the store. We are requiring that you wear a mask at all times if you enter the store and are limiting the number of customers in the store at one time.
We are currently offering curbside pick-up if you are uncomfortable entering the store! How does that work? First and foremost – if you are showing signs of sickness, curbside pick-up is not for you! If you are unable or reluctant to leave your house at this time that’s okay too! Your best bet is to call us at 541-488-0029 and have your book mailed to you. If you are interested in curbside pick-up just email us at bbashlandorders@gmail.com to place an order.
We thank you for your continued support, stay safe out there.
Bloomsbury Staff
POPULAR BLOOMSBURY SUGGESTIONS FOR HOLIDAY GIFTS
WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE A BIRD
David Allen Sibley
Doesn’t it feel like a consolation to have a truly magnificent spring during this season of fear and sickness? For the many people who are lucky enough to be able to go outside, there are birds – flying, nesting, eating and singing.
David Sibley, our foremost ornithologist, has written the bird book for birders and nonbirders alike – a treasure trove of stunning illustrations and extraordinary facts about what common and uncommon birds are doing – and why. It is the perfect family book.
A PROMISED LAND
Barack Obama
In this anticipated first volume of his presidential memoirs, Barack Obama tells the story of his improbable odyssey from young man searching for his identity to leader of the free world, describing in personal detail both his political education and the landmark moments of the first term of his historic presidency–a time of dramatic transformation and turmoil.
WINTERING
Katherine May
Sometimes you slip through the cracks: unforeseen circumstances like an abrupt illness, the death of a loved one, a break up, or a job loss can derail a life. These periods of dislocation can be lonely and unexpected. For May, her husband fell ill, her son stopped attending school, and her own medical issues led her to leave a demanding job. Wintering explores how she not only endured this painful time, but embraced the singular opportunities it offered. A moving personal narrative shot through with lessons from literature, mythology, and the natural world, May’s story offers instruction on the transformative power of rest and retreat. Ultimately Wintering invites us to change how we relate to our own fallow times. May models an active acceptance of sadness and finds nourishment in deep retreat, joy in the hushed beauty of winter, and encouragement in understanding life as cyclical, not linear. A secular mystic, May forms a guiding philosophy for transforming the hardships that arise before the ushering in of a new season.
HUMANS
Brandon Stanton
Brandon Stanton created Humans of New York in 2010. What began as a photographic census of life in New York City soon evolved into a storytelling phenomenon. A global audience of millions began following HONY daily. Over the next several years, Stanton broadened his lens to include people from across the world. Traveling to more than forty countries, he conducted interviews across continents, borders, and language barriers. Humans is the definitive catalog of these travels. The faces and locations … vary from page to page, but the stories will feel deeply familiar.
A WEALTH OF PIGEONS
Steve Martin and Harry Bliss
In order to venture into the lauded territory of cartooning, Steve Martin partnered with the heralded New Yorker cartoonist Harry Bliss. Steve shared caption and cartoon ideas, Harry provided impeccable artwork, and together they created this collection of humorous cartoons and comic strips, with amusing commentary about their collaboration throughout. The result: this gorgeous, funny, singular book, perfect to give as a gift or to buy for yourself.
BLOOMSBURY SUGGESTIONS FOR THESE TURBULENT TIMES
WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE A BIRD
David Allen Sibley
Doesn’t it feel like a consolation to have a truly magnificent spring during this season of fear and sickness? For the many people who are lucky enough to be able to go outside, there are birds – flying, nesting, eating and singing.
David Sibley, our foremost ornithologist, has written the bird book for birders and nonbirders alike – a treasure trove of stunning illustrations and extraordinary facts about what common and uncommon birds are doing – and why. It is the perfect family book.
END OF OCTOBER
Lawrence Wright
Wright had the grim good luck to write a thriller about a novel corona virus, probably first passed to humans by bats, published just as the world was convulsing with COVID-19. Wright, also a journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winner, is at his best when describing the science of the virus and the disease. The force and intelligence of these strands of protein are frighteningly brilliant as they invade living cells to replicate. (I still can’t grasp that they are not living. How can you destroy something that’s not alive?) Anyway, it’s fascinating reading and the heroes are the public health workers, nurses and doctors on the front lines – just as they are in our new reality.
