Welcome to Bloomsbury Books
An independent bookstore in downtown Ashland, Oregon
Bloomsbury Books is an independent bookstore on Main Street in downtown Ashland, Oregon, home of the world-famous Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Founded in 1980, we specialize in contemporary fiction and children’s books, but also carry a wide variety of nonfiction and local authors, and, of course, have a large Shakespeare and theater section.
Upcoming Events
Latest Podcast
Event Live Stream
Here is a link to a Facebook live stream of Gary Lark and Marc Janssen reading their poetry on Monday, 4/3/2023.
Bloomsbury Recommends
We hope you enjoy our favorite Bloomsbury Picks as much as we have!
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A City on Mars
by Kelly & Zach WeinersmithHOLIDAY GIFT PICK Space technologies and space business are progressing fast, but we lack the knowledge needed to have space kids, build space farms, and create space nations in a way that doesn’t spark conflict back home. In a world hurtling toward human expansion into space, A City on Mars investigates whether the dream of new worlds won’t create nightmares, both for settlers and the people they leave behind. In the process, the Weinersmiths answer every question about space you’ve ever … -
Let Us Descend
by Jesmyn WardHOLIDAY GIFT PICK A haunting masterpiece set in the years before the Civil War about an enslaved girl who is sold south by the white slaver who fathered her. Written by a two-time National Book Award winner, this is sure to be an instant classic. -
Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will
by Robert SapolskyHOLIDAY GIFT PICK Behavioral scientist Robert Sapolsky plumbs the depths of the science and philosophy of decision making and mounts a devastating case against free will. A controversial and science-based book that generated a flurry of discussion in academic circles as well as mainstream media. -
North Woods
by Daniel MasonHOLIDAY GIFT PICK A young couple escapes the confines of their Puritan village to build a place of their own in the woods of northern Massachusetts. Over the ensuing centuries, the house and land surrounding it are transformed over and over again as a wild cast of characters pass through and inhabit them: an eccentric orchardist, his bitter spinster twin daughters, an artist, a developer who envisions a grand hunting lodge on the property, a clairvoyant, and a young field biologist, to nam… -
The Vaster Wilds
by Lauren GroffHOLIDAY PICK & OUR FAVORITE BOOK THIS YEAR! It’s the middle of the night, nearing the end of winter, and a young girl slips through the wall surrounding the fort at Jamestown, running, leaving behind something terrible. Gripping from the first page, we follow her as she flees into the unknown, seeking safety. The Vaster Wilds is a taut, breathtaking adventure as we follow her into the wilderness, gradually learning about what has come before. It is a remarkable story of one young woman… -
My Name is Barbra
by Barbra StreisandHOLIDAY GIFT PICK The long-awaited memoir by the superstar of stage, screen, recordings, and television. Barbra Streisand is by any account a living legend, a woman who in a career spanning six decades has excelled in every area of entertainment. She is among the handful of EGOT winners (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony) and has one of the greatest and most recognizable voices in the history of popular music. She has been nominated for a Grammy 46 times, and with Yentl she became the firs… -
Bookshops & Bonedust
by Travis BaldreeThe follow up to the perfectly cozy and heartfelt Legends & Lattes, this is another warm hug of a book. Viv’s career with the notorious mercenary company Rackam’s Ravens isn’t going as planned. Wounded during the hunt for a powerful necromancer, Viv packed off against her will to recuperate in the sleepy beach town of Murk—so far from the action that she worries she’ll never be able to return to it. Like so many of us in times of trouble, Viv finds respite is the local bookshop. But th… -
Iron Flame (The Empyrean Book 2)
by Rebecca YarrosEveryone expected Violet Sorrengail to die during her first year at Basgiath War College—Violet included. But Threshing was only the first impossible test meant to weed out the weak-willed, the unworthy, and the unlucky. Now the real training begins, and Violet’s already wondering how she’ll get through. It’s not just that it’s grueling and maliciously brutal, or even that it’s designed to stretch the riders’ capacity for pain beyond endurance. It’s the new vice commandant, who’s made it h… -
The Narrow Road Between Desires (Kingkiller Chronicle)
by Patrick RothfussPRE-ORDER NOW! OUT 11/07-23 #1 New York Times-bestselling phenomenon Patrick Rothfuss returns to the wildly popular Kingkiller Chronicle universe with a stunning reimagining of “The Lightning Tree.” Expanded to twice its previous length and lavishly illustrated by Nate Taylor, this touching stand-alone story is sure to please new readers and veteran Rothfuss fans alike. -
Death Valley
by Melissa BroderThe most profound book yet from the visionary author of Milk Fed and The Pisces, a darkly funny novel about grief that becomes a desert survival story. In Melissa Broder’s astounding new novel, a woman arrives alone at a Best Western seeking respite from an emptiness that plagues her. She has fled to the California high desert to escape a cloud of sorrow—for both her father in the ICU and a husband whose illness is worsening. What the motel provides, however, is not peace but a path, thank…
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Featured Titles
Below are some of our currently featured titles available at Bloomsbury Books.