SPLENDID AND THE VILE
Erik Larson
This is the book to lift your morale and make you remember that people have survived relentless horrors with courage and grace, inspired by the words and example of true leadership.
Larson turns history into an enthralling page turner as he chronicles how the British survived the Blitz, which killed over 40,000 civilians and destroyed over two million homes. According to Larson, Churchill taught the British people the “art of being fearless” as he held the country together and persuaded President Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally and willing to fight to the end.
This is also an intimate domestic drama of the Churchills, with Winston always at the core – dictating from his bathtub, with a cat under his arm and chomping a cigar, eccentrically and magnificently saving the world.
YEAR OF WONDERS
Geraldine Brooks
In 1666, a young woman comes of age during an extraordinary year of love and death. Inspired by the true story of Eyam, a “plague village” in the rugged hill country of England, “Year of Wonders” is a richly detailed evocation of a singular moment in history.
THE BOOKISH LIFE OF NINA HILL
Abbi Waxman
Nina Hill’s life may not seem like much, but for a person battling anxiety, it’s more than enough. She enjoys her job at a bookstore and her small circle of friends. Until a visit from a lawyer changes everything…The father that Nina never knew existed has died, leaving behind an enormous extended family. Nina now has innumerable sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews, and cousins all living within a twenty-mile radius all demanding her attention. If that’s not enough, Nina’s talent for worrying is taking the thrill out of falling in love. Tom, a fellow trivia nerd–who’s totally into her–is obviously too good to be true. Caught in a whirlwind of new people, emotions and experiences, she feels the need to protect herself. But maybe opening her world–and her heart–is a risk worth taking.
CINDER
Marissa Meyer
Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl. . . . With high-stakes action and a smart, resourceful heroine, Cinder is a Cinderella retelling that is at once classic and strikingly original.
THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW
A. J. Finn
Anna Fox lives alone–a recluse in her New York City home, unable to venture outside. She spends her day drinking wine (maybe too much), watching old movies, recalling happier times . . . and spying on her neighbors. Then the Russells move into the house across the way: a father, mother, their teenaged son. The perfect family. But when Anna, gazing out her window one night, sees something she shouldn’t, her world begins to crumble and its shocking secrets are laid bare.
WHERE’D YOU GO BERNADETTE
Maria Semple
Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she’s a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she’s a disgrace; to design mavens, she’s a revolutionary architect; and to 15-year-old Bee, she is her best friend and, simply, Mom. Then Bernadette vanishes. It all began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette’s intensifying allergy to Seattle — and people in general — has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands. To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, and secret correspondence — creating a compulsively readable and surprisingly touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter’s role in an absurd world.
FLORIDA
Lauren Groff
One of my favorite books of 2019. She confirms my belief that Florida is a weird, fantastical, all-American state. Lauren Groff is one of the best! – Sheila
UNTO US A SON IS GIVEN
Donna Leon
For the 28th novel in Donna Leon’s bestselling mystery series, the apparent indiscretion of an elderly family friend involves a reluctant Commissario Guido Brunetti . . . until the sudden natural death of his friend sets in motion a murder.
MACHINES LIKE ME
Ian McEwan
A McEwan is near the top of my list for “best living novelist”. MACHINES is brilliantly entertaining, yet morally played & thought provoking. -Sheila
BLOOMSBURY PICKS FOR MARCH
KLARA AND THE SUN
Kazuo Ishiguro
Klara and the Sun, the first novel by Kazuo Ishiguro since he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, tells the story of Klara, an Artificial Friend with outstanding observational qualities, who, from her place in the store, watches carefully the behavior of those who come in to browse, and of those who pass on the street outside. She remains hopeful that a customer will soon choose her.Klara and the Sun is a thrilling book that offers a look at our changing world through the eyes of an unforgettable narrator, and one that explores the fundamental question: what does it mean to love?
FOUR HUNDRED SOULS
Edited by Ibram X. Kendi
The story begins in 1619–a year before the Mayflower–when the White Lion disgorges “some 20-and-odd Negroes” onto the shores of Virginia, inaugurating the African presence in what would become the United States. It takes us to the present, when African Americans, descendants of those on the White Lion and a thousand other routes to this country, continue a journey defined by inhuman oppression, visionary struggles, stunning achievements, and millions of ordinary lives passing through extraordinary history. This collection of diverse pieces from ninety different minds reflecting ninety different perspectives unlocks the startling range of experiences and ideas that have always existed within the community of Blackness.
HOW TO AVOID A CLIMATE DISASTER
Bill Gates
Bill Gates has spent a decade investigating the causes and effects of climate change. With the help of experts in the fields of physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, political science, and finance, he has focused on what must be done in order to stop the planet’s slide to certain environmental disaster. In this book, he not only explains why we need to work toward net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases, but also details what we need to do to achieve this profoundly important goal.
BLOOMSBURY PICKS FOR JANUARY
SUCH A FUN AGE
Kiley Reid
Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living, with her confidence-driven brand, showing other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains’ toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store’s security guard, seeing a young black woman out late with a white child, accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year-old Briar. A small crowd gathers, a bystander films everything, and Emira is furious and humiliated. Alix resolves to make things right. But Emira herself is aimless, broke, and wary of Alix’s desire to help. At twenty-five, she is about to lose her health insurance and has no idea what to do with her life. When the video of Emira unearths someone from Alix’s past, both women find themselves on a crash course that will upend everything they think they know about themselves, and each other.
UNCANNY VALLEY: A MEMOIR
Anna Wiener
Part coming-of-age-story, part portrait of an already-bygone era, Anna Wiener’s memoir is a rare first-person glimpse into high-flying, reckless startup culture at a time of unchecked ambition, unregulated surveillance, wild fortune, and accelerating political power. With wit, candor, and heart, Anna deftly charts the tech industry’s shift from self-appointed world savior to democracy-endangering liability, alongside a personal narrative of aspiration, ambivalence, and disillusionment.
THE SILENT PATIENT
Alex Michaelides
Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word. Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give any kind of explanation, turns a domestic tragedy into something far grander, a mystery that captures the public imagination and casts Alicia into notoriety. The price of her art skyrockets, and she, the silent patient, is hidden away from the tabloids and spotlight at the Grove, a secure forensic unit in North London. Theo Faber is a criminal psychotherapist who has waited a long time for the opportunity to work with Alicia. His determination to get her to talk and unravel the mystery of why she shot her husband takes him down a twisting path into his own motivations–a search for the truth that threatens to consume him.
OUR PICKS FOR WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH
DOLLY PARTON, SONGTELLER Dolly Parton is the most honored and revered female country singer-songwriter of all time. Achieving 25 RIAA-certified gold, platinum, and multi-platinum awards, she has had 26 songs reach #1 on the Billboard country charts, a record for a female artist. Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics reveals the stories and memories that have made Dolly a beloved icon across generations, genders, and social and international boundaries.
HOOD FEMINISM In her searing collection of essays, Mikki Kendall takes aim at the legitimacy of the modern feminist movement arguing that it has chronically failed to address the needs of all but a few women. Drawing on her own experiences with hunger, violence, and hypersexualization, along with incisive commentary on politics, pop culture, the stigma of mental health, and more, Hood Feminism delivers an irrefutable indictment of a movement in flux. Kendall has written a ferocious clarion call to all would-be feminists to live out the true mandate of the movement in thought and in deed.
JUST AS I AM “It is me, plain and unvarnished, with the glitter and garland set aside. In these pages, I am indeed Cicely, the actress who has been blessed to grace the stage and screen for six decades. Yet I am also the church girl who once rarely spoke a word. I am the teenager who sought solace in the verses of the old hymn for which this book is named. I am a daughter and mother, a sister, and a friend. I am an observer of human nature and the dreamer of audacious dreams. I am a woman who has hurt as immeasurably as I have loved, a child of God divinely guided by His hand. And here in my ninth decade, I am a woman who, at long last, has something meaningful to say.” -Cicely Tyson.
ZAMI A fast-moving chronicle. From the author’s vivid childhood memories in Harlem to her coming of age in the late 1950s, the nature of Audre Lorde’s work is cyclical. It especially relates the linkage of women who have shaped her . . . Lorde brings into play her craft of lush description and characterization. It keeps unfolding page after page.