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The Whalebone Theatre
by Joanna QuinnWhen we first meet Christabel Seagrave, we know three things: it is the end of WWI, she is 3 years old, and she is a force to be reckoned with. Orphaned yet living on her family’s estate, she is mostly left to her own devices as she grows up exploring the seaside around her home, along with the books in the estate’s extensive library. An eccentric cast of characters come and go: Rosalind, her champagne-loving stepmother; Myrtle, the wealthy American “Poetess;” Taras, the Russian-expat artist;… -
Young Queer America: Real Stories and Faces of LGBTQ+ Youth
by Maxwell Poth (Author), Isis King (Foreword)PRIDE MONTH PICK Photographer and activist Maxwell Poth has traveled all over the United States, inviting LGBTQ+ youth to share their stories as part of Project Contrast, a nonprofit that amplifies these voices and connects kids and families with the resources they need to survive and thrive. This book collects the stories and portraits of seventy-three queer kids and teenagers from fifteen different states. In their own words, these young people share the challenges they’ve faced comin… -
Page Boy
by Elliot PagePRIDE MONTH PICK Full of intimate stories, from chasing down secret love affairs to battling body image and struggling with familial strife, Pageboy is a love letter to the power of being seen. With this evocative and lyrical debut, Oscar-nominated star Elliot Page captures the universal human experience of searching for ourselves and our place in this complicated world. The Oscar-nominated star who captivated the world with his performance in Juno finally shares his story in a groundbr… -
Walking Practice
by Dolki MinPRIDE MONTH PICK The Left Hand of Darkness meets Under the Skin in this radical literary sensation from South Korea about an alien’s hunt for food that transforms into an existential crisis about what it means to be human. After crashing their spacecraft in the middle of nowhere, a shapeshifting alien find themself stranded on an unfamiliar planet and disabled by Earth’s gravity. To survive, they will need to practice walking. And what better way than to hunt for food? As they discove… -
A Renaissance of Our Own
by Rachel E. CarglePRIDE MONTH PICK There are breaking points in all our lives when we realize that the way things have been done before just don’t work for us anymore, be it the way we approach our relationships, our belief systems, our work, our education, even our rest. For activist, philanthropist, and CEO Rachel E. Cargle, reimagining—the act of creating in our minds that which does not exist but that we believe can and should—has been a lifelong process. Reimagining served as the most powerful catalyst… -
The Late Americans
by Brandon TaylorPRIDE MONTH PICK In the shared and private spaces of Iowa City, a loose circle of lovers and friends encounter, confront, and provoke one another in a volatile year of self-discovery. Among them are Seamus, a frustrated young poet; Ivan, a dancer turned aspiring banker who dabbles in amateur pornography; Fatima, whose independence and work ethic complicate her relationships with friends and a trusted mentor; and Noah, who “didn’t seek sex out so much as it came up to him like an anxious do… -
The Blighted Stars
by Megan E. O’KeefeThe first book of an epic space opera trilogy by an award‑winning author. Humanity is running out of options. Habitable planets are being destroyed as quickly as they’re found and spy Naira Sharp thinks she knows the reason why. But her mission is cut short when she ends up stranded on a dead planet, with a member of the family behind the planet shortage. To survive and keep her secret, Naira will have to join forces with the man she’s sworn to hate. And together they will uncover a plot that… -
Woman, Eating: A Literary Vampire Novel
by Claire KohdaLydia is hungry. She’s always wanted to try Japanese food. Sashimi, ramen, onigiri with sour plum stuffed inside – the food her Japanese father liked to eat. And then there is bubble tea and iced-coffee, ice cream and cake, and foraged herbs and plants, and the vegetables grown by the other young artists at the London studio space she is secretly squatting in. But, Lydia can’t eat any of these things. Her body doesn’t work like those of other people. The only thing she can digest is blood, an… -
City Under One Roof
by Iris YamashitaWhen a local teenager discovers a severed hand and foot washed up on the shore of the small town of Point Mettier, Alaska, Cara Kennedy is on the case. A detective from Anchorage, she has her own motives for investigating the possible murder in this isolated place, which can be accessed only by a tunnel. After a blizzard causes the tunnel to close indefinitely, Cara is stuck among the odd and suspicious residents of the town—all 205 of whom live in the same high-rise building and are as ic… -
The Light Pirate
by Lily Brooks-DaltonFlorida is slipping away. As devastating weather patterns and rising sea levels wreak gradual havoc on the state’s infrastructure, a powerful hurricane approaches a small town on the southeastern coast. Kirby Lowe, an electrical line worker, his pregnant wife, Frida, and their two sons, Flip and Lucas, prepare for the worst. When the boys go missing just before the hurricane hits, Kirby heads out into the high winds in search of his children. Left alone, Frida goes into premature labor and gi…